Café Design
Decorating Consultations

Renovating a Cape Cod Style Cottage | Bamboo Shades for the Living Room

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I receive a commission on all qualifying purchases. Thank you!

Two things had to happen in order for today’s post to come together: the bamboo shades I ordered two weeks ago had to be delivered; and I had to figure out a way to install them myself, with only an antique drill and a puny screwdriver as helpers. But the stars aligned, the shades arrived, and I found my inner Bob Vila just in time so I can share my latest decorating tweaks with you. If you’re on the market for some new window treatments for a room in your home, and are considering bamboo shades, I highly recommend them. There are many different sources and price points available, and you’ll probably want to do your own research, but I’ve had the same shades in our family room and have been very pleased with them so far so I ordered a couple more for the living room. These bamboo shades are beautifully made, the width and length of the shade can be customized to fit any window and, more importantly, you can install them yourself, like I did 🙂

Bamboo Shades

View Post

What’s Hiding Behind Your Shutters?

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn a commission on all qualifying purchases. Thanks!

If you have south-facing windows framed by stationary shutters, the non-operable kind that are screwed into the siding of your home, then you, too, might be curious to see what’s hiding behind them. Or not, depending on how brave you are 🙂 

View Post

Renovating a Cape Cod Style Cottage | Living Room | Choosing Paint Colors

Hey friends! Hope you’re enjoying a fun weekend, wherever you are. It’s a clear day with lots of sunshine here in Western Mass, though hats and gloves are still a must, and rosy cheeks and cold noses are pretty much the rule.  There’s a lot going on at our house and in our neighborhood these days. We recently joined a Buy Nothing Giveaway Facebook group and this morning participated in our first neighborhood event. We set up a station at the end of our driveway and pilled it high with things we were ready to part with, sort of. I gave away all my duck prints and decoys (reluctantly) and passed on my waterfowl obsession to a sweet old lady who took the whole bunch. Giving up something you really like sucks, but it can also be freeing (and creates room for new obsessions 🙂 ).

Our living room, and my ducks, two houses ago
View Post

Our Finished Family Room | Extras

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn a commission on all qualifying purchases. Thank you!

Dear friends, thank you so much for your kind comments and for your interest in our family room redesign!  As I was working my way through your messages and emails, I thought it would be easier to answer some of your questions regarding paint color, fabrics, lighting etc in a blog post rather than individual replies. This way all sourcing info will be available in one place and, if you see something you like, you can refer back to it at a later time. While I cannot always share sources for client work, I am very happy to share what I use in my own home. To add more clarity to my previous post about our family room, I also included a couple of sketches of the floor plan, just to give you a bird’s eye view of the changes I was telling you about in THIS POST. I hope they will better illustrate my descriptions and clarify some of your questions regarding the placement of the new doors and windows.

Sketch of our living room + guest bedroom – BEFORE
View Post

Renovating a Cape Cod Style Cottage | Family Room Reveal

We all dream of beautiful homes that are comfortable, welcoming and deeply personal yet, ironically, creating a home that is easy to live in can be at times a daunting process, even for those of us who happen to do this for a living.  If you’ve been following Cafe Design for some time, then you may know that our family room has been the main object of my efforts since we bought our cottage three summers ago. We began implementing changes slowly over time and it’s taken me the better part of the last three years to bring the family room to a place where it makes life in our house considerably more pleasant and comfortable.  It has also required every ounce of patience on my end, but we’ve recently completed the final steps of this renovation and I’m excited to share the finished room with you!

View Post