At Home With Rubyellen Bratcher

We have been patiently awaiting the day our friend, Rubyellen, would be ready to share her amazing living room with us. We are overjoyed to welcome her here today!"We live in a normal tract home in the regular 'ole suburbs of Southern California. Despite the cookie-cutter-ness of all the homes in our neighborhood, we fell in love with our home because of the wonderful design of the home. Our house has these wonderful arches leading from one space to another, big windows in every room that let a lot of light in, and this sweet little front courtyard/porch area that can be accessed from our dining room. Of course, we had to look past all the standard fixtures (and probably cheap stuff) builders put in a home, and be patient in being able to infuse the personality we would have loved to have in an older home. Last year, we were able to finally change out all the carpeting they gave us and put in white-washed wood floors and change out the baseboards. It was a dream to have wood flooring, and, after a bit of saving, we were able to make that happen (see the progression here). I think with any home, new or old, it takes a bit of patience (and pennies) in getting it to where you want it to be. We're working slowly, but every year we get a little bit closer." "I think our most unusual item in this space is the hammock! We had this colorful one up for a while, but then we switched it out for this ivory one to keep the color palette a little bit more simple. But my girls are asking to put back the colorful one for the summertime, so we may just do that! Ever since we put the hammock up in this room, the room gets used a whole lot more. The girls will go in for some quiet reading time, or they all pile in while they watch a movie on the portable DVD player. I always wanted to put a hammock up inside our house, because it just seemed so relaxing and unexpected, but when we had carpet, it wouldn't have looked right, but once we got wood floors in, it was the first thing I was bugging my husband to put up. Now, everyone in the family loves this spot!""The couch is from Anthropologie and I loved it when it first came out. But there was no way I was going to spend $3,000 on it, so Ben and I were stalking it for years to see if it would ever go on sale. Then, out of nowhere it disappeared from their website. Ben noticed it first and had me call their online shop to see if it went on sale. Well, lo and behold it went on sale, but was no longer available online. I called a few Anthropologies to see if they had it available, and it turns out a local one had it. They were willing to sell me their floor sample with an added 10% off. We were ecstatic! We had my parents come over that night to borrow their truck and we went to pick it up! It was such a steal of a deal at 75% off the regular price and for a piece we were waiting on forever—we couldn't pass it up. Really though, every piece in this room has a story and special meaning. The tall metal cabinet is a little trade I did with Jeni from Found Rentals (she wanted an old table I had), the long wood table was an old table used in a French flower shop, and the vintage rattan chair was a great deal I found on ebay. Lately, I've been crazy about making pillows for our house, and the one on the pink rocker was one of the most recent makes." "We If you want to see what the room looked liked before with carpet (and decorated a bit differently), you can see it here. It wasn't until after the wood floors came in and the hammock went up that this room started getting used. Everyone loves the hammock, so it's what draws everyone to the space. Everyone who comes over, wants to lounge in the hammock. It's the perfect spot for doing just that! Plus, with all the green in the room, it just feels so tranquilizing." "The space is mostly used for reading. I'll sit on the couch (because the girls take charge of the hammock) and read, while they all read in the hammock. The large white wall is also great, because I'll use that for a lot for pictures. I'll just slide the couch out of the way, and then I have a nice plain wall to use. I even had friends who needed a plain white wall for pictures, and since this room has such great light, they'll come over to use mine. Some Misha Lulu and Me and Mr. Cassidy shoots have taken place in this room and used that white wall." Thank you so much for sharing your space with us, Rubyellen! Be sure to pop by and say hello to her over at her blog Cakies. xo.