A couple of months ago, I came across Hannah Hagler's blog and fell in love with her eclectic and bold sense of interior style built on her mantra that you can live a fabulous life without spending a ton of money. Hannah agreed to let me interview her and virtually tour her home, and I found lots of really great (and super affordable) ideas to file away for future projects.

 Read below for the full interview!

With my new place, I also inherited a small backyard in need of a makeover. It has a few great features - specifically, a firepit and an old stone slab patio. However, up until a few days ago, I had no interest in stepping foot out there - I am allergic to yard work thanks to my dad's habit of waking up the family at 7 AM on Saturdays to weed, rake, hide behind the shed to make dandelion necklaces, etc. Then I found the pictures of this yard and have been dying to get started on my own backyard.

This bedroom set was a gift from my mother-in-law (and by gift, I mean that I may have coerced her into parting with it by explaining how it would get much more face time in my house than hers... and the rest is history). She bought it for $25 in the 1970s and I'm so glad she hung on to it for all of these years. It's simple, but beautiful and fits our house perfectly. 

So, I've been on a roll designing rooms in our new (old) house and wanted to share some ideas that I picked up about creating a cool bedroom and applied to my new space. Read below for five easy tips that I've learned!

We moved into a rental house that was built in the '30s and has all the charm that money can buy (think arched doorways, worn-in hardwoods, antique moldings) and included a whole set of strange nooks and crannies that took up valuable square footage. Exhibit A above is a 3' x 4' alcove in our hallway that was the resting place for old gym shoes, a discarded wooden chair that Wes picked up off the curb, and useless boxes of 'important documents' that everyone feels obliged to keep but never needs (or opens to begin with, in my case).



Kira Neal has the coolest home ever - plus a great eye for design and art. She inspires me to use more color, and her place has made me want to start collecting modern and pop art to add to the walls of my apartment. I interviewed her for a Refinery29 article about buying a place and wish that we could have included a hundred pictures of all the style she packs into her 2 bedroom condo on U Street!

My friend Gill rented a simple student apartment on Northwestern's campus and transformed it with restraint and thoughtful accessories. I love how it is serene, filled with light, and decorated with vibrant green plants - not just flowers, but living, air-cleaning trees, shrubs and other greens that need love, care, attention and regular watering.