As much as I’d like to take a break from house projects after finishing up the study makeover, Summer is prime time for home renovations in Ohio, so I’m trucking along! Next up will be work on our patio and powder room.

Obviously we want to fix up our patio in time to enjoy it this summer and fall, so I’m hoping we can get this project done in the next two weeks! Here’s what our patio looks like right now (above). The wood needs stripped, refinished, and restained, and the traditional lattice privacy fence is going bye bye.

top left image: Musta Ovi / top right image: The Brick House

Slatwood Privacy Fence

In place of the existing lattice, I plan to put up slat wood lattice strips for fencing, much like the image above. Then I’ll plant something that can climb the lattice and add the magic of greenery to this space. Right now I’m undecided about how I should finish the lattice strips. I have stacks and stacks of pressure treated lattice strips waiting in my garage to be finished, but I can’t decide if I want a natural wood look, white washed, or a pickled type of finish. Our house is currently a putty gray color, but we plan to have it painted white next year, so I want the color of the patio to go with the future look of our siding, not the current look.

Climbing Greenery

I’m also pretty unsure about what kind of climbing plant to use on the privacy fence. Also, do I plant some in pots on the patio to climb up the inside of the patio, or do I just plant it in the ground on the outside of the patio fence? I know I’d like to see it in the seating area, but it will need to be a plant that is easily controlled. So far I’m considering clematis, hops, wisteria, and honeysuckle. Clematis seems to be the top contender, but in general I’m concerned about using a flowering plant because of not wanting bees hanging out with us on the patio. (I’ll plant flowers in the front of our house to help out the bees, but I’m not looking to do that where we will be dining with our children.)

image source unknown — any idea?

Modern Slatwood Dining Nook

Continuing with the slat wood look, I’m also super interested in using lattice strips to make a cozy dining nook at one end of the patio, much like this inspiration image above. It would be a sort of a pergola, but the slats would be made of lattice strips and would be positioned much tighter together than a traditional pergola. I would like the slats to be far enough apart to still allow light and climbing greenery to show through, but it should also provide shade for our dining area.

I’m also considering adding outdoor curtains to the dining area to give it more separation from the lounge part of the patio, and to add one more barrier to the road noise behind our backyard. Our backyard has a busy road behind it, so road noise is an issue. One day we want to plant a tall, dense, hedgerow, but one thing at a time! At least our patio is on the side of the house so the road noisy isn’t too obnoxious.

If you’ve been following me for some time on Instagram stories, you’ll know how much I love doing a Photoshop mock-up before beginning any project! It’s a skill I’ve developed through the years beginning when I was earning my interior design degree in college, and it’s proven to be quite useful in imagining each of my home projects!

I’m planning to keep this outdoor space pretty neutral, as it is visible from both our kitchen and our living room windows. I don’t want it to add color and chaos to the kitchen and living room, and besides, I want something that will compliment all of the beauty of the outdoors, rather than competing with it.

I’m working with one of my favorite furniture brands, Article, for most of the furnishings for the patio, but I’ve also purchased some additional items to fill out the space, such as a propane fire pit, an articulating patio umbrella, outdoor rug, and lighting. I’ll link everything at the end of this post.

Fencing Color Options

The last decision I’m faced with before beginning work this weekend is the color for the fencing. What do you guys think? Should I go for dark and dramatic with a boldly contrasting wall, medium-wood tone that adds richness and warmth, a white-washed look that allows for some wood warmth to show through, or white paint for a crisp and fresh backdrop?

Let me know what you think about color options! We begin work on Saturday, and I couldn’t be more excited! Can’t wait to share the results.

Product Sources:

• furniture: Article
• umbrella: Wayfair
• fire pit: Wayfair
• outdoor tassel pillow: Pottery Barn
• pendant lights: World Market
• outdoor rug: Wayfair

I’m so excited to share our finished study with you all! The design of this space underwent a few changes before beginning the actual work, but I’m really happy with how it ended up. You can read about the planning of the study makeover here and here, and if you want to see the full reveal, check out this blog post at A Beautiful Mess.

I’ll be sharing more about our experience with the furniture we selected for the study, and a even few fun adjustments I have planned for later this summer. But first I wanted to talk about the window treatments I chose, plus how you can save 20% on your own window shade order!

Blinds.com reached out a few months ago about working with me on a space in our home, but I really couldn’t decide what kind of window treatments I wanted. It took me a while of considerations and back and forth decision making before I settled on using woven wood shades in the study. Phil and I were both so pleased with how the warm texture of the shades really finished up the study, that we just sat and stared at the windows for probably about a half hour after we installed the shades! We liked it so much that we decided to put up a similar shade in the kitchen too.

This before and after shot gives me so much life. Before the makeover, this room felt more like a box than anywhere to rest or study. Now it feels nice and cozy, but also more spacious, oddly enough! This post is sponsored by Blinds.com, but I really have to give a lot of heartfelt praise for the way these woven wood shades really completed the coziness of the room. They also really helped add a touch of boho to a space which could very easily feel pretty traditional, considering the rows of books and the crown moulding details. It was just the perfect touch of coastal casual that my heart desired.

When blinds.com had initially reached out to me months ago, I was really into the idea of using relaxed roman shades, or something like that, everywhere in our house. It really was a game-time decision that led me to try a warmer, more textural shade made of woven wood. As soon as the huge pile of woven wood samples arrived, I knew this was the look for me, but it was difficult to narrow them down to ones that worked the best for the study.

Window Shade Style Selection in the Study

I ended up selecting from the blinds.com brand of woven wood shade in the Terra Oak color, because it was a bit darker than the shade of our wall color, and the warmth of the wood tones in the shade tied in nicely with the window frames. It also contrasts nicely with the lighter wood flooring in the study. The warmth of the shade adds a nice contrast to the cooler tones of grays, metals, and glass in the room, and it nicely filters the light from the windows.

When I ordered the shades, I spoke on the phone with Danielle at Blinds.com to make sure I was properly measuring my windows for a perfect inside-mount installation. She also explained functionality options for each of the shade styles I chose (in the study and kitchen), so I felt 100% confident making the choice that was best for each room.

Window Shade Installation

I was so excited when the shades were delivered, but then I remember that I had to instal them myself, and I was less than gleeful to have even more work ahead of me after all of the tedious work of the room renovation. I wish I would’ve known how easy the blinds would be to instal, though, because I could’ve been spared that mental stress! It was seriously easy.

For the installation of my inside-mount shades, all I had to do was screw the metal bracket to the inside of the window frame, then use nuts to secure the shade onto those brackets. I installed three shades within 15 minutes. Love it. More time to sit and stare at their beauty afterwards.

Enjoy my cheesy glee at how easy and beautiful my new shades are! This dorky grin is absolutely the real deal, folks. Sorry I’m not so good at playing it cool.

After choosing a deeper, more dramatic color for the study, I was a bit worried the room would feel incongruous with the rest of our home. I was trying to think of a way to easily bring an element or two from the study into other rooms in our house, when it occurred to me that incorporating similar woven wood shades in the kitchen would be a great way to do that!

Our kitchen renovation was technically finished at the end of last year, but I had been wanting to put up some kind of window treatment long before the kitchen’s grand reveal. I just couldn’t settle on what kind of treatment to use, though. Relaxed roman shade? Traditional roman shade? Woven wood shade? Some kind of DIY curtain/blind situation? It definitely needed something, though, as the sun is known to blast through that window during the first half of the day.

I’m really glad to have this light-filtering shade in here finally, but I’m actually glad that I had waited to settle on exactly what felt right for the kitchen. These woven wood shade feel so perfect in this space. The woven wood adds a warm vibe to a generally stark white kitchen, and also gives more context to the wooden frame of the window. Plus, I’m really happy with how it brings in that textural element from the study. I think the choice of using the same woven wood shade in here really makes my home feel more cohesive.

Here’s a before and after shot of the kitchen space from the grand reveal in January. It looks nice and finished, but still missing one little detail. The woven wood shade feels like the perfect finishing touch. And let me tell you, it’s nice to be able to stand at the sink without any annoying glare from the sun.

I chose an unlined shade to achieve a light-filtering effect, rather than blocking out some of the light in this room with a lined shade. The shade does have more of a presence in the room that is visible in photographs, because window light does blow out objects when photographing a window. But I tried my best to get the most accurate images of the window. You can see more of the texture of the blind in real life, but this picture does show how the shades don’t really block a lot of light, so our kitchen still feels pretty bright. (We also have a sliding glass door in the adjacent dining space which helps light up this room.)

Window Shade Style Selection in the Kitchen

For the kitchen, I did choose a slightly lighter woven wood tone than I had chosen for the study, considering the walls in here are stark white— much brighter than the study. I’m really happy with the color and the texture of the Kula Sandy Beach style that I chose for the kitchen window. I also chose a cordless style for in here because I didn’t want to worry about wrapping cords on cord cleats every time I put the shade up or down. The cordless style ended up being super convenient and easy to use.

Top/Down Shades vs Cordless Shades

For the woven wood shades I chose, there isn’t a cordless option for the top/down functionality. I decided it was worth the cords in the study in order to be able to get the top/down function. The study is at the front of our house, and sometimes we want to allow extra light in by putting the top of the shade down, while still maintaining the privacy of having the lower half of the window covered.

The shades do come with cord cleats, but I haven’t quite decided where to put them, so I haven’t installed them yet. It is a matter of safety for children, though, so I need to get on that!

20% Reader Discount to Blinds.com!

If you’ve been checking out blinds.com and see something you like, I have good news for you! You can save 20% on your order by using my special discount code: MANDIMAKES. You can save even more by choosing the blinds.com brand at their website, and I can attest that you will not be missing out on any quality by doing so. I chose all blinds.com brands and am very happy with the results.

Thanks to Blinds.com for sponsoring this post and for hooking me up with these awesome shades! If you guys have any questions about the shades of about ordering from blinds.com, let me know in the comments, and I’ll be happy to chat with you.

Whew! Is Spring really truly here? And Summer right around the corner? It’s about time I finish up some of these indoor projects so I can move on to our deck makeover. The past three weeks we’ve been hitting the study makeover hard. Quite a few things have changed since my original post about the plans for this space, so I wanted to share an update with you all. In fact, most of it has changed! Yikes!

I committed to a color for the room, and I’m really happy with how it’s looking so far! We’ve only began painting some trim, and I could resist swiping the wall with some of the color. (You can see it below inside the bookshelf and also around the window trim.) The color is a nice muted green/gray from Benjamin Moore called Oil Cloth. It’ll be nice to have another space in our home with color on the wall! So much of our home is white.

So far I have the IKEA Billy Bookcase built-ins almost completed, and tomorrow I hope to add the batten paneling strips so I can paint the room over the weekend. I’ll be sharing all of the DIY details for this space on A Beautiful Mess when it’s complete. Right now I’m just chomping at the bit to have it done so I can style the space and finally use it! So many of our books are still boxed up, and it’s frustrating at times to not be able to find a book. It will also be nice to not have this be our guests first view when they enter our home! It’s the front room at our house, and our entryway has been a mess for over a year now.

My furniture selections for this space have also evolved. My new friend Susie and I swapped some home items with each other recently, and I got this amazing set of nested tables out of the deal. They’re perfect for this small space! That led me to swapping out the rug for something that wouldn’t compete with the marble of the table, and then to get a more subtle and classic style of sofa from Article to bring a bit of a classic/timeless vibe back into the room.

Choosing a color for my dream chair (The Womb Chair from Rove Concepts) has been tricky, but I think that with a white linen slipcover over the sofa from Comfort Works, I might like a light gray color for the womb chair. It would keep things more neutral in a room where lots of color will be on the bookshelf wall. (There will be no turning book spines into the wall! ha!) Any thoughts?

I’m still figuring out some of the details on what will make it into the room and what won’t, but here are the big contenders! I’ve linked them up for you below. Hopefully I’ll be ready to share the room in a couple of weeks! A little more serenity in our home, and a lot more books, would be really nice right about now.

1. Burrard Sofa from Article
2. Cowhide Rug from Amazon
3. Shag Pillow from Lulu & Georgia
4. Pendula Lamp from Article
5. Stoneware Vases from West Elm
6. Womb Chair from Rove Concepts
7. Moon Floor Lamp from Article
8. Walnut Desk from Lulu & Georgia