Decorating a home is a lot like working on a puzzle, wouldn’t you agree? A grand, 3-dimensional, incredibly rewarding  (if at times frustrating) puzzle. Luckily for us homemakers, in decorating, unlike real puzzles, there is no one single perfect piece to fit our scheme but rather multiple great choices, and a good couple exceptional ones. In the end, an interesting and personal home means the puzzle is never quite finished, you’re always tweaking things and leaving spots open for those serendipitous finds that somehow, if you’re patient, will find you. 

Over the last couple of months, our family room has become a fun decorating obsession for me. I’ve been going back and forth in my mind with some of the decorating decisions regarding the space and thought it might give me much needed clarity, and maybe even amuse some of you, to lay down in writing the tangle of thoughts in my head. So, behold our family room (former spare bedroom)…

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Hope everyone’s having a chilled week so far… Summer is slowly slipping away but not without a few enchanting book releases to tide us over to fall. Like many of you I’m sure, summer is the time I’m most drawn to coastal decor. Decorated for easy summer living, beach houses are among my favorite design inspirations year-round because the best of them feel fun, loose and uncontrived. There has been a string of coastal-inspired decorating books  that I love or have been meaning to add to my collection lately and I thought it would be fun to share my list with you. Maybe even get your thoughts on them? Some of these books I’ve purchased and greatly enjoyed while others are still out there for me to get.

Maybe it’s the hot summer weather we’ve been enjoying so much of lately, which I love and won’t complain about one bit, but I have been craving more than usual cool, easy summer living. Rooms that look and feel fresh, clean and simple, yet interesting. And fun! Always fun. I came across a lovely fish shack the other day, on the outskirts of the internet, and it was love at first sight. A beautifully appointed beach house on Cape Cod that belongs to Tim O’Brein and T.R. Pescod, featured in Coastal Living magazine back in 2009. Maybe some of you are familiar with it, or better yet, have saved the article for inspiration. ( Interesting fact: Ina Garten once filmed an episode of her award-winning show Barefoot Contessa at this very fish shack, cooking in the company of T.R. Pescod whom she counts among her friends. )