My Favorite Interior Design Blogs

One of my favorite parts of this moving/new house process has been finding so many awesome design sites and blogs.

I certainly don't want my space here to turn into all design all the time, but I wanted to share a few of my finds with y'all because there is a lot of awesomeness out there.

The mother of all design sites might just be Houzz.com.

Months ago my mom and my sister told me how amazing this site was, but it wasn't until we started finishing out the new house that I realized what an incredible resource it is. Its search function is amazing.

Want to see a white kitchen with a blue island? Here you go. How about a parsons desk? You'll find so many inspiration photos. I just love it! And their app is almost as addicting as Pinterest. I'll just warn you. :)

And then I made my way into the world of design bloggers.

My favorite might be Jenny Komenda at Little Green Notebook. She has such confidence in her design and makes bold decisions that all seem to work really, really well. She's in the middle of a move from New York to Arizona and I'm so looking forward to watching her transform their new home.

She posts about her own home, her client projects and LGN reader projects as well. I was really inspired by her series of posts sharing her friend Emily's self-designed home in North Carolina.

Emily Clark's blog is so inspiring and real. She's a busy mom and that shows in her design point of view and in her home. Lots of her ideas work for families with little kids - hello awesome book nook! I like that she talks about shopping your own house and making your existing stuff work. I need a boost in that area in a bad way! And check out her dining room turned office. It's so pretty!

Emily Henderson is an HGTV star and is so quirky and weird. Her style is so totally not mine, but her rooms are pretty and colorful and full of stuff that I want to look at. And she's pretty good at finding cool art to share.

I know I'm a better accountant than I am a designer, but there are so many amazing resources out there and so many generous people willing to share their expertise and their sources that I think I'm going to be able to make this new house work.

Even if it takes me years and years to get it all pulled together. :)

Do you have a favorite design blog? And do you have a gallery wall in your house? That's one of the first things on my list after we get moved in!

Happy 4th!

Happy 4th of July friends!

We're celebrating all that is wonderful about this great country of ours with some swimming and some barbecue, super cool shades and maybe a firework show or two.

I really, really wanted to make this peanut butter American flag dip (OMG!) but I ran out of time. Boo! Maybe we'll have it this weekend instead.

via Crazy for Crust

We'll just keep the celebration going.

What are you doing to celebrate today? 

Balancing

Weekends at the family lake house are the best.

They're full of sun and fun and conversation, family and floating and lots of hot dogs.

Here are a few snapshots from the weekend....well, last weekend, but this weekend looked pretty similar.

So the rest of our July will look a lot like this, plus about a million boxes and movers and hours and hours of packing and unpacking.

I'm hoping to balance our time well for the sake of the kiddos. They turn into wild animals when we spend too much time inside, and well, we pretty much have to be inside for me to pack.

So a little packing, a little playing, a little unpacking, a little swimming....we'll balance it all out.

It's going to be a good month!