Decorating my new home & Why thrifting is always a good idea

Decorating is so much fun.

As I have been working on putting together the finishing touches of my new home, I have literally been living in domestic bliss. Like full on, focusing on my home, feeling all of the feels and the process has been so joyful. Nothing can break this full hearted flow.

Luckily, most of my furniture that I had before fit perfectly into my new living room. It’s like my sofa was made for the wide open but small living space. But I found myself stuck with what to put above the sofa for the wall because ever since I purchased my sofa ( literally the most comfortable thing ) it’s been a floating sofa in the middle of the living room. Never has it been up against a wall.

I also was finding myself stuck on a coffee table. Do I want wood? Do I want all white? Do I want marble? Oooh, I love marble. Do I want round or square? Large or small? Something tall or lower?

Oh the joys of decorating.

Whenever I need some inspiration, I head to my Villa Verde Pinterest board to see what I might come up with. This one photo had always stood out to me when I first started pulling images for my new home. I love the look of a clean and modern white wall mixed with the look of a vintage or thrifted art wall. And I just love the neutral color palate, too.

REASONS WHY I LOVE THRIFTING

You guys know how obsessed I am with curating and creating a HIGH VIBE HOME, I have an entire course on how to do so. Now, here’s the deal. I have an entire collection of gold framed art from all the years I’ve been shopping and decorating. As much as I love buying new, there is something so special about re-using things that you have or re-purposing something from someone else. So I knew I could use my gold framed art collection as an art wall above the sofa.

I also knew the coffee table needed to go with the art wall. So a new piece of furniture wasn’t going to work because in order to use thrifted or vintage pieces, they have to be a nice mix. So, I knew I needed to be on the looking for a vintage style coffee table. It needed to be something small enough to fit in the living area. It also needed to be light enough to not feel too dominating or heavy. I also wanted something with enough room to place large coffee table books and other beautiful things I love.

So, I set out on my Saturday to find some more gold frame art pieces to re-create this art wall look that I had in my mind. At one of my local favorite thrift shops, despite not finding any artwork….and I found this stunning BRASS and GLASS square vintage coffee table. How perfect would that look in my space. I thought?!?!?

SCORE!

So, reason numero uno? There really is nothing better than finding the perfect thing, like a diamond in the rough. If you know what I mean, then you know.

Another one of the reasons is that finding something thrifted, vintage or antique is amazing in that your home won’t look like everybody else’s. When you look at homes in AD, Veranda or House Beautiful, very rarely are homes filled with things that look like every other home you see out there. Like that Anthropologie mirror that everyone and their mother has, it just screams ‘basic’ to me.

More reasons why shopping second hand is a good way to go:

✨ It helps environmentally. Reusing old pieces of art, furniture or other decorations helps to not create so much trash and waste.

✨ So much of what is out there vintage or antique is so well made. One of my first pieces of furniture I bought antique in Manhattan and it has lasted for years, moved across the country and several cities and still is in excellent condition.

✨ The thrill of the hunt and finding something perfectly fit for you is as rewarding and satisfying as winning the lottery.

✨ Your home will look completely chic and stylish when you have a mixed look.

✨ Several of the things in my home were actually hand me downs from different family members. I love to keep my things from my grandparents home that bring me the BEST memories. This can be really good feng shui and energy for your space.

Here’s a little peek of my dining room / bar area. The cabinet is filled with things I have thrifted, glassware from family members and beautiful pieces I have picked up along the way. My dining room chairs were in my grandparents breakfast room from my childhood. Original chippendale chairs. Obsessed.

On the opposite side of my sofa wall, I have a black wall and I absolutely love the way it looks. Also, notice my color coordinated bookcase. This part of my home brings me so much joy, I highly recommend doing this with your books, it is definitely a game changer.

FENG SHUI TIP:

Everything you bring home has meaning. So always be intentional with what you are surrounding yourself with. When I work with my clients on curating a holistic and high vibrational home, we get very intentional with what areas of the home need work, what needs to stay or go…(you can read more about my feng shui services here)

Whenever I am at a thrift shop, I always keep my eyes out for unique things that would look cute in my home, would bring me joy when I look at it and things that represent positive, high vibe energy.

Typically animals + other figures represent positive feng shui.

THE TIGER:

I found this cute tiger art to add to my gold art wall and I just loved this print. Tigers are a powerful symbol of leadership, protection and success. It supports the female head of household and promotes luck and fortune in home and business.

THE SWAN:

Swans symbolize love, grace, beauty, balance and elegance.

Typically, you want to keep swans in pairs to represent soul mates because swans mate for life but you can also keep them in your home to remind you of being your highest self. I think they are just such beautiful animals.

COME ALONG WITH ME MORE ON MY DECORATING JOURNEY….inside my workshop HIGH VIBE HOME.

CREATING MY DREAM KITCHEN WITH A MIRRORED TILE BACKSPLASH

OMG. You guys. I am obsessed and I mean obsessed with my new townhome kitchen.

Honestly, when I first saw this home in photos, I was completely turned off by the kitchen even though the rest of the home was absolutely perfect for us. Luckily, I’ve always been a visionary and I actually enjoy imagining up a new potential for a space that is less than stellar. Living in Manhattan really helped me hone this skill.

I am a city girl. I love to live near the hustle and bustle. I love to be able to walk to coffee shops, be close to a gourmet grocery store and high end shopping centers. Some people would prefer to live a little outside of the city in order to have a bigger space but I am just NOT one of those people. Put me in the smallest home in the ritziest part of town and I’m happy as a peach in Summer. So for me, that means I have to work with what I can and if that means a smaller space, so be it.

When I decided to manifest my first home, the very first thing on my list was an all white and super bright kitchen. So, even though the kitchen was horrid looking and super small, I knew a little white paint would do the trick.

Let me walk you through this kitchen renovation process…..

So here are a few photos of the kitchen from the listing. Bleh. This color of wood literally makes me cringe. I also abhor the backsplash, it literally makes zero sense to me why someone would take a completely bright, naturally lit kitchen and put warm taupe, beige with black appliances. Like, but why?

Anyway, I didn’t hate the layout, loooooved the natural light and also especially liked this little breakfast nook space off of the side of the kitchen because for me, as a work from home woman, I need a well lit office space and this is perfect to make my jewelry and film content for the House of Bliss!

I wasn’t really in love with anything in this kitchen but I knew I had to make it work. And, I did not have an unlimited budget to work with but knew I could do something without too much of an investment so here’s what I decided to do…

MY KITCHEN DESIGN PROCESS…

1) Instinctively, I knew I wanted to have the cabinets painted white. I’ve done this in so many clients homes and every time it completely transforms the kitchen so this is like my go-to move. For a second, I even considered purchasing new cabinetry from IKEA because they really have such good, modern cabinet looks and sizes. But, these ugly wood cabinets are BRAND SPANKING NEW and part of me just felt like it would be a waste to buy all new cabinets (not to mention installation) so I brought in a team to paint them a bright satin white.

2) So, the one thing I don’t hate about the kitchen is the black stone countertop. It is actually really beautiful and has a nice light reflection to it which I thought would be totally chic for an all white kitchen. So, I decided to leave that.

3) Get rid of that awful backsplash. Ugh. If I had to do only one thing, it would have been the backsplash. The day I got the keys to my new home, I had them rip it out immediately. lol

INSPIRATION:

So here is one of my inspiration photos that I found and fell in love with. A beautiful, bright white kitchen with a little bit of black. It feels chic, bright and modern and I just kind of really love the black and white contrast.

I have always been obsessed with white subway tile in the kitchen, see this post for 13 of my favorite looks.

I headed to the tile store and because I knew they would have an extensive selection on backsplashes for me to look at, I headed straight for the simple all white tile. And after falling in love with the above photo, I was leaning toward an all white herringbone tile look. This one section of all white tile literally had so many options, I kind of felt overwhelmed by the patterns.

After mulling it over for a bit, I decided to go with the small herringbone tile. I thought it would look clean, simple and brighten up the space so well…until….

I spent over an hour walking around inside of the store. Trying to get excited about this very affordable and cute white herringbone tile for my new kitchen. But honestly, this was one of those moments where I had to do a gut check. It wasn’t exciting me at all. AND I have always been one of those people that preaches, “If you aren’t madly in love with it and it doesn’t excite you, it’s not meant for you”.

I DO NOT buy things that I am not obsessed with. Not handbags, shoes, jewelry…nothing. It is a rule and a non-negotiable for me. And here I was with 8 boxes of white herringbone tile I was just not excited about.

I walked over to the marble tiles, the beautiful pearlescent ones, too and nothing was doing it for me.

And then like a ton of bricks, it hit me… “do you have anything in like an antiqued mirror?” Veronica, the super helpful sales person, happily took me to the back section with the pricier tiles (of course) and lo and behold there it was. The most gorgeous, extra large antiqued mirror subway tiles with a bevel that literally just stole my heart.

And even though they were eight times the price of the white herringbone, my heart was pounding of excitement and I just knew these mirrored tiles would be the only thing that could brighten up my white kitchen and my soul even more than white tile.

SIDE NOTE: Now here is another really strong position that the mirrored tiles held for me. In Feng Shui, the stove is the wealth activator of the home. The burners represent health & opportunities for wealth. So, when you place a mirror reflecting what is on the burners, it will multiply and amplify those opportunities for health and wealth.

This is ultimately why I knew the mirrored backsplash was perfect, because it is EXCELLENT Feng Shui for my new home. If you want to learn more things like this, I put it all together in my course,

High Vibe Home : Organize, De-clutter & Decorate your home for harmony and bliss.

I ended up going with the 3 x 12” Antique Mirror Glossy Beveled tile and I am obsessed. To finish the look, I ordered mirrored switch plates because every detail needs to be tended

But here’s the other thing. I think subway tile can be kind of boring. I don’t know, I love a herringbone pattern or something different just not plain subway tile style. So I had my guy lay these in what you call a 1/3 or 33% offset pattern. It’s just a little bit different than the standard subway tile layout. I just think it looks better, a little bit more chic and stylish. So, if you do use subway tile in your home or project, you can try this layout for a little bit of a flair. Here’s what it looks like with my antique mirror tiles…

To top it off, I finished it all off with these chic brushed nickel cabinet pulls. They are clean and modern and really just blend in with the whole vibe. I would have gone for brass or gold but, with the appliances in stainless steel and black, the gold just would not look right.

So here she is, my dazzling little gem of a kitchen. These iphone pictures really don’t do her any justice. Literally a little dream come true for me. She is so beautiful, I literally cannot contain my love for this little kitchen. Anyway, I will be continuing the story on my new home and share all the updates and decor with you so stay tuned…

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