Elsie’s Dream Home Mood Board + To-Do List

Hello friends! Today, I’m here to share our inspiration and plans for our new home. We’ve been here a few weeks now and we already feel pretty settled even though we are still unpacking boxes, hanging curtains, and doing those little annoying joys that come along with moving. It’s truly been a dream come true. Our second move was much easier than our first for many reasons—we were already partially in boxes and already unsettled, and we hired movers to knock it out in one day (this was our first time to ever hire movers if you can believe that—we typically do it all ourselves).

The past few weeks, I’ve been unpacking all our stuff, arranging and rearranging furniture, and starting a list of what we want to complete for the rest of 2020 and into the new year. It’s refreshingly simple to know we won’t be ripping out a kitchen or a main bathroom during the pandemic (because we need them too much, haha), and it’s been nice to focus on smaller, attainable projects like decorating our girls’ new bedroom (they are still loving sharing a room—it’s so cute!) and doing small upgrades here and there like adding bookshelves, painting wood cabinets white, and customizing stuff.

From your perspective, through the lens of this blog, I think this home content will feel instantly gratifying because you don’t have to wait through construction to see finished rooms begin to come together. And from my perspective (as an enneagram 7), I am loving having things to occupy my mind now, but also BIGGER projects on the horizon for later. It’s a good fit all around and I’m so excited!

MOOD BOARD TIME. This is the big/huge mood board that I made as soon as we put an offer on our house way back in May. It’s somewhat random, but it pulls together a lot of what’s in my mind—a mix of styles, a mix of colorful and bright whites, some familiar go-to projects, and some new things I want to try for the first time!

Some things to note: 

Color: I expanded the color scheme a bit since our last home. I wanted to include all the colors I love, like a ton of white and pink, but I also wanted to make room for some new tones including some that aren’t warm. I think there is a TON of value in staying on a color scheme when designing a home, but I also realized that this home is pretty large and I want to design rooms on a spectrum—not all the same. So I made a little more space for that this time. Excited to try some ochre, some orange, some greens, and even blue.

Style: I definitely love a mid-century feel that leans heavily 1960s and 1970s. But there are other styles I love bits of and I’m SO excited for a chance to bring it all into one space. If you look through this mood board you can see little bits of bohemian, traditional, transitional … it’s not all strictly mid-century. I’m very excited to mix it up!

Old faithfuls: There are things I have learned that I just LOVE and will continue to do in this home (even though it’s not “new”). For example, a fresh white exterior is a must for me. I just love it! I love a majority of white walls, even though I plan to do some deep colored rooms and lots of wallpaper as well. I love that super light whitewash wood (and it’s so functional for our lifestyle because it always looks clean even when it’s not). I’m still loving brass and low-contrast generally feels like home to me. What else? Lots of plants and a pink front door—there are lots of things I want to do in this home that are very predictable. As a blogger, you don’t want to be predictable, but as a human it’s totally worth it! 🙂

New ideas: I’m excited to try some colored tile—I’ve always used white tile in the past. I’m excited to try some new wallpaper. We’re totally embracing the travertine tiled floors even though it’s not what I would have picked if I had custom built the home. I mean, they are nicknamed “Olive Garden floors” for a reason (haha). But you know, we kind of like them.

In general, I’d like to turn up the volume on a lot of my go-to choices and go a more bold, especially with color, fixtures and pattern. We’re doing a super moody room. And when it comes time to design some bathrooms, I am going to try to channel my inner Justina and Kelly and really go for it with color.

You can read more on other design habits I’m trying to change up here!

(Here’s our living room 3 weeks in … feeling better, but still a lot to do!)

To-Do List for 2020: 

For the remainder of 2020 we want to focus on the living spaces as well as decorating our girls’ shared bedroom. The living spaces we’d love to complete are: living room (seen here), movie room, dining room, and possibly our guest room.

The only big renovation project we have coming up is that we are planning to replace the upstairs carpet with hardwoods. At first, we toyed with the idea of putting this off until next year, but since it can be done quickly (and we can stay in our Nashville bnb for a week or so as it is done). The MAIN reason we decided to go for it is that the floors need to be done before quite a few other projects we have planned, especially a lot of renovations for Jeremy’s music studio and my office. So we are moving forward with them so as not to hold up the timeline of other projects later.

With that said, we feel SO CHILL compared to what we’ve been doing the past year or so. We feel so relaxed here and very flexible. With no construction of major renovations on our plate, we can fully focus on being present for our two little girls, which is our number one priority. It’s been so fun to watch them learn to swim every day and to fill our weekends together with walks around our new neighborhood and trips in our time machine (one of this kids showers is a “time machine” and it’s very fun).

Life is beautiful. We’re incredibly grateful for this home to make new memories in, quarantine as long as we need to and make some fun blog posts for you along the way! Thanks so much for following along. I love you. Elsie

Credits//Author: Elsie Larson. Photography: Amber Kelly. Photos edited with A Color Story Desktop.