Console Table Behind a Couch: Sizing and What to Put on It
The reputation console tables have is that they’re furniture store filler. You know the vignette. Three matching books nobody’s ever going to read, a glass vase with two dried stems…
Accent Wall Colors for a Light Gray Room
Odette stood in my dining room doorway with her coat still on, looked at the strip of blue green paint I’d rolled onto one wall, and said, “Isla, did you…
Coffee Table Styling for a Living Room: How Much Is Too Much
I bought an entire coffee table’s worth of decor in one trip to a big box store once, and I mean the whole thing, tray, three “coordinating” candles, a stack…
Sideboard Styling Rules of Thumb
My sister walked into my dining room last month, stopped dead in the doorway, and said, “Isla. Since when do you own a sideboard that doesn’t wobble.” Which, fair. For…
Flower Vase Habits for Longer Blooms
I counted them a few months back, out of pure morbid curiosity, and then wished I hadn’t. Forty one. Forty one vases, sitting in cupboards, on top of the fridge,…
What Goes in the Bottom of a Wood Burning Fire Pit
Seven. I own seven wood burning fire pits, which is a sentence I did not expect to type with a straight face when I started writing this, and yet here…
Baskets Under a Console Table: What Goes Inside
I used to think baskets under a console table were basically furniture jewelry. You put them there, they look woven and warm and instantly your entryway photographs like it belongs…
Roses in a Vase: What to Add So It Isnt All Roses
Roses in a vase have a reputation for being the safest flower purchase a person can make, and also the most boring. I believed that for years. A dozen red…
Choosing a Wardrobe for Plain White Walls
I was standing in the middle of my own spare room with a pencil behind my ear and a roll of blue tape in my hand, marking out where things…
Beds With No Headboard: What to Put Behind Instead
I’ve slept in a bed with no headboard for going on six years now, ever since the actual headboard I owned, a sad particleboard thing from a big box store,…