How to Create a Home With Character | Easy Home Decorating Ideas and Tips | Decorate With Me

My name is Jenna. Welcome or welcome back to the channel. In today's video we are going to be doing some decorating together and something that I want to focus on in this video specifically is slowly sourcing your statement pieces for your home. These are the pieces that are going to ground your space, that are going to give it personality and character and really reflect your style. So I find that it takes a lot of time and effort to source these pieces and find the perfect ones. So today I want to share some pieces that I have sourced over the past couple of months and we're going to decorate together. So I'm going to style the pieces and I'm going to give you guys some decorating hacks and styling tips as we go along. So it should just be a cozy relaxing decorating video and I hope you all enjoy it. So without further ado let's get into it. Okay so a piece of furniture that I've been keeping an eye out for for years is the perfect secretary desk and I love these because they have a cozy old world feel to them and they're really practical. They don't take up a ton of space and you could fold the desk down whenever you want to work but then you can just fold it right back up and have a beautiful furniture piece that doesn't look cluttered. I also love that they can go anywhere you know a hallway, a sunroom, a bedroom, even an entry or laundry area. So they're very versatile and I've seen a bunch of different ones at the thrift and antique stores lately but I just hadn't found the right one until I came across this beauty. I was immediately drawn to the iron hardware details and I think this one was made out of pine. I just loved the rustic feel of it with all of the charming details like the interior decorative molding piece and the old iron hinges. They had this piece priced at $50 but I did use a 20% off coupon and snagged it for 40 bucks. Okay so I am loving how this piece looks in this entry area. It's really nice because if I want to do a painting or some work work or write a letter or whatever it's like maybe five or six feet away from our dining table so I can just pull over a dining table chair and then work here and then just fold it back up and then have it styled as like a decorative piece and I'm going to style the top with you guys in just a second but I kind of wanted to tell you a little bit about the debacle at the store with this and as you guys saw I found it for $40 at Goodwill and when we were telling the sales guy that we were going to purchase it he was like oh you know there's some glass shelves that go with it and I was like oh are they like solid glass shelves and he was like yeah and he said the reason they didn't put it out with the piece was because they thought it would be dangerous because it wasn't like attached so somebody knocked it it could fall over so they didn't want that liability so they just were keeping it in the back and I was like no that's okay if they're just glass shelves like I just want the piece for the secretary or whatever so we load up the secretary we take it home and then I'm doing a little bit of research back home on it and I realize it is a vintage pine secretary and I see another site that's selling it for like $1,700 which is crazy and of course the top is beautiful it's not glass shelves it's a wooden top with some glass doors so obviously there's a little miscommunication which was fine but then I was like oh my gosh we got to go back to the store and get the top that's beautiful I can't believe I didn't even look at it so then we drove back to the store and the manager was like oh yeah there's nothing here that looks like that two employees looked for it they couldn't find it anywhere they were really nice about it but they were like you know we don't have a top like that that's so weird that he told you that because we don't see anything here so I have no idea what happened to the top apparently it was not meant to have it as a set which is fine because I actually have a really fun plan for this top part as you can see it's unfinished so the top looks a little bit raggedy so my plan for it when I first saw it in the store in the first place was I thought this would look beautiful with some blue and white vintage tile on top just to add a little punch of pattern and personality and I think that the blue and white tile will kind of give it a little bit more of like that hacienda Spanish feel which is what I go for in my home or at least I like to infuse those accents throughout and I think I'm going to do a little thrift flip video in the future so this one will be part of that but in the meantime let's style the top and just get her looking pretty for the time being okay so the first thing that I want to do is anchor the styling with like an art piece or something larger so I didn't have a ton in the vertical size to choose from so we're working with what we have it's a little bit oversized but I do really love the image it is this beautiful photo of Big Sur actually this was taken from a photograph from one of my all-time favorite trips my girlfriends and I took this trip where we had no plans we were just driving around appreciating the scenery pulling off on random spots of the road and we were chasing sunsets and the scenery was so out of this world beautiful and it's like one of my most favorite memorable trips ever and I took this photo on that trip and I actually turned it into kind of this watercolor painting look with an app so it just kind of makes it like a little bit more artistic I think in the future I would like to actually do a painting from this photo like an actual painting but something that I wish more people knew is that you don't need to be a professional photographer or artist to turn memories from really wonderful trips into artwork that deserves a permanent place in your home you can do things like this and turn them into like a faux watercolor painting and another one of my traits is just to take a regular photo from a vacation it can be a photo of your family a photo of the unique landscape of a landmark whatever and you can just turn that into a black and white image and then get that printed and to me that's such a classic timeless look that goes with so many different types of decor and I think it looks really beautiful every single time so those are just some little hacks to get meaningful artwork in your space that feels personal and meaningful to you so now let's layer some pieces in with this that kind of help to enhance it so next I'm going to bring in this rustic base in my personal opinion any good styling vignette has something with character has something where you can see the wear and the patina and the story so I'm going to use this vintage olive jug and I also love how the colors in the jug are very warm but then it has little touches of this green and blue in the glaze which will kind of tie in with the artwork and then I'm just going to pop some little faux branches in it that I found on etsy for like super cheap so I think that that will be just a nice little rustic accent that helps to provide some height and warmth so when it comes to styling vignettes a lot of times I like to style in groups of three or at least odd numbers I think it's really visually pleasing to the eye so I got this little faux vintage brick mold box I showed you guys this in a couple videos back here I think all of these pieces work really well together because of the mix of materials you have the beautiful painting and then the terracotta and the clay the greenery even though it's faux adds that living element so you kind of get a little bit of that outdoor feeling indoors and then you have that contrasted with these little iron details on this box with the warmth of the wood so we have a nice mix of materials that feel really earthy and organic but all work together well to kind of round out this space and make it feel cozy and I think once I source the perfect blue and white tile and get that installed on top it's going to help to add that extra punch of charm and give it kind of like that European Mediterranean feel that I love so much and speaking of Europe something that we always daydream about from our travels over there are all of the freshly baked breads and pastries at all of the bakeries and something that we found that actually helps us to get that same exact freshly baked feeling in the comfort of our own home on our own schedule is Wild Grain who happens to be the sponsor of today's video so if you're unfamiliar with Wild Grain they are the first bake from frozen subscription box that delivers sourdough breads and seasonal pastries right to your door and Wild Grain partners with independent bakeries so I know that the ingredients and the quality of the baked goods are going to be top-notch we love getting all of the seasonal products during the fall season the apple cider donuts are a fan favorite in our house and another one that I always look forward to is the cranberry pecan sourdough which is so delicious during the fall season and probably one of my personal all-time favorites are the giant ginger molasses cookies I think this might be my favorite cookie that has ever existed and I know that's a bold statement but I'm telling you guys the quality and flavor of all of the Wild Grain products are next level and everything bakes straight from the freezer in 25 minutes or less which is so convenient for busy weeknights or if I'm getting ready to host a dinner and I realize I don't have a dessert I can just pop something in the oven straight from the freezer and have an impressive and effortless dessert or you know when I've just made a soup and I realized some freshly baked bread would be a perfect accompaniment I can just throw a loaf in the oven I also really appreciate that Wild Grain uses simple and wholesome ingredients there's never any artificial additives in their products and you can customize your box with classic gluten-free vegan and protein options and Wild Grain is also super flexible you can skip boxes or cancel at any time so if you want to try Wild Grain for yourself you can get $30 off your first box plus free croissants for life when you go to wildgrain.com slash jenna pierce and use my code jenna pierce again a big thank you goes out to Wild Grain for sponsoring today's video and I hope you all enjoy it as much as we do okay so if you all remember from our rental kitchen makeover I had purchased this black modern dining table and it went really well in that space because of the black and white checkered floors it definitely fit the vibe in there but when we moved it into this house it did not have the same effect and I have been keeping my eye out for my dream breakfast dining table for years now so when I spotted this stunning reclaimed wood dining table on marketplace for less than $600 I was so excited we rented a van offered full price and drove over there the same day to make sure that we were the ones to get it and let me tell you this thing is solid wood it was so heavy she's so pretty prettier in person which is rare I feel like with facebook marketplace so excited okay so truly I cannot believe that I scored this this is such an insanely beautiful table and what's crazy is I was actually at a designer store not too long ago in the Scottsdale area and they had the pretty much exact same table and they had it for sale for like $1,600 so the fact that I got it for less than half of that was such a steal and these are the kinds of pieces that help to add so much warmth and character and texture I love that the overall shape is very simple but then you have the beautiful distressed detailing of the elmwood it just helps to add detail and layers and again that storied reclaimed look that I love so much so I do want to style the table with you all but there's one more little detail that I want to add to this little dining nook area these pieces of wall behind me they have just kind of bothered me for a while I had that DIY dried floral piece that I put back there a while ago and I'm gonna move that somewhere else in the house because I never found anything to balance it out on the other side that I liked enough or that kind of went with that piece so recently I did find these beautiful hand-carved vintage wood wall shelves and I found them at the brass armadillo maybe a couple months ago and it was funny because the lady at the booth she was there and she was like uh if you buy all four of them I'll give it to you for $45 and I was like all right perfect so I snagged them all and I like how they're all a little bit different but they still all go together as a set each one kind of stands out individually and feels unique but they all go together as a group which I really love so my plan is to hang two on each wall but first there's something that I kind of want to check with them okay so sometimes with these architectural salvage pieces because they are so old they will contain remnants of lead paint and this right here is what concerns me a lot of times if you see little specks of like old red white green or like blue paint so what we're going to do real quick is we're just going to test it to be sure if it is all chipped like this it easily gets into dust particles like it chips off of the wood and then you breathe it in especially if it's somewhere like in a dining nook or in a kitchen I just want to seal it if it is lead paint so we're going to test it really quick and then we'll go from there this does appear to have like a wax coat on it so it might be lead paint but it's like underneath a layer of wax like they sealed it so I'm assuming that's probably what happened because they do feel quite waxy this isn't turning red which that means that it would be indicative of lead paint I'll show you an example actually let's see get in here yeah we are not getting positive for lead paint so that is good okay so this is a piece that I know has lead paint in it I've already tested it so I'm going to just kind of show you guys you can kind of see the remnants of like this old white paint here there's also little bits of red here so I'm just gonna go in here you'll see this will turn red over here too yeah so I'll typically do this for like all of my older chippy paint pieces just to double check the biggest risk from my understanding is young children obviously if it can affect anybody I just don't want it in my home especially with Kona so you know I always test and if it does have this then I'll put a coat or two of matte sealer on so that the lead paint can't like break off and cause dust particles that you breathe in so something that I like to do when decorating my space is thinking a little bit outside the box when it comes to wall decor obviously artwork is classic and such a great way to set a tone for a space but I also like to mix in other types of wall decor things like shelves plates textiles and mixing up wall decor just makes things feel a little bit more inspired in my opinion and I love that these little rustic shelves give me the opportunity to play around with what I decide to style on them too okay so I was able to shop our home and find some pieces that will add a little pop of greenery add some warmth and that will fit on the shelves I will say long term I'm probably going to source some pieces with more meaning but for now this is what we got this is just some faux asparagus bush and a little ceramic base that I got from the craft store so this was very affordable but still has kind of like a rustic look this is actually an old vintage inkwell and I got this from an antique shop in Blowing Rock North Carolina super cute little place if you guys are ever in Blowing Rock so I love this piece and then I just pop these faux eucalyptus stems on top and then this is actually a little that I thrifted and I actually just clipped this succulent from the front yard it'll probably need to be planted so I might swap this out for a planter but I kind of like the mix of every other with like a warm terracotta brownish clay color and then the lighter creams and then this is just from the craft store the greenery is whatever but I really did like the aged distressed look of the terracotta pot so we're going to style these on the shelves and kind of complete the look and then we will get to styling the table I also thought that when we have people over it could be really nice to do some of those battery operated Illuminara candles on here they look so lifelike and realistic they are not real candles so it'll be nice they won't leave like a soot mark or be dangerous or anything like that but they'll just add that gorgeous flickering romantic light so that can be another use for these little wall shelves maybe when we have company or having a special dinner or a holiday meal or something but for the everyday I do just want to style some little vases and pops of greenery on these okay so now I just wanted to do a little styling on the dining table and because we don't have like a hanging light fixture in this area there's not really anything anchoring the space so while a tall vase with like large twiggy stems isn't typically practical for like entertaining just for everyday styling I like to have something to visually anchor the space and just add some height and scale so I have this vintage jar and this is just gonna go kind of a little bit off center here in my personal opinion you can never go wrong with a large rustic vase I always use these to anchor my dining tables I think they just feel really classic and timeless and I love the rustic earthy look that they give to a space especially for fall which is kind of what we're gonna lean into with this styling specifically since we're kind of entering the autumnal time of year just when you want things to feel cozy and warm so like I said I'm trying to add that height and scale so I have these very oversized brownish rusty colored twiggy stems now these were from magnolia I believe so I will link them if they are available but these alone are just gonna give that like fall exclamation point give me the scale and height I was looking for I love the realistic look on these leaves I like how they're kind of like a rust color towards the bottom and then they slowly fade to like a crusty brown like the leaf is kind of dying and going through that natural color change I just think these are so beautiful and realistic looking and give me the scale that I'm looking for we're gonna do another group of three which you all know is my favorite and when it comes to this specific space I tend to restyle it very often just because it is kind of the heart of the home and I like to keep it feeling fresh but there is one piece of decor that almost always stays out on this table because of how practical and functional it is for us and that is our bowl of napkins and this to me is such an elevated way to kind of display something meant for everyday use that's really practical but I also think that it looks really nice and then obviously we have a group of two here so we have something lower and wider and then we have something taller so I like to finish it off with just something a little bit smaller so I'm just going to finish it off with this ball candle I like to swap these out with the seasons but this is actually a very affordable candle it smells delicious I believe it's pumpkin apple cider and I like that it kind of ties in with the rusty color of the leaves definitely helps the space to feel cozy and this table is definitely exactly what I was looking for so I'm glad we were kind of able to create that rustic cozy comfortable look with the distressed wood shelves and the distressing on the table and the simple yet rustic finishing pieces that make things feel inviting and cozy and practical but also elevated in style all right everyone that about wraps up this video I hope that you all enjoyed seeing how I styled some of my new pieces I'm so excited to do some seasonal decorating with these items as the holidays approach so I like that I could kind of show you guys where I got them and just kind of my intentions with them for the future because for me I have really found that slow decorating is the best kind I just want to share some encouragement that building a beautiful home takes time it doesn't happen overnight especially when you're sourcing pieces for a meaningful home a home that has character and that really reflects your own style it does take a lot of time so it's so fun to get to share the journey with you all and I really appreciate you being here and watching this one I hope you have a wonderful and beautiful week and I will see you all in my next one bye