Home Sweet Chicago — The Creative Brief

I have a love-hate relationship with Mondays. I always dread waking up on Mondays because, you know, it's Monday... but then I always get the urge to be really productive a few hours later so that I can prepare for the week ahead. This productiveness usually turns into me cleaning and organizing the entire apartment (which doesn't take long considering we live in a not so large place).

But, a clean and organized home always adds to my productivity so win-win. I'm finally in a place with decorating that I'm okay with the idea of sharing some pictures that have been requested! So, we have the living room & bedroom!

Flowers - similar | Candle {Home Goods} | Table Tray {Home Goods} | All three books available on Amazon

When thinking about how to decorate I wasn't sure what to do because I have always lived with girls so pink and glittery was never a problem. When designing what Kollin and I wanted I always found things on Pinterest and if I liked them and they were girly (99.9% of the time they completely were) then I would either do one of two things:

1) Change the color scheme to a more gender neutral tone

2) Stay completely neutral

The end result ended up being a pretty neutral apartment with some touches of color throughout. My best advice for designing a room is to start with the neutral color you want. I was dying to have white everything, but Kollin and I both knew that that idea wasn't practical for our first place. So, we decided that gray was the next best option. Then choose the colors you want to accent the neutral color (we chose black, yellow/gold and white).

When it came to the bedroom we didn't have many options for decorating because the bed took up the entire room (no exaggeration there). Because of this, we got creative with artwork and made a gallery wall that portrayed both of us and the things we love. Green is Kollin's favorite color and I love navy and already had the bedspread so it all worked out pretty well!

Bedspread {on sale!} | Frames are from Home Goods!

Over the past 7 years I've given Kollin numerous paintings as gifts and we knew we wanted to involve them in our decorating. Above is a Jimi Hendrix I painted him in 2008 for Christmas, which is so special to both of us. While I normally wouldn't have planned for Jimi to be hanging on the bedroom wall, he does match pretty nicely and adds an edgier flair to the room!

When finding prints for the artwork I really wanted something that tied in both of our interests and styles, while also making the room about us. So, we have the trendy palm leaves print for me and the mountains print for Kollin with our anniversary date to tie it all in and have as a reminder of choosing each other everyday. Check out these free art prints so you can add some to your next gallery wall!

My last tip of the post is to scope out some more expensive pieces that you want and then go straight to Home Goods or TJ Maxx. These stores are always on trend with decorations and current home decor, but you pay sometimes less than half of what you pay retail. Personally, I think saving some cash on decorations so that you can invest in other items like artwork or a nice rug is the perfect solution and you don't even feel like you're giving something up because the quality and trend are both on point there!

Thank you so much for reading and letting us share a little bit of us with you!