interior design – cozy does it

Good morning friends! I am waking up slowly this morning with some breakfast and coffee. The plan is to just have a lazy weekend since the next few weekends are going to be busy. I am thinking we might do a puzzle and go for a walk, but any ambitions beyond those are yet to be named, or not be named.

While there is a little bit of summer left, I am starting to feel ready for fall and have been eyeing the weather each morning in hopes of some version of chilly at some point in the day, with no luck yet. My sweaters are still folded in my seasonal clothing bin in the closet but they have been looking at me through the clear plastic each time I go to pull a sleeveless top off a hanger. I see you sweaters and we will be together again soon, but right now, it’s just too hot.

Fall can be a tempting shopping season, especially if you are a person who loves to wear sweaters or are cozy-obsessed (like me!) and I find storing seasonal items away can help them feel almost new when it’s actually weather-appropriate to wear those items or seasonally appropriate to display them around your home. These days, fall advertising begins in July and bombards our attention through November, overlapping with Christmas starting in October and sometimes even earlier.

Seeing fall items on display in stores or in digital ads entices us to fill our homes with earthy tones and orange pillows and blankets and put pumpkin-inspired everything everywhere from inside to outside to in our coffee cups. From interior décor to exterior décor to Halloween costumes to specialty seasonal drinks, it’s hard not to lose some pretty pennies to the season in the process of cozifying.

When we lived in New York, I didn’t have specific fall décor. Our whole apartment was aesthetically warm and decorated with rich colors, cozy lighting, and a long red brick wall. It looked ready for fall more than it did any other season all year round, so there was just no need for additional décor.

When we moved to the shore and switched out our red brick wall for light tan ones, our railroad layout for a wide open space twice the size, and our view of the building across Union Avenue for a view of the Atlantic Ocean, summer took over the interior design scheme. When fall rolled around, I was tempted to put pumpkin things in my home. Our full collection of designated fall décor fits in a shoebox on the top shelf of the linen closet and consists of two small wooden pumpkins and one little fabric one that I thrifted, two hand-crocheted pumpkins – one my friend from work gave me and one my cousin made with my late Nana’s yarn, and a cozy fall candle that another cousin gifted to me for my birthday last year.

*All but the candle, which I think may be hiding in with the Christmas stuff*

Keeping seasonal and holiday décor manageable can be difficult and keeping it minimal can be even harder. Though we only have a small amount of fall items, they give our living space that seasonal oomph needed to get me in the cozy spirit. Our fall display, if you could even call it that, doesn’t extend beyond the living room, but for me, that’s enough, and the fact that it takes about five minutes to set up and put away is something I’m very happy with.

I prefer to bring fall into our house with baked goods, hearty meals, and October beers or to get outside wrapped up in a sweater to enjoy the crisp weather and abounding seasonal activities in the Northeast. Fall is also the season where my Harry Potter obsession shows in a big way and while Mike would prefer to not watch Harry Potter movies or do Harry Potter puzzles, he’s a good sport about it, but I’ll save that obsession for another post.

Now it’s time to choose a summery puzzle and let you all get on with your weekend. Thanks for reading and hope that wherever you are, you are able to add a little bit of cozy to your day!

Some of our new neighbors gifted us a real, live plant last week to welcome us to our condo community. They are much more thoughtful and kind than any neighbors we had while living in Brooklyn.

When one of our neighbors handed this plant to Mike (since I subconsciously backed away at the sight of real, green leaves in need of care and nurturing), they told us it would be difficult to kill. I’ll take their word for it, though it is evident that they have not yet come to understand that I have very un-green thumbs despite the warning signs of the very, very dead mountain daisies and English lavender in the teal, planter pots outside our front door.

Though I have proven somewhat incapable of keeping plants alive, I appreciate our neighbors’ kind gesture and am eager to welcome the warmth of that gesture as well as the added greenery into our home. We have placed the new plant on the entertainment stand opposite the faux succulent arrangement that I purchased from my favorite gardening supply store, TJMaxx. The cool, green leaves and warm, terracotta pot tied with a straw ribbon bring me calming joy each time I glance over at the arrangement.

The reason why I have an appreciation for plants, whether replica or real, is independent of my inability to maintain their living status. My mood is sensitive to my environment, and the color that plants paint in pockets of our space evoke calm. Creating a soothing, yet vibrant color palette for our interior decor is important to me in being able to foster coziness in an environment with pared down possessions. To me, green represents freshness and vitality. It also just makes me smile.

Our condo has many of these little pockets of color by way of artwork, fabric, and furniture (and don’t pockets just make everything better?). I believe in employing color and patterns to create coziness and as a person who sews and holds fabric on the same pedestal as artwork, I take extra care to choose fabrics that encourage a coastal, whimsical, cottage feel in our home. From our folksy, Provencal table cloth printed with rows of blue and periwinkle paisley flowers to the buffalo check curtains and marled, braided area rugs, to the squishy, tufted chair cushions tied in bows at the back of warm, wood slats, I try to invoke coziness, character, and simplicity as foundational decor rules in our home to disguise the standard, modern interior that shelters us.

Our new, cozy home is neighbored by welcoming individuals, something that I did not previously value coming from a residential environment where it is rare to know your neighbors. Here, I feel a comfort in being able to reach out to a neighbor to borrow something if I need something specific and don’t already own it vs. buying new. Having kind neighbors is very conducive to a minimalist lifestyle and while it is not a community style that is available to every individual, it puts in mind the idea of creating a borrowing community among friends or family to minimize items that you need to keep on hand in your living space all the time.

I hope to reflect our neighbors’ kindness in future and to offer continued signs of welcome and gratitude for this new community, even if that welcome is only communicated by way of a smile or a quiet “hello” in passing for the time being.

Tag: interior design

Morning Pumpkins!

Nature and Neighborly Nurture