Thank you so much for all your sweet notes about our home makeover! I’m really excited to share the final photos. As I’ve mentioned before, we were lucky enough to work with the fantastic Emily Henderson. Here are the before and afters of our living room, if you’d like to see…Here are the photos of the empty apartment, when we moved in. (You can see the floor plan here, if you’d like.) The living room is nice and bright, and the kitchen and dining nook are off to the right.Here’s the dining nook after Emily worked her magic!! It’s actually the first time we’ve had a dining room table (our old apartment didn’t have room, so we’d just eat at the coffee table) and it’s amazing and life-changing to have a place for family dinners and pancake breakfasts.Alex LOVES the Clash, and he’s had this poster for a thousand years. To his great delight, Emily thought it was cool and hung it front and center! I also like fairy lights, so we strung some up instead of using lamps.
We’re psyched that the chairs are family-friendly—if a certain three-year-old spills spaghetti sauce (check) or wipe peanut-buttery hands on them (check), they just clean right off. :)And Anton has his little Stokke high chair so he can join in, too.FURNITURE: Oak dining table from Design Within Reach (now sold out), dining chairs from Design Within Reach, high chair from Stokke, side table from Canvas, blocks from Land of Nod. ACCESSORIES AND LIGHTING: String lights from One Forty Three, vintage candle holders from Monki Vintage etsy shop, white scallop vase from DwellStudio, mug from Canvas, small plant pot from NYC flower district (similar), rug from Design Within Reach.Between the living and dining areas, this yellow console—which was the TV stand in our old apartment—now holds a bunch of trucks, planes, crayons and instruments. We also have bins scattered around the apartment for the boys’ toys, including this one from West Elm. It’s funny how even when you have a bigger bedroom where your kids can play, they still want to be in the main room where all the action is!
During one of our first phone calls, Emily asked what vibe we wanted our place to have, and I explained that our top priority was for things to feel comfortable—like a soft rug for playing with toys, and cozy chairs for watching movies and chatting with friends. And she totally gave us that—the sofa is comfy enough for naps, the chairs are super soft and ergonomic, and walking on the rug feels like a foot massage.Here’s the room from the other direction. Emily had the great idea to install our own bookcase from the Container Store. The cool thing is, you can choose how far to space out the shelves if you want to leave room for photographs or a lamp, like Emily did here.During this makeover, one of our goals was to get rid of our ratty old furniture and start fresh with some upgraded pieces we could cherish for the rest of our lives. So we figured we’d give away our shabby old glider, which is peppered with milk stains and crayon marks after three years of daily (and nightly) use.
“Aw, I nursed both my babies in that chair,” I told Emily wistfully. “It means so much to me.” After sweetly listening to me absentmindedly wax on fifty times about how much I loved it, she ended up insisting that we work it into the room. We just love that chair so much! I have a suspicion that in a few decades, it will still be my favorite chair, like Marty Crane’s old armchair in Frasier.Here’s the TV and art wall, which was really fun to put together. Although they’re not family photos, the prints feel so personal—from the Beatles and Rolling Stones photos that Alex adores to the car drawing that makes me think of my dad and brother’s car obsessions to the New York prints since we’ve now lived here for more than a decade. Here are all the prints: Deer bed photograph by Katherine Wolkoff (here’s the story behind it), Beatles photo from Sonic Editions, Rolling Stones photo from Sonic Editions, New York buildings by My Guide To, flower photo by Keri Herer, triangle print by Nan Lawson, car print by Hugo Guiness, indigo watercolor by Renee Ann, green-and-pink abstract painting from Leif, pink-and-purple abstract painting from DwellStudio
, building collage was a gift from Danielle Krysa.And here are the other credits, if you’re interested… FURNITURE: Sofa, coffee table, white chair and white side table from Design Within Reach, walnut TV cabinet from Room & Board, leather chair from DwellStudio, white side table from West Elm, wood and brass side table from West Elm, vintage Franco Albini rattan ottoman from Gallivanting Girls etsy shop, glider from Crate & Barrel. ACCESSORIES AND LIGHTING: Solid rug from ABC Home, colorful vintage rug from Fossik, branch floor lamp from Canvas, window treatments by Decorview, vintage Egyptian pillow from Loopy Mango, wooden desk lamp from Anthropologie, flying car photo by Matthew Porter, vintage copper bookends on bookshelf from Monki Vintage etsy shop, vintage gold lamp on bookshelf from Gallivanting Girls etsy shop, brass ball from Me & She etsy shop, geometric pillow from ABC Home, navy linen pillow from Canvas, white pillow from Canvas, pink stripe pillow from Anthropologie.Thank you so much, Emily!!!
It’s now such a beautiful place to come home every day. Looking forward to sharing the nursery tomorrow and the master bedroom on Thursday…Thank you so much for reading! (Photos by the wonderful Ryan Liebe for Cup of Jo. Thanks to Emily’s senior designer Samantha Gluck and two awesome interns, Will and Alex. And huge thanks to Design Within Reach for partnering with us and helping with some of the furniture) 1 Bedroom - 2 Bedrooms Barton Creek Landing Apartments: Close to Everything Austin Barton Creek Landing apartments are located in the heart of Austin, nestled in the treetops of the coveted Barton Creek Greenbelt. Our location on the greenbelt offers residents easy access to hiking, biking, and nature trails nearby. Enjoy an easy commute on nearby Mopac (Loop One) and Capital of Texas Highway (360). In addition to our incredible, newly renovated apartment interiors and exteriors, you’ll also enjoy remarkable on-site amenities around our property, such as a welcoming clubhouse with commercial-size kitchen, dog park, 24-hour gym, and UV swimming pool.