At Home With Miggy {Home Tour!}

Perhaps the most commonly received feedback we get about our content at Bloom is that y'all love the home tours. We do too! We're delighted that Miggy is opening her doors and showing us around her 97 year old Victorian home. It's dreamy...

I'm really excited and honored to do a home tour on Bloom today. I admit that this is a rather selfish treat for me as I'm excited to have our first house documented since we only got to live here for 2 short years. Sadly we'll be packing our bags soon and off on a new adventure. Coincidentally, if you're moving to the Cincinnati area, you might be interested to know our house is for sale. :) To start, let me tell you a little about our house. It was built in 1914, which means it's 97 years old! It's a 3 story Victorian, 4 stories if you include the basement which happens to be a total dungeon. (And in fact it is a working dungeon as "the basement" is by far the worst place for our 4 year old to get sent for time out. Super effective). This house has all the original wood floors and is filled to the brim with charm that we had nothing to do with. The minute I walked into this house I fell in love....it had me at hello. Lets get started!

The entry way. One thing about these old houses is closet space is almost non-existent. On the entire 1st floor we have one small closet, so we have to get creative with storage. The red armoire is basically our front closet. (Coats hang on hooks down the hall though).

TV/Computer room, which also doubles as our 4 year olds art room, or as she calls it her studio. Our Warhol Family portraits hang above the couch. You can find the tutorial for making your own Warhol-esque portraits here.

The dining room. One of my favorite rooms. It's big and open with lots of light. The built in bench works great as a table for younger kids--just add small chairs and you're set! We're big on buying second hand/vintage so for all you NYC peeps, we got the dining table and chairs from Circa60. They have great mid-century modern stuff and I'm still amazed we got a great set in such amazing condition.

Living room. (This picture is sorta killing me because the rug is off center, but thats just my OCD, so I'll try to ignore it.) The living room is a work in progress as I plan on getting the blue chairs reupholstered at some point and the rug doesn't really work with the colors but whateves'. My thoughts on decorating are don't buy something unless you love it, BUT it still may need some work (a paint job, reupholstering, refinishing, etc) so don't let that hold you back either. I think of furnishing my home as a journey and I choose to take my time and find stuff I love along the way, stuff that's meaningful to me. I like to feel a connection to the things around me and so I'd rather my house look sort of unfinished or unpolished as I work out the kinks, rather than just getting something I'm not that in love with as a space filler. As far as aesthetic/style we are big thrifters, antique mall shoppers, craigslisters, estate salers, etc. I don't think there is any piece of furniture in the house that isn't second hand. I love this for a couple reasons. 1) I like old stuff. The design and the often good quality really appeal to me. I also like knowing I have something original that no one else has. 2) It's cheaper. 3) Buying second hand is the ultimate green choice. Even if you don't care about the environment and it's just that you can't afford new stuff, you can at least pretend to be really "green" and people will automatically respect your social consciousness. Win win. Also, I'm a painter (when I have the chance) and thus all the art you see in the house is mine. You can see more examples here and here.

We also like found objects...the suitcases on the side of the couch were found on the streets of NYC and we snagged them right up! They make a great side table, plus good hidden storage and I love that I have a little token from our NYC days.

4 Year-olds bedroom. Of course this photo was taken within minutes of being cleaned and was probably trashed within minutes after the photo, but it's lovely isn't it? (The crib has been converted to a toddler bed FYI).

Her shelves/dresser used to be our media center and now it works great in her room for clothes, toy storage and bookshelves. I think that's another thing I learned, if you love a piece of furniture but you're not sure it will work in a new space take it with you anyway...you might find a whole new use for it.

The nursery. The DIY chevron rug is probably the post I still get the most hits on. I still really enjoy this room and was happy with the way it turned out.

Finally the master bedroom.

Well that's it. Thanks for stopping by and thanks for having me ladies!

Lovely! You can read more about Miggy's artful life with her little darlings at This Little Miggy Stayed Home. (Isn't that such a clever blog title?)