This year has been the (slightly unexpected) year of our exterior renovation! And, honestly, the house has never felt more us. All the renovations we've done to our "Modern Colonial" North Carolina home feel like they represent the elements that I loved so much about our last house in Idaho. There's this moody exterior with […]
For the past few years we've had a set of vintage chairs in our dining room and I really do love them... at least I love how they look. But to be honest, they are really uncomfortable to sit in for long periods of time. We love to host dinner parties and game nights and […]
Our mudroom renovation has been quite the journey... a year-long journey to be exact! One of the factors making this a more complex (and lengthy) project was that it involved significant changes to both the interior and the exterior of the space (if you remember, this was a laundry room before!). After adding an exterior […]
We're finalizing the exterior hardscaping around the mudroom and one thing that stuck out like a sore thumb was the meter box. It's that pale grey color and against the red brick, it was just too loud. So I decided to spray-paint it, and the payoff was immediate! There's really only one portion that you […]
Well fam, we made it. We're finally here! The mudroom is officially done. I looked back at the very first post about transforming this space, and it was one year ago, almost to the day. On the one hand, I feel a little deflated that it took us a year. And on the other hand, […]
Throughout my house, I'm always changing out switch plates to either 1) blend them into the rest of the room or 2) elevate them to reflect other accents in the room. One way to do that is with paintable switch plates. For instance, if your switch plates are on a baseboard where you don’t want […]
As soon as we started our exterior trim makeover, we knew the gutters had to go. It was not even a discussion really. (They were purple? I don't even know how!) The old gutters were pulled down during the trim painting, and we worked with our contractors Kennon Construction to order the new copper gutters. […]
If I could go back in time to over a year ago when I started mocking up colors for my front door, I would have told myself to just try painting the colors on the actual door! It was so much faster for me to paint the front door three times than just thinking about […]
This post is sponsored by Neighborly, Your Hub for Home Services Our neighborhood has a lot of beautiful mature trees, but it can also make the houses, driveways, and streets feel darker at night. Which is great for sleep, but a little nerve-wracking when you're coming home late or leaving the house super early — like […]
With every change we make to our house, we're always looking to solve problems and make our home work for us and our family in the most beautiful way we can think up. This time, a door was (literally) opened when we turned a window in the former laundry room/now mudroom into a functional entryway! […]
This post is sponsored by Lowe's Home Improvement We picked a new chandelier in Greta's room to continue her room makeover, and I decided to add a little more drama in the form of a ceiling medallion. I went to Lowes.com to check out their selection, and they had an incredible range from ornate Victorian […]
I’ve been wanting to add a stair runner to our back hallway/mudroom staircase for a while now, and we finally had a couple of days set aside to do it! Chris did a lot of research on how to install a stair runner and stair rods, and we’re going to share every step we took […]
I had been itching to paint our front door ever since we had our exterior trim painted back in May. I picked a color (Farrow & Ball De Nimes) and we applied for HOA approval (it's a long process and one we've had to do a lot...) that finally came in a couple weeks ago! […]
Greta's room is the bedroom that I always knew would get another round of redesign. We did a few small updates right when we moved in, like updating the flooring and painting the walls as you can see in our last update. It's a beautiful space. But as an official teenager, Greta is over the […]
I recently got an email from someone that asked, "Where do you go for new design inspiration?" She went on to say, "I use Houzz and lots of popular sites, but I feel like I’m stuck in an algorithm and keep seeing the same things." I know the feeling — it's so easy to get […]
I've been planning out the hardware for the mudroom, and I can't stop putting hooks in my cart at Lowes.com. They're just so helpful for stylish home organization. I decided to do a hook "try-on," so I ordered these 12 to see how they looked on the beadboard. I've narrowed it down to three, and […]
A few weeks ago, I shared in Love Letter (sign up here so you don't miss any future revelations!) that I got this overwhelming feeling that I want to design a beach house. It happened while I was snorkeling on a recent trip to Bora Bora, and the colors that I saw just inspired me, […]
It's hard to believe we're three years into designing our moody modern traditional home. Sometimes people will ask me, "What are you gonna do when you're done?" I can't think about that yet — I'm not even close! While I feel great about so many rooms in the house, some are still on the "to […]
It's been over a year since we started designing our bathroom. We were working with Unique Kitchens and Baths for the cabinetry, and they came up with two different layouts. We selected one, tweaked it a bit and chose a lot of the finishes...annnnnd honestly we could never quite give the final "go ahead." This […]
It’s been over a year in the making, but our exterior windows have been replaced and now painted!!! (The interior of the windows are black and the exterior we opted for paintable so we could paint them whatever color we wanted!) I have a slew of photos to show you, and I feel like the […]
Looking for our favorite things? A place to shop our home room by room, or just catch up on what Julia's wearing / loving right now? Browse the CLJ shop
Another way for us to stay in touch! Joining our weekly newsletter gives you access to exclusive content, never-before-seen photos, your questions answered, and our favorite DIYs. Sign up below!
Welcome to our online community where we've posted home, DIY, style, renovations, and family since '09. Renovating our #cljmoderncottage in Idaho and headed for new adventures in Raleigh, NC. #cljfam #cljtransformations