I’ve often noticed that the features in design magazines show these meticulously decorated homes with the exact same style throughout the house. It’s almost like you could take a design element from one room in the home and place it in another, and it would fit seamlessly.

Perhaps that’s something they teach you in design school, I don’t know. All I know is that I like far too many styles to settle on just one. I guess my design styles blend well together – I don’t have crazy modern furniture or use country blue and mauve – but they are definitely not completely interchangeable.

But you know what? I still think it’s beautiful. I think Melissa over at The Inspired Room would be proud that I am looking beyond the perceived imperfections to find the beauty. Or at least I hope she would be.

Let’s take a brief tour of my home, so you can see what I mean. Will you join me?

This is my dining room. The first thing we did when we moved in was paint it this amazing shade of blue. We also added crown moulding and chair rail. Well, DH added the moulding and chair rail. We have dark wood furniture in that room, and the contrast is amazing. I love it.

Through an arched hallway, you can pass from the dining room into our kitchen. I’ll admit, I’ve done absolutely nothing in the kitchen – other than add my coffee maker and espresso machine to the counter! We have dark granite counter tops and dark wood cabinets, but tons of natural light so it’s not at all dark in the room. The appliances are stainless. One of my favorite features are the little mailslot windows on either side of the cooktop. I definitely need to add some accessories to the kitchen, but I don’t want to give up any of our plentiful counter space.

Our breakfast room is immediately off the kitchen. We had a table and chairs stained to match our kitchen cabinets. Isn’t this little toddler chair adorable? DS isn’t quite tall enough to sit in adult chairs, so we bought him his own little chair that matches ours. The curtains in our breakfast room are blues, browns, and golds. You’ve seen them really dark pictures of them before here.

The kitchen and breakfast room open into our family room. This is absolutely my favorite in the house, but it also presents the biggest design challenge. We only have two full walls in the room, and one has floor to ceiling windows. Because this room is open to the 2nd-story, the walls are extremely tall. The above picture shows the top of the two story window treatments I created (which coordinate with those in the breakfast room). I have a lot of problems trying to decorate this room – between the tall walls, tons of windows, flat screen TV hanging on the wall, and the toys – so I haven’t done a ton in here. I’m definitely looking for inspiration (and ideas).

The last room in our home that has a similar style to the other three that have been mentioned is DS’s playroom. This room is on the 2nd story, but it’s a lofted area that overlooks our family room through wrought-iron railings. To be honest, the extent of the playroom decor so far is a Thomas the Train table, a denim slipped couch with red pillows, and this airplane on top of an armoire. I definitely need to focus more on this room, but since it usually looks like this…

…it feels pretty pointless most of the time.

Off the playroom, you’ll find my sewing room. As the only female in our house, I declared that this room was mine to decorate however I wanted, which meant as girly as possible. It’s kind of shabby chic, with white furniture, roses, pink, etc…basically anything that will ward off the boys. This chair was my first ever re-purposing project.

When we moved into this house, we moved DS out of his crib and into a big boy bed. He went to stay with my parents for a week while we moved and got settled, and he came back to his new room and transportation bedding. He loves it and never had a single problem in his transition from crib to bed. I bought the bedding at Target so it was cheap. I’m all about cheap bedding for little kids. His room will probably stay “theme-y” until he’s a little bit older.

Back downstairs, you’ll find the master bedroom. It is a lovely room with wonderful natural light and six windows. Six! There’s even a bay window! Even better to highlight my beautiful TOILE! Sweet DH…It takes a special man to agree to sleep in a French Country bedroom. He even helped me fabricate a toile covered headboard (which I promise to do a tutorial on when I have the time). This room is still coming together and has a long way to go, but I am loving it. I also love my combination of the red pillows with my navy toile, but my mother does not. 🙂 It’ll all come together, I promise. I can see it in my mind.

Well, there you have it. Several different styles of decor throughout my home. I do want to start incorporating some elements from the different styles in each room so they flow better. That presents a bit of a challenge, but I think I’m up to it.

Please tell me I’m not alone! Do you have several different design styles in your home?

On Saturday morning, I found myself on the soft leather couch at my hair salon waiting for my color to process. I was delighted to find a Martha Stewart Living waiting on me in the magazine basket – until I discovered it was from September 2007.

Seriously? 2007? With the amount I pay them every six weeks, you’d think they’d have more current magazines.

It’s a good thing that Martha Stewart is timeless, huh? ::Ba-dum-cha::

In my favorite section of MSL – Good Things – I saw a great little tip for easy floral arrangements. I wanted to remember the tip, but I had no pen or paper on me. So, doing what any normal gal in this day and age would do, I took pictures of the blurb with my iPhone.

Got it? Good.

Wait…what? You can’t read that?

Well, lucky for you, the fabulous folks over at MarthaStewart.com add their Good Things blurbs to the website.

Who says you have to master the art of floral design to create pleasingly balanced arrangements? Use a toothbrush holder as a vase and you’ll achieve perfect symmetry every time. Simply fill the toothbrush holder with water and tuck one or two stems into each hole. Then take a step back and admire your handiwork.

Yet again, Martha saves the day.