2013 European Barn Coastal Decor - The Power of Pillows and Accessories Part 1

There is power in pillows and accessories, you guys... seriously. It is one of the ways to completely change the look and feel of your home without blowing the bank. I like to change the look of my home almost as often as I like to change which diet I am on. I do this by having a neutral base. The expensive  (haha let's be real though, nothing I have is expensive, just peoples' throw aways) and large pieces are neutral than I change the whole design with textiles and accessories... You could say my home has multiple personalities. Sometimes it wants to be a shabby old barn, other times it likes to be a hip, modern, and urban looking hang out. Most of the time it likes to be a nice blend of everything. This summer it is decked out in coastal attire. Being from CA, I miss the ocean ... I miss it more than I can even tell you.  Not that I lived on the beach, but I could go see it easily and within 45 minutes. I love the muted, faded elegance of coastal decor and I wanted our barn to feel comfy, breezy, romantic and lounge-y for the summer. I will be showing you over the next few months how I change the look of my home using accessories and pillows, this time I've gone coastal. Come take a look!

In my dining room I have painted my childhood dresser (which I recently painted a chippy white) in Annie Sloan "Versaille Green" on the drawers and details only... I LOVE how it turned out. I have an old barn rake holding wine glasses and have adorned our bar with a lantern, soda bottles and spritzers, and sea paraphernalia. 

 An old, industrial,  metal drawer from England houses some decanters, while part of my collection of lavender bottles stand out agains our moss "B" and turquoise soda spritzer.

I made these simple stamped labels for our booze around Christmas time and I think it looks pretty rad. 

I dig the contrast between the old rusty metal drawer and shabby tags and the elegant mismatched crystal decanters. 

I like to keep the colors in the dining room very simple as to not distract from my favorite thing in the house... Our vintage map of epic proportions. 

 I have pulled a few of its vibrant colors and popped them around the room with vintage bottles and a chippy letter "Q" we found in Metz, France.

With it's bleached wood barn door and sea-foam colored shutters, our DIY mantle was easy to turn into  a coastal statement piece.

 If you couldn't tell, I really love collecting these old violet colored bottles!

Below, is my vanity area.

 I whipped out our DIY driftwood candleholder... It is the epitome of elegant coastal decor.

I  did a couple different pillow arrangements to show how I can get a bright, fresh look with pops of color...

 And how I can do a more muted look with a simple cream, tan and white composition...

 I hope you enjoyed seeing our Summer 2013 kisses of coastal decor. 

Hopefully, I will be near the ocean within the next week or so...

Resources

Vintage soda bottles, vintage alarm clock-Vintage Inspirations

Vintage map of epic proportions- European Vintage Chic

Metal drawers, yellow cart coffee table, seltzer bottles- European Country Living

Ciao for now daaaaaaahrlings!

Linking up to:

  

Summer 2013 Barn Kitchen Tour

This post is loooong past due homies. We have been updating our dark, 130 year old, barn (rental) kitchen over the last few months and I have been showing snippets, and vignettes of it but haven't showed the whole shabang since it's been updated... As a reminder...we do live in a rental in Europe, so we are limited on what we are allowed to do to this joint. Because our home is super short on storage, we have had to be really creative and add lots of cabinets, baskets, and exposed shelves. It has worked our perfectly for us!

With my landlord's permission, I painted the walls some nice neutral colors and installed new light fixtures! Light fixtures are one of the greatest and easiest ways to give a place a facelift and it takes only a few minutes to put the old cruddy ones up when it's time to leave! Also, it means we get to take our fantastical vintage light fixtures with us wherever we go! The rug we bought at an antique shop last year has about every color in it and it ties all of the muted colors we have going on in the kitchen area. We went with all these colors to brighten up the space and give it a playful and quirky feel, yet the shade of the colors keep it sophisticated and vintage looking. You can find out how we did all this on a basically non existent budget by heading over to the tutorial section of the blog!

Besides paint, we can take everything we have worked so hard on with us to our next home! 

Our inspiration for this kitchen was all the pastry shops we've stumbled on in Europe!

So, here is the before!

 And here it is in it's present state... but we all know that will probably change over the next week or so. Grab a coffee or a glass of champs... it is going to be a long post FULL of pictures!

This rug is what ties all the colors we have going on together and makes our many random colors into a color scheme. 

Painting the ceiling in between the beams really made the hugest difference! I will be doing this in our forever home!

Our 130 year old, barn kitchen sure has become a sunny, bright and fresh space that my sweetie and I enjoy our meals! We feel so blessed to have made a home here in Germany.

I hope you enjoyed this little tour, who am I kidding, stupid-long tour* of our kitchen! 

All the projects that we did in our kitchen and the rest of our home can be found in the tutorial section.

Linking up to: