Do you remember the linen tie-up shades I made for my studio in our Minnesota House?  I made them to cover all of the windows in the sunroom, which we finished as my studio.  It was amazing having all of that light coming through south-facing windows, but it would be very intense and even too much.  These tie-up linen shades filtered the light and were adjustable. My friends at Decor Steals loved the tie-up linen shades and asked if I could design some for them to sell to their customers and my blog readers.  Well, yes!  So, they have sold these shades over the years and are now bringing them by popular demand.  The sale is now live and you can purchase them HERE. Here are a few things I love about these shades… Since they are hung on a tension rod, they can fit a variety of window sizes. 

I’ve seen some online polls and design articles written about open concept homes lately.  Are they on the way out?  Are we ready to have more walls and doors in our homes again? I love this conversation and wanted to jump on board.  I have always been drawn to older homes, which are almost never “open concept.”  Well, I suppose if we’re looking at very old homes we have to make some distinctions.  I mean, the one-room cabin can’t get much more open concept.  But if we’re looking at homes from the last two or three centuries through about 1970, rooms were divided by walls and, in some cases, doors as well.  And I find that appealing. Both of our last two homes were been open concept.  Well, our PA home was a bit of a hybrid.  The living room and dining room in the 1940s part of the home

As I bought more and more books, Jeff and I smiled and made two references – a cinematic one and a Biblical one (fitting for a pastor.) “We’re going to need a bigger boat.” and “I just need to build bigger barns to house all of my grain.”  Of course, neither of those contexts is a positive thing, but it’s what came to mind as more used books trickled in from library sales, , , and Thriftbooks.  I’ve built up a collection of several hundred books (most of them on the larger, heavier side of the book spectrum), so I’m definitely looking for some home library inspiration for our next house. We had great storage in our previous home for books, but it started to get a little tricky to figure out how to organize the books in a way I could easily find them.  I wanted to keep all