Friday Favorites starts with Design Tips

I have five quick design tips for you today! These are design tips that I live by. Also some very casual pics from the week and some of my favorite things.

I talked about this over on my Instagram the other day, I had someone say on FB a comment about my family room. Now I don’t share this to have you say “poor Brooke”. It really wasn’t like that. Another blogger had shared my family room over on her FB page (thank you!) and the comment was…

“That room would look so much better with a bigger cocktail table.”

(You can shop my entire front room HERE)

I agree with the design tip- kind of. When I took pictures of the room to share, I thought to myself “that table looks too small.”But in person it does not.

Really that is beside the point. I could totally stage my home to look good in pictures.

It would be lying. That is not how we use the room. We have a little one year old who likes to crawl all over and we like to play with him on the floor. We have two girls who have dance parties daily in here. And I LOVE it- my favorite time of the day.

I feel 100% that you need to do what works best for you and your family in your home. So I thought I would share a few design tips I have learned from designing for over 15 years now.

Nesting with Graces QUICK Design Tips-

1. Ask yourself “how do we use this room?” Before you start filling it with stuff and decorating it to look like a magazine.

2. DO follow design guidelines- I am a rule follower with getting the right size rug for your room. I wrote a post all about picking the right size rug for any room HERE (what I learned NOT to do from Fixer Upper- Joanna Gaines).

3. Whenever possible, use overhead lighting- accent lighting is magic.

4. DO NOT buy things before you know where you are going to put them.

5. Fresh clippings can brighten any space and any day!

My sweet friend Annie sent me the image below of a small cocktail table that totally works in a room. She spotted it shared on Emily Henderson’s Instagram.

A perfect example that one design idea is not the BE ALL, END ALL. Image Source HERE

I shared the above- photo over on my Instagram and then shared screen shots of wallpaper I was thinking of doing in this area behind the piano. If you have been following my blog you know that I did have wallpaper here. But I decided to take it down once I painted my piano pink it felt too feminine and too much pink. I do miss a little pop of pattern here. I had over 100 people message me with their favorite wallpaper! I will be sharing me choice soon. THIS is one of my favorite places to order temporary wallpaper. *Also- notice my last Design Tip- Fresh Clippings!

More fresh clippings. I was thinking the other morning, why am in such a good mood? And traced it to the flowers I brought in from outside. We had bookclub yesterday at my house. We discussed “The Husbands Secret” (everyone liked the book!) If you have read the book you know I had to make Hot Cross Buns.

Took a couple of pics of Lola helping me make the Hot Cross Buns. We used THIS recipe and they were a hit.

One of my favorite things to do is bake with my girls. And my other favorite thing is to wear pajama pants. I am obsessed with THESE pajama pants that I have on in this pic and I just bought THESE lounge pants! (My Mama Bear shirt is sold out, I found similar HERE).

Below are some of my favorite pajama clothes. These would make great Mothers Day gifts too! You can find my other Mothers Day gift guide and DIY gift HERE.

Few other quick Favorites-

I just did the try “at home” with THESE and ordered a favorite!

THIS patio makeover was my favorite from the past week.

I can’t wait until I can use THIS every six days.

THESE we all could not stop snacking on.

Hope you have a wonderful weekend! I will be back Monday to share details in our bathroom and how we function in such a small space.

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