We have had a beautiful spring here in Minnesota! What a gift from God. Does anyone else get the itch to rearrange the house and freshen up this time of year? With the sun streaming in the windows and the weather changing outside, it feels right to me to change things up inside, too.

Some of the rearranging was necessary because my potted palm had grown so well it had become too big for my kitchen window! But where to put it? As I moved some items around, I realized something about our home that I really like and I wanted to share it as a Lesson Learned.

It's probably not super encouraging to start off in January talking about things I regret, but I really hope that these Lessons Learned posts will help you guys avoid some of the mistakes I've made. Last time, I wrote what I've learned about painting wood white. This time, I'm talking about choosing dining chairs with kids in mind. (This post contains affiliate links.)

Lesson Learned: In our house, dining chairs with fabric seats were not a good idea.

Let's go back in time to 2011. We had recently finished our kitchen and we needed chairs and counter stools. Ben and I did not have children yet. What that means is that I did not understand how grimy the whole mealtime-with-kids situation can be.

For the past month or so, I've been mulling over some ideas for how to stretch holiday decorating dollars. When the stores start to put out Christmas decorations in late fall, I get so excited to add a few pieces to my holiday collection! But when the decorating budget is tight, it can be hard to spend money on home decor items that only last a month or so during Christmastime. Do you face the same struggle?

Let me walk you through how I transitioned our hearth and mantel decorations from Christmas to winter. Then I've got some general principles to help you think about how you can do the same—all with the goal of helping you get the most bang for your decorating buck. Here we go.

I was really ready to take down the Christmas tree this year. Our living room is our everything room, so it very quickly starts to feel full and cluttered. (The Cozy Coupe is on vacation in the basement because we just needed some room to breathe. :) ) So I took down the Christmas tree the day after Christmas.

Do you have a fireplace? Our living room has a wonderful fireplace, but we don't use it to build fires. One of the reasons is that the chimney leaks a lot of cold air into the room. We considered a gas insert but it was mighty spendy! For now, we have a Chimney Balloon and a piece of foam insulation jammed up there to help keep out the cold.

That works for us, but we were left with a big black box. A few years ago, we were trimming our beloved birch tree (A white tree! How beautiful!) and I had Ben cut up the branches into logs to stack in the fireplace. The white pops off the black firebox and I think it looks cool, although the inside of the firebox could use a good cleaning and touch-up. Add it to the list!

Happy November, everyone! Last week, a friend commented on my Inexpensive Art Ideas post and asked where to find cute frames at good prices. She mentioned that she prefers a mix of old/new/modern/traditional in the context of a gallery wall.

So I thought about her question and compiled this list of my favorite frame sources with a mixture of styles in mind!