Suzannah Hamlin Stanley's Blog, page 9

Fall One Room Challenge reveals I can't stop staring at

The One Room Challenge has wrapped up again! This is a bi-annual design event where over 8 weeks, 20 featured designers and hundreds of guest participants make over a room and document the process every week. I've participated 6 times! (See all my ORC posts here and all my room reveals here.) I did not have it in me to join in this fall, but it is so fun to watch all the projects going on and I love checking out all the reveals. There are so many good ones and so much hard work goes into them (s...

Real-life minimalist gift guide/gifts for people whose love language is not gifts

I've been into organization, Kon Mari-ing my closet, and not buying more than I need for years, but I've recently been listening to some minimalism podcasts in the parenting realm and gotten inspired again. The holidays can be difficult for a minimalist or someone who really likes to control what we own. READ POST

One more project finished: flagstone path

Took us all summer so we won’t really get to enjoy it until next spring, but we are really excited to have our flagstone path completed in the backyard. We’ve made so many changes to the backyard since we moved in, it’s hard to remember what was here before… But it wasn’t a clear path. We had these great big flat flagstone pavers extending from the patio (which used to be covered in a deck), and then a few random pavers by the gate, I guess. Our vision for our backyard was connecting the patio t...

A very authentic design-loving homebody gift guide: what's on my list this year!

Gift guide season! This time of year you'll see a lot of gift guide posts, on blogs everywhere. I've produced them in the past too, in ways I think I can add value. I’m not going to be a "one-stop resource for everyone on your list" like some great websites and blogs out there, and as most of you know this is not my full-time job so I don’t have the time to put in to creating a bunch of gift guides and monetizable posts that someone might shop from. I also can’t share too many of the gifts I’m a...

New rug and vintage sofa in the living room

Living rooms are tricky. I’ve said it before. There are so many options for what you could do in them so there’s no easy formula like there is with a dining room. It’s not even a sure thing that you want a standard size sofa! What about a sectional, or two face sofas facing each other? With most living rooms there are multiple options so it takes a while of living in them and playing around to find what works best.

More than 3 years into living in our home, we are still figuring ours out. We rece...

EASY contrast trim pleated lampshade tutorial (no-sew, minimal cuts)

I’ve seen pleated lampshades around a lot lately, even shared a guest tutorial for a beautiful method here! I hadn’t made one yet myself. When I did… I always like to try something new, so I combined the methods I’d seen on DIY tutorials on blogs and some tips I was able to gather from the pros, and came up with this no-sew pleated lampshade tutorial that will work on large or small lampshades, drum or empire shape!READ POST

Staining our historic wood front door

I am working on improving our front porch and curb appeal lately, and there was one project I really wanted to finish this summer. I almost 100% did!
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Losing the baby weight (the second time around)

I haven’t posted about baby/postpartum things in a while, and I’ve been hoping to write this post over the past year or so, but it’s taking me a long time to feel like I was done with my journey and ready to share an update. (Hm, that sounds dramatic.) I get really weird but I write these posts because body image is a huge issue and everyone’s pregnancy and postpartum experiences are so different, not to mention all the years leading up to that of being a woman in our society. I think I just hav...

Sisal vs. seagrass vs. jute: Banded natural fiber rug comparison, and what's best for little kids!

I have an exciting experiment to share with you! I’ve been wanting to use a natural fiber banded rug in our living room for a while now, but I couldn’t choose between the options for different fibers and wasn’t sure which would be softest and best for our family (with little kids crawling around). I love the traditional, dressed up look these have while still being so natural and adding great texture, plus I have a goal to only use natural fiber (wool, jute, etc.) rugs in my home moving forward....

Harvest time ends! How to start a vegetable garden: what worked, what didn't

After the success of our first big garden last year, I wanted to share more about ours this year. I’ve been posting updates throughout the spring and summer (garden plans, starting veggies from seed, planting the starts). But, things are different this year and we’ve had less time to put into it, and it has not been successful! But we’re at my favorite time of year for the garden, tomato season/late summer harvest. It’ll be wrapping up pretty soon so I figured I would share kind of a final updat...