New England interior design and home decor | Uncategorized
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Uncategorized / 15.12.2021

Hi Friends! Today on the blog, I'm sharing our home all decorated for Christmas! Every year, I change it up slightly with a different theme. This year, I chose mostly blues and silvers. Let's start with the exterior. I put wreaths on each of our front windows. These were very inexpensive wreaths from Walmart for $3! I added some ribbon I already had but I know I'll enjoy changing up the ribbon on these in years to come. I chose a red berry wreath for the front door that gives...

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Uncategorized / 01.11.2021

Today is November 1st and there are those who put up their Christmas decorations literally today (or within the next week or so) and those that insist on waiting until after Thanksgiving. No matter what boat you're in, the reality is Christmas will be here before you know it. Now is the time to buy your Christmas greenery if you haven't already. In this post, I've rounded up some of my favorite very realistic faux greenery. Some of my favorite places to look for greenery include HomeGoods & Target...

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home tour, Uncategorized / 21.10.2021

We have been busy this Fall working on finishing up projects. One of the projects we recently finished was adding board and batten to our dining room. I really wanted to incorporate Benjamin Moore's Hale Navy into our home and this seemed like the right room for it. I knew I wanted the lower half to be white to off-set the dark blue above. I will write up a separate post with the details on how we went about doing the board and batten but for now, I wanted...

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home tour, Uncategorized / 13.07.2021

Have you ever designed a room and felt like it wasn't what you were envisioning or not really your style? Yes, you say?! Me too! Our "formal" living room has been an ever-evolving space since we moved in 6 years ago. It's a room that we don't use everyday except for larger gatherings. The paint color was what I really couldn't stand. Every time I tried to take a photo, the walls looked green when it was supposed to be grey. Here are some before pictures. In January, with...

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Uncategorized / 26.06.2021

2020 was quite the year, wasn't it? Our daughter was born in February just a short time before everything shut down due to the pandemic. Since, we had a newborn, we were extra cautious last year and stayed home and didn't have many gatherings. Fast forward to today, we are feeling more comfortable to start gathering again thanks to the vaccine and regulations being lifted. We've been working on giving our living room a bit of a refresh in preparation for some much anticipated gatherings. One of the things...

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Uncategorized / 08.06.2021

A few years ago, my sister gave me a few peonies from her garden to plant in our yard. I remember the first year after planting, how excited I was to get a single bloom on that plant. Today, we have dozens of blooms. I'm not sure why but this year seems exceedingly abundant. I love it! I hope they continue to spread so I can divide them to plant more throughout the yard. Last year, I remember feeling hesitant about cutting them as they looked so pretty in...

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Uncategorized / 27.01.2021

Happy New Year! I've never really been a big New Year's resolution type person but I do like this time of year because it feels like a fresh start and pushes me to make small changes to my life. I find myself usually trying to get more organized or to fit more time in for exercise. Well, this year is no different but I also am working on some changes to my blog that have been a long time coming. You see, when I came up with Graceful...

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Uncategorized / 18.12.2019

Last March my husband asked me what I wanted for my birthday and I told him that I wanted him to build me open shelves for our coffee bar. Fast forward several months and a few projects in between and we have new shelves for our coffee bar. First, let's recap how they looked then. I had this rustic shelf from Hobby Lobby which I loved but I didn't feel like it truly fit with the rest of the style of our home. To see what this space looked...

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Uncategorized / 17.12.2019

Does anyone else feel like this month is flying by? Since Thanksgiving fell late this year, I knew it was a shortened holiday season. I even started early and yet here I am feeling behind. Today, I had a chance to do a little photo shoot of our dining room decorated for Christmas. This year, I went very neutral with mixed greenery and silvers throughout our home. I added a faux cedar garland to our mug rack and wrapped it with a silver bell garland for added sparkle. One of...

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Uncategorized / 01.10.2019

It's October 1st! We have been having gorgeous weather here in New England. The last several days have been beautifully sunny with crisp fall air. I've been decorating for fall around the house and felt inspired to create a fall tablescape. A little over a week ago, I went to the Profound Market which is a vintage market that takes place in Lancaster, MA. If you're local, I highly recommend checking it out. They bring in tons of local vendors, food trucks (which are delicious by the way) and...

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Uncategorized / 20.06.2019

Our side door is the main entryway we use for our home. I've always had a rocking chair there and tried to keep it visually welcoming with my decor but it felt like it needed a little something more. The inspiration for this entryway refresh was a sign that I had a local artist make. I had a vision for a personalized welcome sign to go in this space and Ann Marie of Thimble & Thicket totally nailed it! This is the image I sent to her of the...

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Uncategorized / 10.05.2019

One of my goals for this year, was to organize our house. I started the year off with organizing small areas, such as our linen closet. I also organized things like our spice cabinet and our DVD movie collection. I began purging things that we no longer need/use or that we just don't love anymore; in Marie Kondo's words, things that didn't "spark joy". While purging, I realized that I needed to get the rooms in our house in more of a "finished" or functioning state. Since we moved...

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Uncategorized / 31.01.2019

If you saw my previous post, then you might remember that one of my goals for this year is to get organized. For us, that doesn't only mean organizing spice drawers and linen closets, but to get the rooms in our house finished. There will always be a project of course, but my focus is to get them to a place where I have a better idea of what we need in that room in order for it to function. This month, I have been really focusing on...

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Uncategorized / 17.01.2019

As the new year rolled in, I thought about what I really want to focus on this year for 2019. I often have the same goals which is usually to eat healthier and exercise more regularly. While that is true and I do want to do all those things, I'd say my main focus for the year is to get organized. We moved into our home 3 years ago and we still have boxes scattered in the basement from that move. We've had a lot happen in those...

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Uncategorized / 13.12.2018

Hi Friends! It's taken me a little longer to get around to posting our family room for Christmas than I had hoped but I've got some fun stuff to share. Every year, I try to change up our tree slightly. Last year, I had an emerald green ribbon and used emerald tones throughout the room to tie it all together. You can see last year's tree here. This year, I went more neutral alternating white fur ribbon that looks like snow with sparkly champagne ribbon. I also added some sprigs...

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Uncategorized / 20.11.2018

I can't believe November is almost over and we're only a little over a month away from Christmas. This month has flown by! Within the last week or so, I started breaking out some of the Christmas decor. I am not hosting Thanksgiving this year so I figured, why not get a head start? The truth is, I'm an early decorator ;) When my husband and I were first married (pre-kids), I used to wait until the day after Thanksgiving. We would go get our real tree on...

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Uncategorized / 02.10.2018

It's October and Fall is here! I love Fall in New England. The colors are beautiful this time of year. I've been slowly adding Fall decor throughout our house and the dining room was the most recent room I decorated. I decided to go with a mostly neutral color palette with hints of purples and peachy oranges. My mom gave me a set of purple gobblet glasses 8 years ago when we bought our first house. Those glasses were my inspiration for this tablescape. I placed a bunch of...

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Uncategorized / 20.09.2018

Hi Friends! It has been quite some time since I posted! I hope you all had a wonderful summer! Ours was great and busy! We spent a week in our favorite vacation spot in Ogunquit, ME and the rest just feels like it flew by. We have lots of exciting things happening over here at Graceful Farmhouse. When we had the plumber here to hook up the final items for our master bathroom, we asked him about a leaky faucet in one of our other bathrooms which then snowballed...

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Uncategorized / 28.02.2018

Yesterday, I posted about the state of our master bathroom when we moved in 2 1/2 years ago. If you missed it, you can go back and check it out here. Today, I am talking about the plans we have for it. We went with Edgecomb Gray by Benjamin Moore for the wall color. We wanted a warmer gray tone and everything to be light and airy feeling. For the shower tile, we chose white subway tile for the walls, a hexagonal pattern tile for the shower floor and white...

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Uncategorized / 22.02.2018

One of the simplest ways to freshen up a space is to change out the throw pillows. Now, this would get costly and clutter up your home real fast if you just bought a pillow every time. However, one of my favorite ways to change out throw pillows is to use pillow covers instead of actual pillows where possible. My go-to stores for this are Hobby Lobby and H & M. Often times, Hobby Lobby has them on sale for 50% off which brings down the price to just...

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Uncategorized / 19.01.2018

Last Summer, I decided to refinish our dining room table. If you've been following the blog, then you might remember that I tend to start one project that leads to another. Well, the dining room was no exception. Since we had to take the table out of the room for refinishing, it felt like a good time to paint the whole room. Here is what the dining room looked like when we first moved in. The lighting is a bit dark, but the walls were two different shades of pale...

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Uncategorized / 20.12.2017

Every year we pick out a real Christmas tree and this year was no different. As I was going through old pictures, I came across some of our trees in previous years so I thought it would be fun to take a look back at each one for the last 7 years. 2010 was the first year we were married and in our first house. The house had vaulted ceilings and the cut-your-own tree farm that we went to had a fixed price for any size tree. So...

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Uncategorized / 14.12.2017

I love to add touches of Christmas throughout our home. It makes our home feel so festive and cheery! Part 2 of the tour brings us into the kitchen where I added some greenery and some festive Rae Dunn dishes to our coffee bar area. If you missed the project where we removed an entire cabinet for this open shelf then you can read it here on the blog. It was worth it! :) Off the kitchen is our dining room where we gather when we entertain. The dining room was one of my many projects over...

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Uncategorized / 06.12.2017

Every year, if you come to our house around this time of year, it's no secret that I love to decorate for Christmas. It is definitely my favorite holiday to decorate for - the bright, cheery lights, the sparkles, what's not to love! :) Each year, I change things up slightly based on what's currently inspiring me. Last year, I went with whites and faux furs. This year, I wanted to add some green and natural elements to the mix. I have to say that when the Hearth and Hand...

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DIY, Uncategorized / 12.09.2017

When we first moved into this house, we lacked furniture since our previous home was smaller. One of our kind neighbors was updating her home and gave us several pieces including this dining table. The table is a great, solid piece that was well loved over the years so it needed a little TLC. Here's a closeup of the before finish. I started by stripping the old finish with our power sander. I used a 60 grit sand paper with the orbital sander and it worked great! *Side note: If you're in...

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Uncategorized / 25.07.2017

Often times when I get inspired, I just jump right into something and start doing it. Well, that's what happened with our fireplace last Fall. You see, Christmas is my absolute favorite holiday to decorate for and I could not wait to decorate our fireplace since it's the first home we've owned that has one. I had finished painting the walls in the room a nice grey but I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with the fireplace. Should I keep it the natural brick color? Should...

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Uncategorized / 18.04.2017

The living room in our house is one that we really don't use all that much right now which is why it's the first before & after I'm sharing because it's free of toys and can be easily photographed. :P However, I've found it to be a perfect spot for reading or blogging at night when the kids are in bed. When we first moved in, the room was painted in a creamy, yellow-y, off-white color and the fire place was in it's original state from when the house...

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Uncategorized / 13.04.2017

Home by Grace is back and under a new name: Graceful Farmhouse. The main reason for the name change was for technical reasons. My last blog name was hosted through Wordpress and wasn't an actual available .com domain name so I had to find one that I could purchase to be my own. The other reason for the name change is that Graceful Farmhouse is a better fit for describing the style of this blog and my design style. I love to decorate my home in a farmhouse style...

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Uncategorized / 29.03.2016

In part 2 of our home tour, we're moving on up to the second floor. First up, Andrew's bedroom. This was the first room in the house we painted so we could get everything set up for him. Across the hall is another bedroom. This is currently a guest room. Excuse the frog tape container on the floor :) As we go down the hall, we'll come up to the bathroom. Next, is the 3rd bedroom. We are currently using this bedroom while we wait on getting some work done on the...

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Uncategorized / 01.03.2016

Welcome back to Home by Grace! I never knew how stressful moving from one house to the next is (especially with a not even 1.5 year old just learning to walk) and you never realize how much junk you have until you move. It's been a busy past few (or several) months. We closed on our new home on Thursday, July 2nd of 2015. That Saturday, we left for vacation for a week so really didn't do much until mid-July. After vacation, we cleaned the house and prepped for painting...

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Uncategorized / 04.05.2015

Recently, my son turned one and I can't even tell you how fast that first year went by. If you have kids, I'm sure you can relate. Even if you don't, it seems time goes by faster as you get older. Anyways, we had a small family birthday party for him. We kept it relatively simple with easy crock pot foods like pulled pork and salads and I wasn't even going to do much decorating or have a theme. Well, the designer in me ended up having way...

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Uncategorized / 12.02.2015

This month has been crazy! We've gotten around 6 feet of snow in the last month. I'm so glad we're halfway through February because we're that much closer to Spring! As if there wasn't enough grey outside, I decided to change out our curtains in our dining area with grey and white stripes. I've been really liking the striped curtain trend I've seen in several retailer's catalogs lately. Pottery Barn, Crate & Barrel, West Elm to name a few. They looked beautiful. But price...

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DIY, Uncategorized / 13.01.2015

Okay, so I'm certainly not the first blogger to make one of these but I loved the idea and wanted to try making one of my very own. I've pinned a tutorial on my DIY Pinterest board on how to make one, but the one I went off of is over at The Idea Room. I built mine slightly different but used the same measurements. The employees at Home Depot are great about cutting everything for you too! :) Supplies: Two 5.5 inch, 1 x 4 poplar wood boards (ends) Two 31.5...

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Uncategorized / 12.01.2015

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and New Year! We hosted Christmas Eve this year which wasn't our first year doing so but it was our first time hosting with a baby and it went much more smoothly than anticipated. The hubby was a great big help whether it was running errands, cleaning the house or just helping get the little guy napping. It was great having him around the few days prior to prepare! :) Christmas Day we got a bit of a break from hosting and...

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DIY, Uncategorized / 22.12.2014

I always love receiving Christmas cards from friends and family this time of year. However, I never felt like I had a good, large enough spot on our walls to display them. I started thinking about how I often see them nicely clipped onto twine horizontally which I don't have room for so I though why not just hang it vertically? All you need is a long piece of twine, a tack/nail, and some mini clothes pins that you can find at any craft store (I got mine at...

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Uncategorized / 15.12.2014

Welcome to part 2 of my Christmas home tour! If you missed part 1, you can check it out here. For this half of the tour, I will be showing you our second floor living space including our kitchen and dining area. I kept everything a little more neutral here using a lot of champagne accents with just a few touches of red. As you walk up the stairs, I added garland with lights, ribbon and champagne poinsettias to the banisters. On the back of our front door (which is...

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Uncategorized / 10.12.2014

I was recently nominated for a Liebster Award by a fellow blogger and Home by Grace reader, Marja from thisismarja. Thanks so much Marja! :) I had never heard of this award before, but I learned it's given to newbie bloggers (like me) to help promote them and meet other new bloggers. Seems like a great way for connecting to other bloggers! The rules go like this. I need to answer 11 questions and write 11 random facts about myself and pass along 11 new questions to 5 new bloggers. Here are my answers to Marja’s 11 questions: 1. What’s your...

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DIY, Uncategorized / 10.12.2014

I don't know about you but I've been loving this black & white stripes trend. I've seen them a lot lately in fashion, office supplies, Christmas cards, etc. My inspiration for this project was this Kate Spade planner which has the stripes and gold accent text. I found this wreath at a local thrift store and it was already gold but I thought you could easily get the same look by picking up one of those little twig wreaths from Michaels or another craft store and spray painting it gold. Then, all...

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Uncategorized / 09.12.2014

'Tis the season for sparkling lights, the smell of fresh balsam (or fraser fir depending on your tree), fuzzy blankets and a cup of hot cocoa cuddled up on the couch by the fire, watching Christmas movies. It's Christmas! That means lots of decorating has been happening in my house! This is my favorite time of year for decorating. It means I can have a whole lot of glitter and sparkling lights and what girl doesn't love sparkly? :) When I was a kid, I used to take all...

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DIY, Uncategorized / 03.12.2014

In a previous post, I told you about a window that I purchased from a local antique store. It was the perfect size for a specific area on our wall. Well, I finally finished it and have it hung. Here's how I made it: First, I removed the old hardware and cleaned it up. Then, I touched it up with white paint. I used Benjamin Moore's White Heron because that's what I had on hand and it actually matched well so I was happy. I though about distressing it but the wood...

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DIY, Uncategorized / 27.10.2014

I had been looking for a wicker chair that wasn't too expensive for some time when I finally came upon this one while driving. It had missing wicker in a few small spots and the red color didn't quite fit in with my decor but it wasn't anything I couldn't take on. Here's the original wicker chair. Not terrible but certainly not great either. See the missing wicker? It took some brainstorming to figure out what I could use to replace the missing wicker pieces. My first thought was skewers but those...

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Uncategorized / 23.10.2014

Well, it's officially Fall here in New England and has been for about a month now so I'm a little late in posting this but you'll have to forgive me; still trying to figure out this whole mom thing. :) Fall is probably my second favorite season following Summer. I love the changing colors on the trees; beautiful reds, yellows and oranges. I love how you can bring so many things from outdoors to decorate with; acorns, wheat, twigs, pinecones. Most of all, I love how it's the season...

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Recipes, Uncategorized / 21.10.2014

It's been awhile since my last post. I've been continuing to gather content to write here on my blog just haven't had the time or energy to sit down and actually write it. I'm a new mom and lately, my now 6 month old decided he didn't want to sleep unless myself or my husband was laying by his side. Well, tonight we started sleep training and after 2 hours of trying to get him to sleep, he's finally asleep in his crib...

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DIY, Uncategorized / 18.09.2014

When we first were married, we had little to no furniture so we went to A LOT of yard sales. We found a few treasures and a lot of junk. Among the treasures was this butcher block table that we bought for $5. When we bought it, the bottom part of the table was white but it had a lot of stains on it so I quickly painted it. This was one of my first stabs at it where I used Rust-Oleum Oil Rubbed Bronze. This wasn't bad but it was too...

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Uncategorized / 22.08.2014

One of my favorite things to do is to explore antique shops! My love for antiques started with the old milk jugs that people have out on their front steps. Shortly after that, I fell in love with the old blue Ball mason jar and their beautiful aqua color! I started researching these items and enjoyed reading about the history behind them. It's so interesting to learn how people used these items back in the day. Anyways, I went exploring this week and found some treasures to add to our home. I...

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DIY, Uncategorized / 13.08.2014

First, I measured the piece of wood for the sign which was 24 in wide by 6 in high. Then, I laid out the text in a 24x6 document on the computer. I used Adobe Illustrator but you can use any word editor like Microsoft Word. Next, I reversed the text in my document (so it read backwards, I'll explain why below) and then printed it on two 8.5x11 pieces of paper and taped them together since I can't make really large prints with my printer. To distress my sign,...

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DIY, Uncategorized / 08.08.2014

I love the look of an old shutter and there's so much you can do with them! My father-in-law picked me up this old, green shutter and I knew there were so many possibilities with it so I got to work. First, I gave it a good sanding! It really needed it because the painted was chipping all over the place. This shutter actually made me a little nervous because I'm sure that nasty, green paint had lead in it so I made sure to use a mask and gloves. Next, I...

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Uncategorized / 08.08.2014

We have come a long way since we first bought the place and are continuing to put a lot of work into it. It's true when people say you're always working on and improving your home! Here is the front. We are currently spreading gravel around the yard so please excuse the random piles you may see. Right side view. Left side view. Finally, the back view. Please excuse the absurd amount of different color brown chairs. :) We put this deck in last fall (which I will write about in another post) so...

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Uncategorized / 28.07.2014

A lot more progress was made in the next two months! Here are some photos of the progress that was made after the first month of construction.  Here are some photos showing the progress after two months. New windows were put in which are one of my favorite features of this house. They are Harvey windows and the window panes are inside the glass which makes them so easy to clean! They also tilt inside the house so I can easily clean the outside glass.   You can see in this image that...

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Uncategorized / 24.07.2014

With any flipping of a house, there's going to be some kind of demo. This house got stripped to the bones! Here is the front view after demo. As you can see, they removed the entire roof of the house so we could put a second level to the home.   Front left angle view...

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