At home with sweet Meghan {her house is AMAZING!}

Wednesday, January 8

You can find the tutorial for this little wreath here

Hello sweet Hope Engaged readers! My name is Meghan, and I write a little blog called eat.live.make all about creative, simple and healthy living (among other things:)). I am so excited to be over on Katie's space today!! Katie and I quickly connected over this beautiful thing called blog world, and she has been such an amazing blessing in my life since she reached out to me. We both have similar journeys with our health, and her positive outlook on it all is such a bright light in my life. 
Today I'm going to be giving you guys a bit of a tour of our home, and sharing some thoughts with you all while I take you on this tour. I hope you leave feeling encouraged and empowered to create your own space that is uniquely you!

The home we are currently living in is owned by my gracious parents. They purchased this ranch-style home a couple of years ago so that we could have a place to live while my husband attended nursing school. We helped them gut and re-do the house and are slowly making the space our own. We realize we are stewards of this place until my husband finishes school, at that point my parents are going to sell the house and hopefully make a good return on their investment! 
pictured above is our dining room- the curtains are thrifted, the table was made by my husband, the stools are made from old doors we found, the chairs were given to us, the coffee table is made from a window we found in the dumpster, the wood is from our lake house, and the tan chairs are hand-me-downs from my parents
I grew up in a family where creativity in the home was one of the highest priorities. Since I was three years old my parents have been building and selling and flipping houses. They've done all of this so that they could build a house and be totally debt free- which they did about ten years ago! We've lived in every home we've built, and during that time they always gave me free reign of decorating my bedroom. At a young age I realized how much my surroundings influenced my mood, and made it a point to always surround myself with beautiful things. I have also learned that lighter colors make me a lot happier than darker colors, so our home now reflects this. 
Above the couch was recovered by my parents for David and I when we moved back to the south from Colorado, the rug was a $10 steal from Home Depot, the table was re-finished, the ottoman was gifted, the mirror is a cool thrift store find, and the painting was done by me!It has taken a while for our decor to reflect ourselves, and to come together cohesively because all of our pieces are either given to us, thrifted, re-purposed from pieces we've been given or found. I think we've spent about $50 dollars on all of our home furnishings combined. It has taken us a lot of patience, pruning and digging to find things that are all cohesive and reflect what we are hoping to communicate when people enter our home. But we are finally to a point where I am loving the way our house feels!One thing that I've learned these past 4 years of being married to my husband, is that we love having minimal things in our home. About every 3 months we clean out our closets, our shelves and our surroundings and get rid of what we don't use. We really do not like to accumulate "stuff" and our home reflects that. Not to mention that both of us are not big fans of clutter and messes! 
This little round table was given to us by a church, the frames have all been gifted or found at thrift stores and repainted, the pillows were made by myself and my mom, and the chairs were my parent's. 
We are also both HUGE fans of tiny, tight spaces:). We are looking forward to the day when we can buy our own home and have it as small as possible (without being too cramped). This little breakfast nook is our favorite place to eat breakfast, study the word and have late night conversations by candle light. The light streaming in is from a set of double doors that we open when the weather is nice and it allows fresh air to come into our home. 
The little wall of photos and art is always a work in progress. I keep adding things to it, so it will continue to fill up with memories! As a photographer, I'm a huge fan of having photos in our home and am always trying to think of creative and inexpensive ways to display these. Most of the artwork in our home has been painted by me on large wooden boards that we saved from the home demo. I love them so much and hope that they will always be a part of our home! 
This space is another example of how we've repurposed things and made them all come together. The desk was a thrift store find ($15) where my husband repurposed a found board for the table top, the orange chair was a thrift store find, the rug was discounted at an outlet store for $30 (woah, big spender!), the purple couch was an awesome thrift store find along with the hanging lamp (the base was re-painted black). Everything else was a hodgepodge of things we had.. except for that deer head. I LOVE it and found it at Target on sale!! You can find the business card holder here, and the calendar here
We JUST re-did this office space over the holiday and I am SO excited about it! Like I said, my environment plays a huge factor on my mood and my previous space was too cluttered, too big and not functional for what I needed. We have already spent a lot of time in here (I'm writing this from our desk now!) and I can't wait to start this year of business off in this new space! Our pup Dakota is a pretty big fan of it too. 
You can find the tutorial for the mobile here, the bicycle taxidermy here, and the flower crown here.
This extra bedroom serves as our guest room/ my sewing and craft room/ David's study. Everything in this room was given to us too!! Except the sheets which I thrifted (David's not a huge fan of the flowers). We recently re-did this wall as well and I love how it looks! It has a bit of whimsy while being warm and inviting and clean:). 
You can find how to make the pillow cases here, the potato stamped triangle art here, the bunting here, and find a complete tour of the whole room here. The book shelves are made with old cabinet doors we found and have yet to re-paint!
Our bedroom needs to be light and fun because I have to spend a lot of time in bed due to some chronic conditions I have. I recently re-did it to have a more whimsical and de-cluttered feel to it. We also got a new grey comforter for Christmas (that's not in the photos) that really ties to room together. I truly believe that these surroundings help me cope with days that aren't so awesome. Now that you've had a little tour of our home, (not pictured are all of the plants I've acquired lately--because they are dying:(( ) I hope that you are encouraged to find the time to make your space a place where you feel alive and peaceful. I love welcoming people into our home because they always feel so warm and calm whenever they spend time here. I also hope that you realize that it doesn't take much money at all to make a space beautiful and uniquely yours. It just takes some careful planning, patience and lots of out-of-the box thinking! It would make me so happy if you popped over and joined the community over at eat.live.make. You can also say hi via Facebook//twitter// instagram and Pinterest! I'd love to get to know you better!!

10 comments :

  1. That office area is gorgeous! Love her home! :)

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  2. wow, everything is so unique - how cool that I just found this post when I posted a few interior pics of my house too! lol. I love love love getting sneak peeks into people's homes :)

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    1. I love it too! thank you for your sweet words:)

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  3. I LOVE your space! Your home is beautiful! My husband and I are the same about going through everything in our home (though we usually do it twice a year) and throw away or give away everything we aren't using or wearing. By the way, did you paint the antlers on the deer head? We have one that looks EXACTLY like that from Target (that we also got on sale after Christmas), but the antlers are silver. My husband is using it as a bookend at work. :)

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    1. rachel- thank you!!! no i didn't! I know exactly what antlers your talking about, and I ALMOST got those, but they had ONE plane one left and I snagged it up haha. great minds think alike;)

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  4. Your house is lovely, Meghan. :) I think your guests must feel quite warm and welcomed when they visit!

    -Sarah

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  5. What a lovely house you have created! I love that you de-clutter often! I need to do more of that and feel so good once it's done.

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