Happy Friday, everyone! We have a few online happenings we wanted to share with you all before we get our weekend underway…

First up, a few weeks ago, Greg and I had the awesome opportunity to write an article for Target’s online magazine,  A Bullseye View! We were asked to write about our top five Target must-haves for the home. It was SO hard to only pick five! Luckily, we were able to crank out an article without making it our “Top Fifteen Target Must-Haves for the Home”.

You can check out the entire article right here. To see our names and photos on A Bullseye View was pretty surreal. We probably sound like a broken record, but we’re seriously huge Target fans. So, being a part of the Target Inner Circle is kind of like the Mothership is calling us home.

In other online happenings… This year over at iHeart Organizing, Jen is doing a Monthly Organizing Challenge where every month, she tackles a different area of the house. This month is the home office. Going with the home office theme, Jen suggested that I show everyone around my office for my contributor post this month. Even though my office is still a work in progress, the two storage units are the “central hubs” of everything that goes on in there so I kept my post to that area. You can check out the post here.

Last, but not least… there’s a new blog design coming to town!! For the last two months, Greg and I have been working on an updated blog design for 7th House on the Left. It’s not a completely different layout – we still have the notebook design with the sidebar on the right – but it’s definitely a new look. On top of that, Greg is completely redesigning a lot of things under the hood that will help everything run better. We’re still working on the last finishing touches, so we don’t want to share a complete screenshot just yet, but here’s a preview photo I posted on Instagram last night… I just couldn’t wait anymore! 

Obviously, there’s an Instagram filter on it, so the finished product looks a little different. The new design has a bit more contrast than the current one and it reads as a little “modern rustic” – which is the style we’re evolving into in our house. Since the blog is about our house, we thought it should kind of look like it goes with our house, right? We’re hoping to have the new design switched over next week. So, stay tuned!

This weekend we’re going to be having our noses in our computer screens trying to get the new design up and running. Also known around here as, “crunch time”. For crunch time, I normally bring my laptop into Greg’s office and we spend countless hours at the computers – designing on mine, coding on his. With that comes take out from Cracker Barrel and Bentley amusing himself with a bone for a while. Needless to say, we’ll be happy to see the light of day when the new design is published. If I have time, I might get around to organizing the linen closet… hopefully. I guess we shall see. What are you guys up to this weekend?

Truth be told, I get serious stage fright when it comes to talking about plans for a room before we’ve even started on it. Either I’m worried the “vision” isn’t thought out enough yet to declare it to the internet or I’m just plain scared to wear my “decorating heart” on my sleeve. That being the case, I just never do it. But today, in an effort to start talking about more of the “process” of what we do and why we do it, I’m breaking out of my comfort zone and just going to delve right in. Here goes nothing, haha…

As we mentioned in this post, tackling the guest room is on the to do list for the first part of this year. We have a vacation coming up in a few weeks, but when we get back, it’s game on in the guest room. Our first plan of action… a feature wall. Back in the day, I wrote a post about how I was loving planked walls (read that post here).

After showing Greg a bunch of photos online, he finally warmed up to the idea. Thank you, Pinterest! At first, we were thinking about doing a planked wall in the living room on the wall the TV is on. That wall being so big, we’re now thinking something like white built-ins would really brighten up the room and tie in with the white cabinetry in the kitchen. All of that is for another time and another post. In light of that, we thought a planked wall might make a bigger statement in a smaller room… like the guest room.

I (now we) love the look of planked walls because it’s not too “country” but it still gives you a warm, cozy vibe – which is perfect for a guest room. If you love the planked wall movement, here’s some eye candy for you. Or… if you think we’re absolutely crazy, here’s some examples to try to win you over, haha. Either way, here are some walls we’re using as inspiration…

Houzz / Cape 27 / Better Homes & Gardens

From what we’ve read, the instillation process of a planked wall is pretty easy – not to mention affordable if you decide to use wood from old pallets. We’re pretty anxious to get started and excited about this room finally coming together. Hopefully it will act as a catalyst for the style in the rest of the house.

Now that we have the feature wall planned out, we have the rest of the room. We’re wanting to go with a “modern rustic” vibe – the same look we’re wanting to capture for the rest of the house as it evolves. We’re keeping all of the furniture that’s in the room now, except the chair in the corner and the rug (which we’re planning on Craigslisting as soon as “Operation Guest Room” begins). We’re not sure exactly how the room will end up in the end, but here’s what we’re loving now…

Bed / Art / Chair / Floor Lamp
Pillow / Dresser / Rug / Zinc Letters / Planked Wall

Now for my brain dump… Obviously, the mood board isn’t complete, but it’s colorful, modern and rustic all balled up into one. The current blue wall color will have to change (or else it will end up looking like a circus), but the jury is still out on what color to go with. I think I changed out the rug on the mood board about 10 times. I finally narrowed it down to the one above or this one. The wall art is in the same “color family” as the rug, so even though it doesn’t have yellow in it, they still “go” together… and I’m kind of obsessed with it. The chair has been a favorite for a while, and I think it would really help bring home the “modern” part of rustic modern. It also has a little nod to mid-century which I will always have a special place in my heart for. The pillow in the chair is a little “rustic glam” (in person anyway), which I think might be cool to throw into the mix. Having a big, giant zinc letter somewhere in the room would be neat, and it would bring in something metallic for another texture. Maybe an “R” for “R & R”? The floor lamp is identical to the one we recently scored at Home Goods for $20 and ties in nicely with the bed. Hopefully it will help bring everything together. As for the bed, we think keeping all-white bedding would be fun, but adding some fun Dwell studio throw pillows would be even better. Now, how’s that for a brain dump?

So that’s where are minds are now as far as the guest room goes. Hopefully it makes sense and you all don’t think we’ve just lost our minds, haha. Have any of you tackled a planked wall before? Any tips or tricks to share? 

First image from The Lettered Cottage.

Today, we have a short and sweet update about a little addition to the kitchen. Remember when we talked about ordering a blind to go over the kitchen sink? Yeah? That was about nine weeks ago. Out of the blue, the day before Christmas, the UPS guy finally appeared at our front door with a big, long box. Merry Christmas to us! With all of the holiday activities going on, we ended up not being able to hang it up until a few days later, but, now, it’s up and we think it looks pretty awesome…

The instillation process was a 5-minture no-brainer. All Greg had to do was drill the two metal brackets that came with the shade into the window frame and snap the shade into place on the brackets. It looks a ton nicer than the inexpensive white ones we had before and the warm dark tones really help warm everything up. It’s the perfect finishing touch we were looking for. Do you guys know what this means?! The kitchen is done. I’m sure I’ll be switching our accessories every now and then but all of the “permanent fixtures” are installed and accounted for. That’s a huge relief – and kind of a weird feeling all at the same time, haha.

Here’s another shot of the shade from the peninsula…

I’m totally still learning the ins and outs of my camera when it comes to shooting the kitchen – specifically shots with the kitchen window in it. No matter how overcast it is outside, the light coming in from the window is blaring in like crazy. If I get the window area just right, the rest of the kitchen looks gloomy. Which is why I’m going to be watching my Shoot Fly Shoot class again this next next weekend. Because, clearly I need it! haha