home decor – Designing Goldilocks

3 decor styles I’m obsessed with

I can spend hours online looking at home decor.

I can get lost in subway tile, glitzy chandeliers and area rugs with geometric patterns.

I love to watch other decor lovers create beautiful spaces in their homes. It’s a great place to gather ideas, inspiration and lessons learned.

I especially love when they take me on a virtual tour of Target or Home Goods and show me new arrivals.

A lot of it is beautiful. But if I had to choose three styles that make me drool, I would narrow it down to these:

Grid accent wall

I absolutely love the grid accent wall. It’s the perfect embellishment that goes way beyond just painting the wall a different color.

If I had my druthers, I would install this feature in the stairwell.

As much as I love my house, the stairwell leaves a lot to be desired. It’s tucked between the dining area and bathroom just off the living room.

There are two flights of stairs and the second flight is a virtual tunnel that leads up to the loft.

The grid accent wall (also known as a board and batten grid accent wall) is a series of intersecting boards that create a box or grid and adds visual interest to an otherwise boring space.

What I love most about this feature is how unexpected it is. You rarely see a whole room done up with the grid accent wall. It’s usually used on only one wall, nook or cranny.

The stairwell has its own dedicated space. It has an opening and an end point. It serves the bottom floor and the top floor without being a part of either story. The stairwell is suited for – and deserving of – a beautiful feature like the grid accent wall.

Gold fixtures

I’m loving all things gold these days. And not gaudy gold decor that looks cheap and trashy. But tasteful gold that adds just the right amount of elegance to a room.

For example, have you seen green or blue cabinetry with gold hardware? If you haven’t, you must search out these color combinations. You’re probably thinking, “Blue cabinets? Or better yet, green cabinets?” But trust me, it works.

Blue cabinets with gold pulls, marble countertops and white subway tile is my dream kitchen. I realize green and blue cabinetry will likely fall out of style as quickly as it came in. But if money were no object and if time stood still…

Gold also has made a comeback in light fixtures, sometimes as the dominant color and sometimes as the accent color. But it’s all breathtaking, adding pops of glitz and glam in your color palette.

And that’s what’s great about gold. A little goes a long way. You wouldn’t want to overdue the space in gold – that’s where the gaudy comes in – but a gold chandelier here and gold cabinet pulls there add the sparkle you didn’t know your space was missing.

Faux plants

I joke that I’m fast becoming the crazy plant lady, but there’s also some truth to it. It seems I cannot place a Target order without throwing in a faux eucalyptus plant or succulent.

No worries. I’ve been keeping it in the ten- to fifteen-dollar range.

But the time will come when I finally splurge on that two-hundred-dollar faux fiddle-leaf fig tree I’ve been eyeing at World Market. And not just one tree, but three trees – one for the dining area, one for the bar room and one for the loft. Now you know why I’ve been holding off.

I’ve never been a fan of fake anything, but fake plants have come a long way since the 1990s. And the small plants I’ve been ordering from Target are easy to place here and there without cluttering my home.

They help bring the outside in, which is important in the summertime when it’s too hot to venture outside. They add spashes of green in a sea of neutral earth tones. And they add life – even fake life – in a world of inanimate objects.

Plus they’re absolutely adorable. But don’t take my word for it. Check out the photo below of my mini faux fiddle-leaf fig plant.

It’s no wonder I’m in love with faux plants. This fiddle-leaf fig is adorable. Photo by Cindy Hernandez.

Too early for fall decor

There are two camps today in the decor world:

Those who think it’s too early to decorate for fall and those who think it’s never too early to decorate for fall.

I fall into the former camp.

It’s August. It’s Arizona. We’re still dealing with 100-plus-degree temperatures outside. No amount of plastic pumpkins is going to cool the weather or make autumn come faster. No amount of maple leaves strewn across the walk are going to psyche me into thinking it’s 60 degrees out.

Besides, I don’t hate summer. In fact, I’ve come to enjoy it.

Summer loving

Summer is Phoenix’s slow time. The off season. It’s the time of year that fewer people are in town (though I wouldn’t know from experience anymore since I rarely leave the house).

Summer is the quieter season. Hardly anyone is outside. Neighbors walk their dogs or venture outdoors for exercise in the early morning hours or later at night, and the walks are pretty quick. It’s a virtual ghost town compared to winter months.

Summer is hibernation time, which works for my hermit tendencies. There’s nothing more comforting on a blazing-hot day than air-conditioning, the sound of cicadas and an afternoon nap.

But here’s the real truth.

Enjoy today

Pumpkins lead to turkeys, which lead to snowmen and Christmas trees. Then, we’re at the eve of the New Year.

I’m in no rush to see 2020 end. Not because it’s been a fabulous year, but because it hasn’t been a fabulous year. Sound crazy? Let me break it down for you.

The years move fast enough as it is, and 2020 has moved faster than any of my 48 years. Time is slipping through my hands, and I still have a lot goals I want to accomplish.

On a larger scale, I want to hold onto the year so that something good can come of it. Even though the chances of that are slim, I can still hope. If this still doesn’t make sense, let me flip it around for you.

What will 2021 bring? Maybe a vaccine. Maybe social change. Maybe peace on our streets. The new year could bring all of those things, or one or two of those things. Or it could bring none of those things.

What if 2021 is more of the same, or worse? So why wish away the time we do have? Why wish away our lives for something that isn’t guaranteed?

Besides, I’m not 100 percent certain that nothing good has happened in 2020.

Small joys

Take this blog, for instance. This blog had been in the works since 2018 when John and I decided to buy a new house together. I had big plans for decorating each room and sharing the journey on a design blog.

After some procrastination, I finally put my butt in gear, bought a laptop and got to writing. Because I have a full-time job, I knew I would have to devote evenings and weekends to the blog.

But not even two weeks after launching Designing Goldilocks, my employer told me to work from home until further notice because of the coronavirus. That meant I could turn the two hours per day I spent commuting into working on content for this blog. What a gift.

That’s not to say I’m thankful for the virus. Nothing could be further from the truth. Does 2020 suck? Yes, it does. But I also believe we can find small joys in 202o if we simply stop and look around.

Discoveries

And that’s exactly it. No one stops anymore. Everyone is on the go. Chasing the next thing rather than enjoying what they have. And I’m guilty of this myself, which is why I can speak to it.

If nothing else comes out of 2020, I would hope that I at least realized what’s important in life. Even though I write a design blog, I’m taking a more minimalist approach to home decor.

I’m buying what’s essential – rugs, curtains, furniture – and saying no to tabletop items, which is really all that fall decor is.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s fun to shop for this stuff and decorate the house and lawn. One of my guilty pleasures is watching others venture into stores and sharing on social media new finds from Target, HomeGoods, and other decor stores. But it’s no fun taking down the stuff and finding a place to store it.

Stuff is not important. It’s who you have in your life that’s important. The coronavirus hasn’t kept me from my stuff. The virus has kept me from family, friends, and the freedom to explore the world and the gems within my beautiful state.

Rather than rush to set up hay bales on my front porch, I long to travel to real pumpkin patches and sunflower fields. Rather than create a fall facade across the lawn, I long to drive to the mountains and see real leaves changing colors.

But I can’t have that. At least not right now. Maybe I can spend time with family and travel a year from now. But there’s no guarantee. So why rush the time away? I know what I have today. And I’m okay with today – the joys, the warts and all.

*As fall approaches, I long to visit pumpkin patches and sunflower fields. Photo by Cindy Hernandez*

How I picked an area rug

I did it.

I bought an area rug for the living room.

I went with a black and white striped rug to match the monochromatic theme running through the room.

If you recall, I was torn about which style and color to go with. (See “How do you pick an area rug?” May 28.)

I wanted a rug with a pattern and some color, but not so busy that it would draw the eye downward. I had always liked the black and white stripes, but had reservations about going with that pattern, thinking it would be too bland with all of the other black, white and grey in the space. But I decided to go with it after all.

The more I shopped for rugs online, the more overwhelmed I got. And the more rugs I saw, the more I started to change the vision I had for the room. When I noticed myself doing this, I would go back to the black and white striped rug I liked from the start.

Then I would close the laptop and think it over.

Do I want to go contemporary? Or do I want to stay with the Hollywood Regency style that’s underway?

Should I chase a new look or stick with the glitz and glam I started with?

What is my design plan for the space in the years to come? And what about the adjoining rooms? What do I envision for the dining room, kitchen, bar room and entryway?

Every time I answered these questions, I came back to the black and white striped SoHo rug from Rugs.com.

The other factor was that the rug came in 10-feet x 13-feet, the size I needed in order to extend far enough on both sides of the sofa to cover the traffic areas.

The rug also came in round options, which I absolutely loved. So for the entryway, I bought a matching round 5-foot x 5-foot rug to tie the two spaces together.

You rarely see round rugs. And even though the entryway is square-shaped, the round rug is unexpected and cuts the straight lines within the pattern.

The final deciding factor was some online advice that I received about choosing a rug. I was told to look at photos of rooms I want to re-create in my own home and then choose a rug that was used in those spaces.

Of course. That makes perfect sense.

And each time I researched Hollywood Regency spaces, I saw a lot of black and white in patterns that make a statement. And that’s exactly what I have in my new rugs.

The stripes did jump around after we rolled out the living room rug, almost playing tricks on our eyes. But after we moved the furniture back into place, the stripes became neutralized.

And because the living room is its own defined space, the rug does not impact the adjoining bar room, dining room and kitchen, allowing me to go in a different direction in those areas if I want to.

In the end, the black and white striped rug was the best choice.

So what is a design trifecta?

I’ll attempt to answer this question by asking another question:

When it comes to decorating your home, what do you want your furnishings to accomplish?

Let me break it down a little further.

If you need a new couch for your loft, what do you want that couch to do? Do you want it to provide seating? That would be function.

Do you want the couch to look pretty? That would be style.

Do you want a couch that you can relax on all weekend, melt into, maybe even take a nap on? That would be comfort.

Often times, furniture does one or two of these things. But when it does all three, well, that’s the design trifecta.

I’m a firm believer that furniture and home decor can encompass all three elements. It just takes a little more work – as in a little more shopping – to find the perfect pieces. It’s not always easy.

Have you ever been to a friend’s house for dinner and sat on the most uncomfortable dining chair? It may have looked fabulous in the space, but your backside paid for it the next day.

The chair had style and function but lacked comfort. Any maybe after the soup, it started to lack function too.

Or maybe you dated a guy in college that had the most comfortable recliner, but it was hideous to look at. Because it lacked style.

Small spaces beg for the design trifecta. They have to. There’s not a lot of room to waste. The design plan has to be smart all the way through – from the couch to the bed to the dining suite to the kitchen accessories.

Larger homes have more space to work with, but they also have more room for error.

The couch is too puny for the room. The dining table is the wrong shape for the space. The bar stools are too tall for the countertop. The cushions on the patio furniture are too thin. The living room doesn’t have a side table in reach to set down a beverage.

The list is seemingly endless.

And I’m not writing about this because I have design trifecta running through my house. No, but I am writing from the experience of failure.

I had limited space in my condo and had to be smart about the pieces I brought into it. And I chose wrong over and over again. In fact, in the 18 years of living there, I never conquered the space limitations.

I had a living room that had only one uninterrupted wall. The front door and a fireplace took up another side. A sliding glass door took up another side. The fourth side was open to the kitchen.

It was frustrating trying to create a functional living space that didn’t look cluttered. It was nearly impossible. No, not nearly impossible. IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE.

That’s when I realized I had to be smart about the furniture I chose. Each piece had an assignment: they had to provide function, style, and comfort. All at the same time.

Think of the Murphy bed.

You often see the Murphy bed in a room that has to do double duty, typically a guest bedroom and an office.

When guests are over, the bed comes down from the wall. When the guests are gone, the bed is lifted back up and the room is an office again. Cubbies and shelving on the underside of the bed add style and more function for the office. It’s genius.

It has to be genius because most of us cannot accomplish the trifecta on our own for every piece of furniture we bring into our homes. We either don’t think about it, or it’s too time-consuming, or we focus on comfort or style and forget about the other two elements.

John and I will soon be shopping for a couch for the loft, which is where I got my example above. A part of me is excited to bring a new piece of furniture into the house. The other part of me is nervous about picking the wrong piece for the reasons I’ve outlined in this blog.

We have a couch in mind that we saw at American Furniture Warehouse a year ago. The couch hits the design trifecta – function, style and comfort. But I wouldn’t be me if I still didn’t worry that it’ll fall short in some area once we bring it home.

The couch is also priced right, which actually makes it a design quadfecta. Oh, did I not mention the forth element of home decor?

This couch is in the running for the loft and hits the design trifecta of style, comfort and function. Photo by Cindy Hernandez

Decor subscription box

There’s a subscription box for everything it seems. Clothes. Cosmetics. Food. There’s even a subscription box for pet stuff.

But have you seen one for home decor?

If there’s one out there, I’ve yet to come across it. So I decided to have some fun and create a box myself.

I’m always trying to think up ways to help people decorate their homes without breaking the bank. I’m always trying to brainstorm tips on how to give their house a fresh look without redoing the whole decor.

So I thought the decor subscription box would help take the guesswork out of it for them and allow me to curate items based upon their styles and interests.

I thought about my ideal customer: a woman who wants to bring some of the latest finds into her kitchen, but is too busy to shop for them herself.

Not a problem. I can do the legwork for her after gathering information about her space and lifestyle. Here’s what I learned.

Her kitchen has a neutral palette that invites pops of color. She likes practical items but also enjoys little surprises.

She entertains friends for brunch, but also likes nice pieces for her own visual pleasure.

Of course, a real consultation with a real customer would require an in-depth interview or questionnaire to fulfill the boxes over the course of the subscription.

But this is just a mock box. A concept. An idea that can grow into something larger if the appeal is there. So just humor me for a bit.

For the June box, I selected items I recently ordered from Target and Sur La Table, two of my favorite places to shop for home decor.

Because these boxes tend to have a theme, I chose the green-leaf motif that I’ve been obsessed with lately. What better way to decorate for summer than with an island vibe, right?

Here’s what I came up with:

A grey storage bin from Target serves as the box that can be used to organize pantry items.

The mango wood cheese cutting board and leaf platter from Sur La Table go hand-in-hand and can serve as decoration behind the stovetop.

When it’s time to host friends, they can be set out on the counter to serve bruschetta, cheeses and desserts.

The colorful dishtowels, also from Sur La Table, are festive enough for company but practical enough for everyday use.

The faux plant … well, the faux plant is just cute. But the plant, also from Target, is that unexpected piece that finishes off the look whether on display with the appetizers at brunch or just to add some life to the kitchen when no one’s home.

So what do you think? This box was simple, I know. But it was a start.

Would you buy a decor subscription box (or know someone who would)? If so, how much would you pay for it?

What would you do differently?

Leave your suggestions in the comments section below.