love this space, very well put together... also in love with that hanging chair on the patio- anthropologie?

Your home is absolutely stunning, seriously! Great example of what you can do on a budget given hard work, time, and creativity. Your dining room is enviable - so light and airy, I just love it.

Love it. You made a great score with your home and sometimes no money works better.

Wow! Looks effortless! Love the mix of styles used.

I love it. Especially the wallpapers. The overall feel and eclecticism of it is right up my alley, good job!

gorgeous. Love the feminine touches.

Awesome style! House tour, please.

This does not look like it was decorated on the cheap - well done! Really lovely.

Absolutely amazing....would love to see a house tour :)

Wow! I love to see what people can do when they are resourceful. This is my favorite from this site in a long time... and to hear that it was done on a budget is even better!

obsessed with that mock-rug painted floor; such an easy way to incorporate stripes! this place hardly looks thrifty...

I 2nd the house tour request. Beautiful home! The bedroom looks especially dreamy, and the porch seems like a perfect place to hang out with friends and family!

I second on that mock-rug painted floor! What a clever idea! Great job decorating on a budget.

love the dining room. so tired of midcentury modern and everyone thinking they need to have to make a room look good. this looks good and is a refreshing change from modernism.

Terrific, especially with a limited budget!

Wow, a $500 Anthropologie hanging chair! I definitely believe in the power of thrift– but looks like you might have splurged a bit! (Or just got lucky and found it second-hand.)

LOVE tihs!!! Really nice job...the painted rug effect on the floor is so cool and I love all the wall treatments (wallpaper? Stencil?).

You should start a blog "decorating on the broke" :) Your space is so lovely.

Nice use of gray in the dining room!

Make'n me proud. Of East Nashville that is. I live there too.

I want that bedroom!

Where did you get wallpaper for cheap? Love the fireplace wall. I'm also a little confused by the expensive Anthropologie hanging chair -- did you buy it secondhand? Beautiful home!

Very nice! Would love to see a full house tour. Your puppy is freakin' adorable!

Gorgeous house! I love East Nashville!

I love the floral wallpaper with the floral rug in the living room!

Whether done on the cheap or high end, you've done a beautiful job. You certainly have a designers eye. Lovely, truly, lovely.

P.S. The bedding is Anthropologie, too!

Love all the eclectic touches. I see anthropologie items everywhere. Maybe she's lucky enough to work there or has a friend that does. She also talks about buying her home on a budget 8 years ago. Circumstances may have changed since then. Anyway, lovely home.

I've been having such anxiety about spending money on my new apartment, but you definitely made me feel better about being able to find stuff for cheap. Your place is amazing and I'm glad you went the flea market route instead of the overpriced brand name route and had better results. Your place is beautiful and unique and that's amazing!

This is beautiful!!! So inspiring! We have very similar circumstances...tight budget, but wanting to make our home beautiful. I was feeling discouraged after seeing the prices at a nearby antique store today. This gives me great hope :D

Very pretty. I like that you guys worked with the age/character of your home and yet also made the decor feel young and fresh.

I’d love to see before pics, of what you started with. The end result is fantastic.

We are in the process of renovating our 1890 Victorian, outside of Philadelphia. A wonderful (and crazy-making) process. I cannot wait until we are at the point of decorating, rather than construction…

I love this post- it is good to see the design-on-a-budget resourcefullness! I just bought a house and am SO grateful for that but keeping it up (110 years and a lot of unkept yard!) is expensive enough and leaves me frazzled about the interior! I love to see that 8 years after the fact I might have a home as lovely as yours!

Also a question to the poster and/or commenters- I have 11 foot high ceilings in about half of my house. This leaves many LARGE blank walls to figure out. Any tips, tricks, ideas, or photos of similiar spaces appreciated!

I think the house is beautiful. But I see quite a bit of Anthropologie furniture and decor in it (chair, wallpaper) - I don't think that chimes with the "next to no money" aspect of the house. If you bought it new the hanging chair alone is almost $500.

For 'totally broke' this place is totally awesome. Although, I wouldn't classify Anthropologie as an inexpensive place to shop. Y'all might be in a whole different category of broke than I am, because Anthropologie is NOT happening here.

First - beautiful job, lovely home! You have a great knack for old/new mixology.

Second - Thank you for the inspiration to fall back in love with my old home. I didn't really pick it, it picked me.

It's not 100+ but from 1945 and lived-in the entire time (but, sadly, not well maintained). After months of toying with the thought of selling, I realize the re-introduction and revamping into something really "ours" is the right way to go. We'll stay put for now.

Such inspiration from you!

Very warm, charming and welcoming. The bedroom looks especially cozy. You have a good eye for treasures.

You mention going to antique malls for deals. Maybe it's where I live, or maybe it's me, but I have never seen a good price on anything (much less been quoted one on unmarked merchandise) in antique malls. I find the folks who trade in vintage to be --too often -- out to skin you.

Be still my heart... You have a wonderful place Ruthie. Thanks for sharing.

Ruthie = Talented. Great job!

Love it! And am guessing I would love a full tour even more!

Styled to perfection!!!

I feel extremely skeptical that this house was fixed up with no money. I would love to see how much 'no money' actually is and how and where it was spent. It's a lot more inspiring to see a breakdown of costs and where corners were cut.

GOD, this is TOO pretty...totally my style.

I'm confused by some of the snark in some of the previous comments. Anthro or no Antrho, this home is stunning! You've obviously included a ton of vintage & secondhand touches. Knowing how & where to splurge is half the battle of working within a tight budget. I think you have an amazing eye! Very, very well done.

I love the living room. I would love to know the source of the wallpaper on the fireplace wall. The mix of furniture is wonderfully executed.

GORGEOUS! Love the wallpapers. :)

Love the house, love your style, would LOVE a house tour, but honestly, you did not do this on the cheap, there is no way. I do love though :)

Ruthie I love it! I want the swing chair...Have you already been asked who made it? I wil go look..... Thanks for sharing!

I just pinned four out of five photos in this post - I think that's a pretty good sign! Please post where you got the lovely fireplace wallpaper, I love it. And I also love how you've incorporated MCM with other vintage and anthropologie items - no judgement on what the costs were on anything!

I would have guessed that a pro stylist put this together -- the rooms have a confident sense of their own coherent style, even though that style incorporates some surprisingly disparate elements. My favorite is the dining room. A clean, elegant crystal chandelier is one of the most beautiful things civilzation has brought us, and it's such a delight to have one in the home. This dining room shows a perfect way to support the detail of the chandelier without letting the room get so formal and rococo that it would clash with how we live today.

Ruthie, may I have another helping of fried green tomatoes?

Beautiful! Very tastefully done and better than many homes where thousands and thousands are spent!

since when is a $500 chair on a budget?! I mean you can find deals at Anthro if you are lucky, I've gotten duvets for $30-$40, but that chair is still full priced. Not sure there is a realistic small budget.

PAY NO ATTENTION TO THAT ANTHRO CHAIR BEHIND THE CURTAIN!!!

Must.See.More.

Jeez, people, maybe the chair was a gift...or they saved $10 a month for 50 months to buy it...or she or a friend works at Anthro and has a discount...or they eat ramen every day and splurge on chairs.

I love your taste in dogs and wallpaper.

I think this person is saying they were broke when they moved in.

would love a full tour. looks great - love what i've seen so far. thoughtfully put together, fun and not overwhelming!

Girlfriend, This is one bangin' pad!!!!!! I am hyperventilating with inspiration.... You have a touch and you should do this for a living. Your place is fierce!!! Please share the paint color in the dining room - gotta have it...

"Jeez, people, maybe the chair was a gift...or they saved $10 a month for 50 months to buy it...or she or a friend works at Anthro and has a discount...or they eat ramen every day and splurge on chairs."
posted by Kit_Kat on 05.16.12 at 04:15PM

what Kit_Kat said....

I'm fascinated that some would rather critique an off-hand, one-paragraph description than celebrate 8 years of effort & the obvious talent it took to create this beautiful space.

Ruthie, you've executed truly beautiful & inspiring design here. Please keep creating & keep sharing your talent with the rest of us.

I've spent next to nothing furnishing and decorating my crib, too. Lotsa secondhand (or third- or fourth- or fifth-hand) stuff gotten free or on the cheap from thrift stores and craigslist and such. But if I were to walk around this place and try to total up what I recall paying for all this swag, it would all come to thousands of dollars. And I still don't know quite how I came up with the dough.

I second the previous comment from AWilliams as well as Kit_Kat's (hilarious) comment: "Jeez, people, maybe the chair was a gift...or they saved $10 a month for 50 months to buy it...or she or a friend works at Anthro and has a discount...or they eat ramen every day and splurge on chairs."
Maybe they were broke after they bought their awesome victorian home, which inspired the flea market and thrift store hunts for furniture, and maybe after 8 years their financial situation is on the up and up. Those on a tight budget can still emulate Ruthie's ideas and creativity, agreed? She was featured on Design*Sponge a few years ago: http://www.designsponge.com/2009/11/sneak-peek-ruthie-sayles.html

Ruthie, your beautiful home has the perfect mix of found and new treasures and your creative fingerprint all over it. I love it!

Beautiful place. I see tons more thrift than splurge in this place; however, regardless of the cost of any of the individual elements, it's the way it all works together that makes this look so priceless and inviting that we all have to comment on it. Wonderful job!

@Kit_Kat and @AWilliams, I'm pretty sure if you work at Anthro you don't get a discount on home stuff, just the clothes.

Anyway in the tiny space allotted for an introduction, the author mentions fixing up the space on the cheap not once but twice -- really makes a point of it. So of course people will state the obvious: that Anthropologie's prices are hardly budget-friendly.

Sorry some of you guys are huge jerkfaces.

Ruthie. Your home is lovely. And I know you. So I KNOW you did it on the cheap. Because you are a classy, frugal lady.

Love it! Another vote for a house tour. Would love to hear more details and see more!

NashVEGAS Baby! Great place!

Hey Guys, thankyou for all of the kind words about our home- to answer a few qu.s, anthropologie's wallpaper didn't sell well in nashville for some reason, so I got it all on Clearance for 75% off! I teared up I was so thrilled! And my husband, family and friends know that for Xmas, birthdays, anniversaries etc to get me gift cards to anthro- and my comforter I got in the sale room for my bday last year. The egg chair is my little happy place- its where I work almost every day and It was gifted to me from family last year for Christmas-

All of the photos were taken by the incredible Reid Rolls-

So lovely! May I please ask where you found the bedding?

Nice, nice, nice!

Lovely home and such a great representation of who you are - warm in spirit and personality, full of hospitality, talented, and creative! So glad to see the rewards of your hard work and your desire to create a swet and beautiful home for your own family as well as one that you can and do share with others as often as possible... No need to explain anything - you are talented and resourceful.

Beautiful job! You've created a warm and unique space that's full of personality!

You have stunning taste!! Congratulations, I enjoyed seeing your home so much.

(Oh, and AT - tour, please!)

I literally SWOONED looking at these pictures. The bedroom is so dreamy! What a playful way to decorate a Victorian house.

I suspected, when I saw that you were in Nashville, that you may have been the beneficiary of some major discounts, and I just wanted to throw my two cents in regarding my experiences with that: One of the benefits, I found, of having to travel from NY to Ohio on business regularly was that, after work, I'd get to hit the malls and purchase all the trendy stuff, that sold out at full price in NY, from the clearance racks at as low as 10% of the original retail price. It sounds like Anthro follows the same practice as some other stores of deeply discounting in place to clear it out, rather than transferring goods to stores where it might sell at a higher price.

Wonderful combination of colors, patterns, interesting objects, etc.!

Stylish and playful both, and it sounds from the House Call info and Ruthie's comment, above, that they made some savvy choices about sales, gifts, discounts, etc, so they could acquire some of the big-ticket items that make such an impact, while still staying within a budget. Congrats on a job well done, and a lovely home ! :)

And ditto to others saying this: I'd love to see a full house tour down the road.

P.S. Thanks to KPM, above, for posting the link to the Design Sponge tour of Ruthie's and Will's place, with the additional photos and descriptions. It's all swoon-worthy.

What really comes through in the longer tour is how much of the pieces have a deep-down personal character, either because they've been passed down through the generations (as many as 3 or 4 generations or more, wow) or were gifts or were cool finds that the couple refurbished themselves.

Also, it's amazing to me how many terrific pieces were kept intact and in good condition over the years (did the families stay in one place and not move around much?) .. There's so much heart and meaning in the pieces and their home as a result, it really comes through in the photos and the descriptions. Looking at the longer house tour makes me realize yet again how few pieces my relatives kept over the years (due to moves, different marriages, a kind of "don't look back" mentality, a desire to break with the past, a desire for the new, whatever). I really envy people who have those ancestral touchstones around them. It's wonderful that they're able to give the pieces a new home, especially in a home that they themselves have refurbished and made their own :)

the post that i wrote about myself and my home was my email i sent to apartment therapy to apply to be on their beautiful website. those are not necessarily the words i would have used to describe my home to the world. my husband and i bought our home when we were 21 and in a very tight financial situation. many of my favorite pieces in my home were either gifts, passed down from grandparents, thrifted, and or bartered. i was by no means attempting to offend anyone by saying how broke we were when we got married, but more i was applying to a design site and explaining how not having much money inspired me to start being creative and going through flea markets, families attics, scouring ebay and craigslist. bc we were on a very limited budget, it inspired me to think out the box. that was my point. i would never mean to insult anyone by saying what i tight budget we were on, and if i did i apologize. but again that paragraph was taken from my email application.

the combination of grey brown an blue look awesum

Ruthie,
Your responses are incredibly gracious. These things make me sad on apartment therapy. As soon as I read your comment about the lack of funds I just knew, no matter what was in your home people would feel the need to take issue with the claim, without reading carefully or giving you the benefit of the doubt. That being said, it'a nice to know how you arrived at your collection! Telling everyone to get anthropologie items/giftcards is such a great idea.

It's obvious that your style has evolved to fit each gorgeous new find. The fact that everyone notices the anthro chair should tell you that it makes everyone swoon! So many of these ideas can be incorporated into a small space, too, which I so appreciate. It looks like you had your hand in a lot of refinishing and DIY touches.

Simply splendid!

The house is really lovely. To weigh in on your financial situation, I can appreciate what you're saying. Good for you to take your time! Too many people think that they have to have everything all at once, and that's crazy.

Oh, this is gorgeous and such a great mix of styles among all the period details. Are those pocket doors I spy? Full tour!

You're bedroom makes me want to faint in a good way...so lovely! We too live in a Victorian home, but I am so terrible at decorating. I agree with what someone else said - I'm kind of over the mid-century look...this is nice to see for a change.

good job from a fellow Tennessean ;))

yes! full tour please!! however, you got here...budget wise, it's lovely and inspiring!

Sorry you had to qualify yourself Ruthie, it's a brave thing to do to submit your self to AT critique. Congrats. I think your place looks beautiful and loved. I am from Australia , we have no anthropologie so I don't know what all the hoo-ha is about.

Thanks Ruthie. I really do think it's a beautiful home but the Anthro pieces just jumped out at me. I read your (much longer) profile on Design Sponge and found it much more informative and inspiring since it goes into detail about how you've sourced your pieces.

Brava! Your home is an excellent example of what can be done if you put your mind to it. You have a gift. I know everyone's all excited about your hanger but I like your wood-sided chair better I think...and your wallpaper. Gorgeous renovation, you should be proud.

I love your home Ruthie and thanks for the updated info, especially for the wallpaper (perhaps this is a lesson we could all think about when submitting an entry, no matter how small or large). I too would love to see a full house tour!

So Ruthie, where'd you score that faux Eames lounge chair? Is it a Plycraft, maybe?

I found the faux eames chair on Craigslist!:) 1 of those crazy scores when someone doesn't realize what a treasure they have! He said he didn't feel like moving it again to his next apartment! I was tickled pink to take it off his hands! I had been on the lookout for 1 for years but even the fake 1's are usually crazy expensive! Glad you like it!:)

Well done, perfectly edited, and nice flow. I am looking forward to the full tour Ruthie Sayles!

BTW, do you have a blog, Ruthie?

I literally gasped when I saw the featured picture. The colors, the wallpaper, the floors, the light coming in those windows... major, major house envy. Well done!!!

JFC, some of you need to relax and not nitpick everything about this place because it doesn't fit your preconceived notion about "budget."

Ruthie, this is a lovely and inspiring home and I'm glad to see my hometown so well represented.

I want to kiss your doggies cute little scruffy face!

Not literally, I think that's gross, but it is a super cute pup!

Brilliant! We need a house tour stat.

You did a fantastic job. I just love what you've done to your home. You are an inspiration;-)

Looking at this space, especially the dinning room, makes me realize that I have too much stuff! Your place is really fantastic! Thank you for sharing.

East Nashville is a great place with a small town feel! Love the house!
I agree...House Tour por favor?

Apartment therapy had an article on hanging chairs at various prices...

http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/-the-hanging-chair-was-81708

Beautiful. What's the grey paint in the living room?

House Tour! House Tour! I wanna a House Tour! This space is divine! Please show more!

Obviously you need to do a tutorial on this as it sure doesn't look like it was done on a budget.

awesome job! the mock rug is genius! house tour and start a blog!

The graciousness of your home is matched only by that of your responses.

Welcome to the snarkiest place on Earth -AT! I follow the rule, "if you don't have something nice to say..." So if a home is not designed to my aesthetic, I feel no need to comment. That being said, there are elements I love, love, love, and elements that aren't *exactly *to my taste. But it's YOUR house! I can appreciate the beauty of your home, and I know what it's like to have to save and have expensive items gifted (i.e., our sleeper sofa). Nicely done with regard to both your decorating and your gracious handling of the AT hoards and their nasty comments. Get a life folks, skip a latte each week and buy that damn chair. (I don't even know where I would put that thing, although it is drool-inducing!)

why was my comment deleted, AT?

OMG, the doggie on the bed. DYING! So cute.

I was wondering the same thing. DId you find out?