My Home Style Tours: Before and After
Hi there! Today’s an exciting day. The lovely and talented Stephanie from Casa Watkins Living has organized another My Home Style blog hop this time featuring before and afters. If you are unfamiliar with this unique tour of homes, different bloggers show you their favorite styles and how to get the look.
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My Home Style: Before and After Edition
A special welcome for those of you coming from Pocketful of Posies!! I’m just smitten with everything Cat does and her skills for creating a soothing and soft interior in her signature romantic industrial style. 
Before: Stage One
For this edition, I’m going to share our main living area in three different stages. Let’s start with when we moved into our little Okinawan rental 20 months ago and was issued government issued furniture. Yuck. We had to wait a few weeks before our household shipment came so I started the decorating process as best as I could. 
Pretty boring and red. I knew I wanted to keep the space light and bright with pops of color so the white sheers and tribal patterned rug were some of our first purchases.
Before: Stage Two
After our furniture came and we got additional shopping done, the house started coming together. We found some great pieces of used furniture including a beautiful media center and a pair of camel-toned club chairs.
I had the room layout planned and executed right away but soon realized it could improve. When you have a 500 lb piano there’s only so many options for furniture arranging. 😉
The rental kitchen underwent an inexpensive makeover with a big impact. I did play it safe by choosing a wood grain contact paper to cover the cabinets but it was such an improvement. The DIY Plate Magnets are one of my favorite projects to date!
After
After Fall last year when I decked out the house in neutrals with layered textures I started missing color and became even more adventurous with DIY projects and decor. There’s limited resources on this little island so Amazon quickly became my best friend.
The first major change was a better layout for the living room. 
Moving the pair of chairs in front of the glass doors and shifting everything else to the right was a PERFECT decision. The flow and line of sight couldn’t get any better. 
By this time I had a nice little collection of houseplants and local decor to infuse into all of my vignettes. The style was definitely becoming more eclectic and more me.
I took part in my first One Room Challenge last Spring and our kitchen received a DRAMATIC (and maybe a little crazy) makeover with Floral Kitchen Cabinets, DIY Swiss Cross Tiles, and a Table Makeover. It was go big or go home in this rental! 
The China Cabinet was made over with washi tape on the shelf fronts and construction paper taped to the back. Living in a rental in Japan has given me lots of practice of being creative and thinking outside the box! 
Just for fun, how about some side by sides?
Before | After
Before | After
Before | After
What do you think? Did my contemporary classic taste change more to eclectic and bold? If you love this look as much as I do, scroll down to see some key pieces to add this style to your home!
White Moravian Star Light | Wood Tray | Flowers in Vase | Clara Removable Wallpaper | Floral Throw Pillow | B&W Striped Throw
Now it’s time to tour Copper Dot Interiors‘ My Style Home Tour or you can find the entire line up of homes below!
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Love how you made this rental feel like a home!! xx Caroline
Thank you Caroline! I’ll have a new rental home to transform soon. Yippee. 🙂
you have done such a phenomenal job adding your personality and style in such a short time! i am uber impressed!
Thank you so much Cassie! xoxo
It was so fun to watch your style become YOU over the 20 months! I love that the choices got progressively bolder.
Thanks Melissa! Me too. xoxo
Kathy I am in love with your style and amazed of your journey to get there. What a complete transformation from before and in such a short time frame!! Incredible.
Thanks so much Steph!
I agree with the ladies above. It has been such a treat to follow your decorating journey! Can’t wait to see more in the new space!
Thank you sweetie! Hopefully we won’t have to wait too long to move into our new home.
Dramatic and crazy is my favorite–those cabinets are so cool!
Awesome!! Thanks Gretchen.
I loved seeing these before and afters, hon! You have such a lovely and unique sense of style. Isn’t it so much fun when a room really starts to feel like “you”?! You’ve done a wonderful job! xo
AW! Thanks so much Karen. I really love this little rental. I’ll be sad when we leave.
Wow, so fun! I love your style! What a great job you’ve done!
Thanks Amy! xoxo
I can’t believe how quickly you were able to add in so many layers and so much personality into your space! It’s so fun and so inviting! Great job! xoxo
Thank you Laura! And now we have to do it again. (We are moving next month to mainland Japan!). 🙂 I’m excited for a new house to decorate.
I love these two spaces! You have so many great pieces, and that removable wallpaper is perfection 🙂
Thank you Jen! I’m going to miss my floral cabinets when we move. I’ll have to find something else to wallpaper!
Your space is so fun! That government furniture was such a bore but I liked how you attempt to make it look stylish! lol. I adore your style and I cannot wait to see what you do in your new place.
Thanks Jess! They are picking up the govie furniture today. Good riddance! Our next move in Japan, they send all our stuff from storage. Woohoo!