The Thing About Foxes...

You know, it gets a little ridiculous how often the 'latest trendy animal' changes. Actually let's take a step back and consider the fact that there is even such a thing as a "trendy" animal. Why.

Back when owls were the top dog (haha...dog) in the world of animal trends...I always joked about what would be the next trend. We had the birds....the owls....what could be next? Weasels? Caterpillars? Muskrats? Slugs?

I don't even know if foxes are the most current trend...I think it's hedgehogs now or something but honestly I don't even CARE because there is an abundance of cute fox things out there whether it's trendy or not. This little round up is just a FEW of the precious, glorious, foxiest fox things found online. 

To see more fox goodness...check out my sister's post here  and my mom's post here!

1) Birthday Party Fox Embroidered Stationery 2) Gold Fox Necklace 3) Fox Locket Necklace 4) Arctic Fox Ornament 5) Knit Fox Pillow 6) Fox Love Artwork 7) Fox Sparkler Onesie 8) Fox Nursery Print 9) Fox BlaBla Sock Doll

Design Internship Update

Graduation is swiftly approaching, and while there is definitely a slight uncertainty about the details of what's to come for me, I am feeling more excited than nervous. 

I do think that the nervousness would outweigh the excitement if I didn't have my internship with Kelie Grosso of Maison Luxe. I've learned so much about the design industry through this internship and I feel so much better prepared now than I did as a freshman (although I know I still have much to learn!). Being in design classes teaches you a lot of critical information, but nothing can top real life experience...and I'm so grateful for that!

Kelie and I joke about the 'oh so glamorous' life of a designer...usually as we're risking our lives hauling massive boxes down flights of stairs, or running around Seattle to see just how damaged the table is that was shipped, or finding a replacement for the cashmere that looks nothing like what we ordered (oh the drama!).

It's a little crazy to think back on how I dreamed of an internship where I was working for a designer in a beautiful office downtown. I started to think that idea was a little out of reach, and that I should lower my hopes a bit. But somehow I hit the jackpot with this one. With a view of THIS nonetheless:

Right now Maison Luxe is heading into a new exciting chapter, starting a retail shop in a cute little town in Seattle! I'm really excited to continue helping Kelie with design related things, as well as being involved in this store. And who knows, maybe I'll start a store of my own someday! (My sister and I's secret dream. Oops, secret's out!)


I'll miss this beautiful office but I'm super excited for what's next. I'm also excited to not pay for downtown parking anymore...although I'd say it's worth paying for parking when you're working in an office that looks like that :)

Cheers to new exciting things ahead!

PS: Can we talk about how many times the word 'exciting' or 'excited' was used in this post? Actually let's not talk about it. I didn't have my thesaurus handy.

Oh Whales.

I've shared with you guys that I'm a fan of whales...

(first here and then here) and you know what, that love remains.

While continuing toward my interior design degree and working at my dream internship this year, I have been loving being a contributor/design assistant for my mom's blog, The Inspired Room! So fun. In our most recent Gather post, we gathered up the cutest whale items from around the web. 

So, fellow whale fans, enjoy!

Sources are listed here!

Residential Studio Project {A Modern & Natural Home}

Well, it's winter quarter of my senior year as an interior design student. When on earth did that happen?! Yikes. Wasn't it just a day ago that I was a baby freshman getting started with my interior design degree? Also when was the last time I did a blog post? September 30th? And when is the last time I had blonde hair? Last year. Oops...I suppose I have some catching up to do on this little blog.

For now, I wanted to show you some pieces of my completed project from my Residential Studio class. I really enjoyed this project and was really happy with how it turned out in the end!

Our goal was to design a home for "The Westerley Family". Each student in my class was assigned a different architect and furniture store--which were to represent our client's favorite inspirations, and would be the basis for each of our projects.

I was assigned the very modern B&B Italia as my client's favorite furniture store, and then Alvar Aalto as their architect inspiration. I loved the idea of blending the modernity of B&B Italia with the natural elements that Alvar Aalto loved. We were asked to pick the majority of our furniture from our client's favorite store, which made it a bit of a design challenge for me because normally I'm such a big believer in picking items from many different places--both new and old. 

So I rebelled a bit against picking everything from one place. That just isn't interesting design to me. I always justified it by saying to myself that "The Westerleys said I could." (They didn't ha). But you know...I was happy with the mix in the end. And that's all that matters when your clients are fictional...right?

Once I nailed down the style of my "clients", I started gathering images of spaces that represented the general feel I wanted to create. I also compiled some words that encompassed the style: modern, casual, natural, eclectic, organic, airy, restful, clean, and simple. How's that for a style description?

This project was quite intensive, and consisted of a lot of hand drafting. When our professor first emailed us about the class, he was sure to let us know that "we cannot afford a SINGLE day of slack", so I knew we were in for a crazy quarter.

I don't think I could possibly describe to you how much time went into this project. So many hours were spent in the drafting lab drafting away...while watching movies consecutively on the projector screen. So that helped. Sometimes they were even Disney movies. Sometimes it was til 4:30 AM. One time from 5:45 PM until 3 AM. Cheers!!!!

We reworked the entire floor plan, moved the staircases, and made the house work better for their needs...

Drew up finish plans...

Reflected ceiling plans, electrical plans, a million and 10 other things...and THEN we formally presented our project at the end of the quarter, complete with digital color boards and one physical color board. These were my digital color boards:

To see all the sources I used for this project, 

check out my Pinterest board!

Now I'm in Commercial Studio designing a hotel in Kenya! I'll show you that too when it's done.

I'll try do a separate post talking about what else I've been working on lately because clearly it's been a busy year...but so productive and fun!

Hope you're all having a great week!

Is Interior Design Materialistic?

You guys know I've always loved interior design and are probably totally sick of hearing about it, but what I've learned these past few years goes beyond just the technicalities of design. This is going to be a longer post than normal because, well, I've had a realization and I have a lot to say. We're about to get real here.

I was asked recently while talking about design with my housemates: 'Why do people spend that much money on decorating their house?'. One of my housemates responded by saying 'Because they're vain'. 

Now...here's the thing. In that situation, I completely agreed. The industry of interior design can be super materialistic. It can be an industry that causes people to feel discontent with what they have, and makes them continually want more more more. It can be an industry where people spend ridiculous amounts of money on frivolous things, and yes, that can be vain. This concept is something that has certainly crossed my mind more than once in college...the question of "Waiiit...am I encouraging vanity and discontent by getting into this industry?"

I can say with confidence now--that is not the case. There is so much more to design than meets the eye, and I don't think everyone understands it. This past year has been SO eye opening for me on why I'm passionate about design. Yes, I love beautiful architecture and pretty velvet headboards. But would I say I am passionate about those things? Nope. There's certainly nothing wrong with loving beautiful things. 

But I'm not passionate about things. 

 What I am passionate about is creating spaces that make people feel at home. There is so much value to having that feeling of comfort in the place that you live--having a feeling of safety and order. For me, that starts with good design in a home. 

Here's a little back story about what brought this realization to my attention. My family and I started a church in 2009 called Voyage. We packed up our lives, moved from Oregon to Washington, and have been on this adventure ever since. Church planting is a huge commitment and my family has been both challenged and blessed beyond words these past four years. Because we quickly moved and started planning the church right away, we have never fully felt 'moved in' to our house. We planted the church from scratch and met in a school for the first couple of years, which meant that we didn't have a permanent place for a lot of the church's supplies, so some of it ended up hanging out in our house. We even had a drum set in our living room for awhile and held music practice here. We didn't have much time or money to quite settle in and make our house our own. 

Since then, Voyage has moved into a permanent facility--a building that finally feels like a home for our church. We wanted that so badly for our church family...to have a place that felt secure and welcoming. To create a place that they enjoyed being in and that encouraged conversation before and after each gathering. It seemed like a far off dream, but God made it happen. The building started as a big white box and we had tons of help to make it what it is now. You guys, God has been blessing Voyage like crazy lately. I look around and am amazed by how far we've come. We have amazing people that have total servant's hearts. I know there's a lot that goes into making a church feel like a home for people, but I really believe that having a welcoming building has played a role in that.

Now that we feel settled into this building, we are finally getting settled into our own house. My mom and I were on a roll all summer of organizing, painting, rearranging, brainstorming...and just all around making this house our home. We aren't done yet but we already are in disbelief of how different we feel in this house. We switched a few rooms around to make sense for our needs. We are creating a comfortable guest room and making a second family room out of a room that was mostly used for storage. These things mean a lot to us. They mean that we feel more equipped to host guests...we feel more effective as we work from home, we feel accomplished looking around and seeing things we created together, we feel more organized as a whole, we feel like we have a place to recharge, and we simply enjoy being in our home.

This is the longest post of my life. But it might just be my most important one yet. 

My point is...I've learned what makes me happy about design. I have such a joy in learning how a family works and what role a house can play in their life. I have an opportunity use the things I'm talented in to benefit people's lives. 

That's what I hope to do. We all have that opportunity in different ways, and that is such a beautiful thing.

*beautiful illustrations above are by: Rebekka Seale 

*images above are of Voyage!