Before we moved in, the only spot of color in the house, outside the vintage green pendant in the kitchen, was Hallie’s blue vanity. Brittany, who worked with us to design our home, picked out the color. My brain was so decision fatigued by this point in the building process, after seeing a swatch on a screen, not in real life, I said “Love. Let’s do it.” And we did it.  Read more

They don’t make things like they used to. But if you look hard enough, you’ll find a handful of artisans that do—that make things the old fashioned way. They just might not be on the internet. Ha! Our tree stand is one of those things. We bought it 3 years ago from the tree farm where we cut down our tree. And every year you ask, “Where did you get your tree stand?” And every year I go on a hunt that turns up empty answers. Not this year though! I dug a little deeper to find you similar options to our forever, heirloom, high-quality tree stand. Note: quality costs more, so you’ll see prices below to reflect that. Behold. Read more

“Hal, don’t blink or you’ll miss it.”

“Mom, how long do I have to keep my eyes open for?”

“Just a little longer, girlie.” Fall is a wing season in Minnesota, flanking our two longest seasons—winter and summer. If you blink, you just might miss it. Read more

The Inn at The Fauxhouse is now open for guests has been taken over by Linnie’s Nursery. Well, it’s been sleeping guests for 3+ years, but I’m finally done tinkering with the room. And when you come to stay, I won’t corner you as I tell you about all the unfinished parts. (Can you hear Kev cheering in the background?) Let’s just call this the official grand opening of The Cozy, Collected Guest Room. Somebody cut the ribbon already. Read more

The laundry room was just a square of a room with a stacked washer and dryer when we moved in. We were fresh out of budget for any kind of shelving by the end of the building process, so we threw an extra shelf in the room that we had on hand and called it good enough. We hung clothes on the metal stair rail to air dry and used the guest bed as a folding counter. The laundry room was basically an empty room, and all of its contents were spilling out into the upstairs. It was time to make this room functional. Read more

Nine years ago, almost to the day, I started this blog. At first, it was a hey-mom-and-dad blog. Kev and I were freshly married and had just moved from Dallas to Chicago. A blog seemed like an efficient way to let our families know what we were up to. By the second or third post, I was typing out recipes, mostly the baked variety, with a side of crafting and knitting.  Read more

This bathroom reveal is so bittersweet. It means means that I have one less room to design in our house. Kev told me once I finish our house, I have to use someone else’s money if I want to keep designing spaces. Ha! On the other hand, now that the house feels more like a home and less like a project, we’ve been filling it with our favorite people. That’s a really good thing. Now on to the Minimal Masculine Master Bathroom reveal. Read more

I had two main objectives for the master bedroom (that took a solid year to finish). First, I wanted it to feel as much like Kev’s room as it did mine. And second, I wanted it to feel special, like a boutique hotel. Not the formal type, the collected, eclectic type. It needed to feel minimal, too, like the rest of the house. Ok, maybe I had three objectives for this minimal, masculine master bedroom of ours. Read more