Cozy and Colorful Country Cottage Home Tour

Hello I’m Courtney, and I want to start with a huge thanks to Shannon for inviting me to share some pictures of our home with you today. Shannon has shown me so much support (and so many laughs!) in her comments and shares through the years and she truly is one of the kindest people in all of Blogland/Instagram. Today, I am here to share some pictures of our home all decked out for Spring.

I enjoy decorating for all the seasons, but I really went all out for Spring this year. It was a long and cold winter here in NJ where I live with my husband (a recently retired police officer and all around handyman), our 3 sons (ages 20, 17 and 13) and two golden retrievers.

It’s where my blog name “Golden Boys and Me” comes from. I was so anxious for the warmer weather to arrive that I began decorating my home despite the snow on the ground to help coax the warmer weather into arriving soon. So far, I’m happy to report, it’s working! Maybe more in lifting my spirits than anything else, but I’ll gladly take that.

Our kitchen is the heart of our home and where most of the family living takes place – the real stuff of life. When we purchased our home 12 years ago, it was a fixer upper split level in a great location that was last updated in the 1980’s. We began to make it our family home room by room. It has been a true labor of love! We added the creamy white cabinets about 10 years ago. The kitchen island was originally a darker walnut color that we recently updated with a few coats of Oval Room Blue paint by Farrow and Ball. It changed the entire look of our kitchen.

We enjoy sharing tutorials on Golden Boys and Me that share how we completed small projects to personalize our kitchen to give it a more custom look for less.

A few of those projects include: 

• DIY Pot Rack

• DIY Range Hood Mantel

• Painted Kitchen Island

We removed the walls that separated our kitchen from the dining and living rooms and this open floor plan suits our family much better.

I dream of living in an older home that is full of character someday. But, in the meantime, we have made the best of what we have.

There isn’t much inherent charm that comes with a split level house built in the 1950s, but we’ve done our best to add some of our own with details like built-in bookshelves and the faux fireplace in our living room.

 Next, let’s head down the stairs to our front entryway and family room.

Our family room is just through the french doors right off the entryway. This room has a cozier feel thanks to the stone fireplace and more traditional decor.

We also carved out a bit of space for a small mudroom. With three growing boys, that was a great decision. I have fun adding some seasonal decor but, in an effort to keep it real, if you visited my home today, you would see the mudroom jam packed with shoes, book bags and sports equipment. I’ve also really been enjoying infusing my home with more and more color lately!

Before you go, I want to take you all the way upstairs to our master bathroom.

This room was the $7K DIY project that actually sparked my little blog journey six years ago when I shared all of the sources for this space (you can find that post here). We removed a wall to enlarge the previously very small bathroom and this has become my own private retreat. I recently painted the vanity and am loving the vibrancy and life it has added to our bathroom.

Finally, here’s one more bit of charm that we added with a couple of old bookshelves from a dated wall unit that we used to flank an upper kitchen cabinet to create a window seat in our bedroom.

I’m a huge fan of looking around at what you’ve got to see how you can make it work in a new and unique way.

I hope you enjoyed this peek into our home. I enjoy sharing pictures on Instagram and love how that platform allows us to easily connect and interact so I’d love if you’d join me there and/or on my blog! Thanks again for having me, Shannon!

PS: Shannon here… Hi friends! I had such a strong feeling you guys would just love Courtney’s home. It’s sooo warm and inviting and it makes me feel welcome and wrapped up in cozy!! While there is nothing at all wrong with it, the trend seems to be leaning towards a more sparse approach to decorating, and while that might be right for some, I wanted to embrace what a well curated and collected home can make some of us feel. I absolutely love her rich colors, bits of vintage flair and the FEEL I get when I look at her home! I thought you might too. Big hugs! I’ll be catching up with you all very soon and let you know what’s going on with me. xoxo – Shan 

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