Blogger: Lauren of Pure Style Home
Now:
photo by Helen Norman
And Then. . .
What makes me cringe when I look back:
Oh boy… this photo makes me both smile & cringe. Ok, more like laugh. It’s a picture of my first apartment in college when I was 19. (JMU!) The apartment came furnished with a sofa, a LR chair, a dining room set, a coffee table and vertical blinds. (eeek!) It’s been almost 10 years and the cringing really comes into play when I look at the dinky size of the artwork and my attempt at hiding the sofa with a tapestry and the plastic pots. But I have to say, I’m still proud of that curtain rod. I cut down a piece of bamboo from the woods near my house and drove with my windows down for two hours to college with that thing hanging out of my car diagonally. I could only afford 1 set of curtain rings so the whole thing only had 6 rings on it and one of the first things I did on move-in day in was get out my drill & install the curtains.
What I love most about my home now:
The thing I love most about my home now is its connection to the outdoors. We have lots of windows and it’s really light & airy-feeling. I love to just sit in my living room at the end of a day with all of the windows open. Have to be honest, though, that this rarely happens in real life ;)
When looking at the two different photos, I can see that I still had a thing for nature –even back then I was a plant lover & killer- and I can see that I was attempting for an easy-breezy casual vibe. The accessories & fabrics I used were mostly borrowed so they reflected other people’s travels & history (mainly my grandparents’) & not mine, so I think that the details in my home now more accurately portray me & my family.
The biggest influence on my evolving style has been:
The biggest influence on my evolving style has been the blog world and the shelter magazines. There is so much inspiration online & I’m constantly amazed by all of the creative ideas & beautiful things design bloggers & designers who blog come up with. There seems to be so much charm & personality in what many bloggers show & create and they’re so open to sharing their ideas & helping others. I also look to shelter magazines for really polished & completed designs. I often flip through them when working on projects to study small details like the distance of a rug from the walls or maybe the styling of a mantle or whatever little thing it is I’m looking for. I’ve realized that I have an innate tug of war going on between more layered, almost cluttered English-feeling rooms and open & light & more minimal spaces. One pretty spread in a magazine can pull me to the other side in a heartbeat, so I’m not sure if - in the future- my style will go one way or the other or stay in between.
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Awww, yes! Aren’t college apartments the best? I only wish I had pictures of mine to show you . . . Thanks, Lauren—this was most enjoyable :) To see more of her amazing work, visit Pure Style Home here.
