A Night In

Today’s a big day, er night, on the blog. For years, I have felt there was a void in the home blogging world of photos and details of our spaces at night. You’ve seen bright, airy kitchens and light pouring into our bedrooms. We set our watches to photograph a room around the sun, and then we brighten them more. But, we live and love our homes even when the sun goes down. Sometimes, ESPECIALLY when the sun goes down (the kids are in bed, streets are quiet, snacks are had). And that representation has been sorely missed until now. Earlier this summer, I pitched the idea to my friend Kim of Yellow Brick Home to see if she would help me start up a new quarterly series where we, and a few of the best home bloggers share their spaces and rituals at night. Rejuvenation jumped on as a sponsor, we asked 6 of our best blog friends to join for the first installment and we're calling it A Night In.

You've seen this room a million times over during the day. Our reading room has a full wall of windows, so it's completely transformative at night when the sun stops pouring in. The dark green walls nearly blend into the now-black windows and it's the coziest. Charly likes to join us.

You may notice, we recently switched a few things around. We sold our light upholstered sofa and settled on a black leather one (more on that in an upcoming post!) that fit the vibe in here a little better. Moved the Minted print that was in the entry in here and introduced this Cylindar Floor Lamp from Rejuvenation.

It's substantial, sophisticated, and the black piping around the shade is as good in the day as at night. I love the way it lights up our deep green walls (paint color is Pine Grove by Clark + Kensington) and the cylinder base is perfection. It has two bulbs in it, so we can adjust the lighting to be dimmer if we want.

After we put the girls to bed, we tidy up, turn on all the accent lighting on the main floor (my favorite everything-feels-cleaner trick) and put on my favorite Evening Acoustic playlist on Spotify. Note: Many of you have asked about the music on my Instagram Stories. So many are from that playlist--it's a favorite for winding down. I might finish up a blog post or instagram while Chris responds to emails before we unplug, head to the kitchen to make some nice cream (this is my favorite, easy recipe) and talk about the highs and lows of our work days and how cute the girls were getting their faces painted that day.

I remember when Greta and Faye were babies, I would miss them so much when they went to bed, that I would quietly creep into their rooms and look at them (creep is a good word, I guess haha) or try to convince Chris, "Let's wake her up!" The moments of wanting to wake them up are long passed, but it still amazes me how I could go from so worn from the day's events of being a mom, to missing them running around and chatting my ear off in less than an hour.

These rooms look different at night because the sun is down and lamps are on and there is an undeniable quiet coziness that I crave all day long. But then also, they feel different because they transform from the kid-friendly part of our family-friendly design sense to spaces Chris and I enjoy as adults--even if that's just sitting on a couch for the first time that day with all the toys that were scattered around the room tucked in a basket and a blanket thrown on top.

If you're interested, you can see more of our home and the sources for everything in it, on our Shop Our House page. Now, go check out the homes of our friends: Yellow Brick Home, The Makerista, House Tweaking, Making it Lovely, The Faux Martha, and BrittanyMakes to see how their spaces change when the sun goes down. Spoiler alert: They're just as breath-taking.

Special thanks to Rejuvenation for sponsoring and providing the lighting for the first installment of A Night In. We're so excited to share more rooms in our home with you every few months as a part of this new series. Which room should we do next? Any favorite bloggers you'd like us to invite on?