Mixing Rustic with Romance

I'm so sorry to be gone for so long!

My husband and I made a trip to Auburn, Alabama last week. Mark got his Ph.D. there and worked for the Mises Institute. He makes a trip back every year and I often go with him. We had a great time visiting old friends and enjoying the beautiful weather. Then we returned to Michigan and 16 degrees and snow!

We were exhausted from our trip and woke up the next day with bad colds. So I have been recouping.

And painting!

I don't know what's happened but I am suddenly looking at everything and asking myself if it's the way I want it. French Country has been my style for a long time but there are so many different and beautiful ways to do it that no two house have to look the same.  About 3-4 years ago, I dramatically changed our decor and went from reds and yellows and lots of prints to a more simple style with lots of white and lots of rustic.

This is our family room about five years ago. I wasn't blogging then.

 It's hard to believe this is the same room! It was so much more formal and a little English Country. The walls were a yellow/gold and so were the draperies. This is the same couch - I've since slip covered it in an off-white.

You can see the rug that now lives in the living room here. These chairs were in our living room too for a while, but I had slip covered them in white. I've since given them to our daughter.

You can see I loved blue and white even then and I actually loved it with the yellow and red florals.

I would change things from time to time but kept this color scheme for almost a decade.

I was getting tired of this but I didn't know what I wanted to do. And then one day, I walked into a Pottery Barn in Grand Rapids and fell in love!

What I loved about the Pottery Barn store was the mix of fresh white couches and chairs with rustic wood, barn doors and sturdy, farmhouse tables. (I don't know why I bothered to say that because we ALL love that - right?!) But, Pottery Barn is not quite blingy enough for me and needs a little more romance.

So I've been figuring out, for the last three years, how to mix the two gracefully. And incorporate the new, fresh color scheme.

When Miss Mustard Seed posted these beautiful pictures, I fell in love.  I pinned them and stared and realized how much I loved the color of the wood. And then figured out that I hadn't combined enough 'rustic' into my 'romance'!

We just replaced all of our doors in our house - we still have a few more to do. Our former doors were very eighties. They were super heavy and solid but were a plain surface with an oak finish and brass 80's hardware. At the time I thought I wanted the classic look of all white trim and white doors. But when I saw these pics, I knew it was the perfect way to tie everything together.

Then Joni at CotedeTexas posted these beautiful photos and I was swooning all over again.

These are the photos that inspired our master bedroom 'boards.'

So I've been painting doors to give them this wood look and we've been adding beams and boards to add 'rustic' to our 'romance.'

We finally got our barn doors up and I will show them to you soon.  Between sitting down and trying to get rid of this cold I've been taking stock and doing lots of tweaking. And lots of painting. And some rearranging.

I hope to have lots to show you soon!

love and blessings~

"Behold, I will set your stones in turquoise, and your foundations I will lay in sapphires. I will make your summits of rubies and your gates of crystal, and your entire wall of precious stones."

Isaiah 54:11,12

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