The Latest: 2016

If you’re going to go bold, go bold. Claire took her old beige staircase and turned it into a spunky, funky and printed space that greets you as soon as you walk in the door. From Claire: The first thing you used to see when you opened my front door was some steep victorian stairs crying out for a transformation. I got rid of the boring beige carpet that was just a dust and dirt magnet and brightened them up with a touch of Marimekko.

Hannah’s apartment is part of Olympics history! But while her home came with a very cool backstory it also brought along an outdated early 90s kitchen. With some trips to IKEA and a very accomodating landlord, Hannah now has a gold-medal-worthy place to eat her Wheaties. From Hannah: My fiancé and I live in the French Alps in a small apartment. These apartments were originally built to house the press during the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville.

Carter had a lucky find with these classic Herman Miller chairs. They needed a little love and Carter decided to go above and beyond to turn these chairs into seriously funky eye candy. From Carter: These Herman Miller fiberglass shell chairs are a true design classic and seem to be everywhere. I found these at a church garage sale and they needed a little cleaning up.

We’ve seen smart & beautiful design from Kevin before, and he’s keeping it up with this gorgeous master bedroom makeover. From Kevin: After decorating most of my father’s house in one fell swoop, the master bedroom was left unfinished and needed some attention.

So you want to revive your living room but your fear of commitment/budget/upper arm strength makes purchasing furniture a big, terrifying deal. Luckily, Jay’s approach to freshening up a room is to actually get rid of some furniture and lighten things up with a coat of paint. From Jay: Here’s a quick and easy way to refresh your room without purchasing any new furniture. Consider painting the walls and letting go of any furniture that sucks all the energy and life out of the room.

After about a decade with a builder grade bathroom that was fine but not really his style, Jonathan made some gorgeous changes to his space. Turns out patience truly is a virtue, at least when it comes to glamorous bathroom renovations. From Jonathan: I bought my house nine years ago, new, and my master bathroom was complete with builder grade fixtures, lighting, brown walls, brown ceiling and travertine tile, as far as the eye could see.

Aubrey brings up the very important (and totally technical) design concept of finding the right vibes in your space. Sure, you could make some smart upgrades that would save on labor and make the space more aesthetically pleasing, but sometimes when the space just isn’t right you have to commit to a big ol’ project. From Aubrey: I would love to share my story of our newly remodeled kitchen.

We don’t all have a mudroom in our home. We don’t even all have an entryway. But nearly all of us have at least one hallway. If you’re looking for stylish and functional design ideas for whatever kind of narrow space you’re working with, find inspiration from this dreamy mudroom makeover.

One of my absolute favorite elements of our living room design is the IKEA Billy bookcase hack that TJ Breil of Slab Woodworking rescued. I say rescued because we attempted to create a hack of our own, using the bookcases you see here and a shelving unit, to fake the look of built ins. We got as far as putting it all together but the process of making the unit look “built in” was a dud.

Road tripping across the country sounds dreamy enough, but Becka’s gorgeously renovated camper makes the whole excursion so glamorous! From Becka: My husband and I decided that we wanted to invest in memories with our son before he started school so we purchased an older, used 5th wheel RV and gave it a big makeover to take on a cross country trip this summer (that we are currently on!) I want to inspire people to think outside of the box and see the potential in the older RV’s.

When Alexia purchased her first house, she got all of the freedom and joy that come with homeownership as well as some very ’80s bathroom tile. With a trip to IKEA, some lucky finds and some smartly shopped tile, Alexia was able to create a soothing space on a budget. From Alexia: My house is from the early 1980s, the bathroom was carpeted when I moved in (I stripped and sanded) and the ‘before’ tiles were the original builders décor.