How Ryann Is Mixing Styles In Her Living and Dining Room

My boyfriend Rocky and I have lived in our apartment for a year and the design process has felt a lot like trying to run underwater. I can’t tell you how many photos I’ve pinned or the amount of hours I’ve spent scouring the internet for the right inspiration. After a while, my pinboard became a hodgepodge of styles ranging from minimalist farmhouse to borderline funhouse. To the amateur design hobbyist (aka me) this was disheartening and exhausting. Then last week when Emily #sharedthemic with Shavonda Gardner she said, “Cultivating and creating a home is a marathon, not a sprint.” This validated the slow-motion process I’ve been experiencing and at the same time inspired me to give in to my intuition. My all over the place pinboard started to make sense and our open concept living and dining room plan came together.

Naming my and Rocky’s collective style isn’t totally necessary, but it’s really fun. To make it brief, we are going for 70s-cowgirl-meets-eclectic-old-world-Italian-grandma. Coming over to our place will hopefully be like visiting your cool, eclectic grandma’s house but with Drake playing in the background (and Rocky waiting to queue up Jerry Vale). I am so excited to invite you into what our brains came up with but first I’ll show you what we are working with:

When you walk into our apartment, the dining room is straight ahead and to the right is the living room. It’s a small space and there is no separation between the two “rooms”. As you can see, we don’t live in a charming LA 1920s bungalow. She’s just an 800 sq ft apartment that has the architectural interest equivalent to that of a refrigerator. This made our initial design plan very daunting (bare bones and cream-colored walls will do that). But slowly this bleak architecture became a canvas to play with all types of styles. Here is where we are at now:

Since we last chatted, I purchased that vintage 1970s Azilal rug (!!!), the asymmetrical coffee table, & the blue Morrocan pouf. Once we procured these three items we were able to envision the potential of even more color, more patterns, shapes, and styles. This minimalist became a maximalist overnight. (@CAITLIN are you hearing this??)

Now, let’s travel into the dining room (don’t worry, it’s a short walk).

Here we are. Do you recognize that bar cabinet? I knew you would