This room, this room is the one that really gets me. Not that the nursery is perfectly designed or because it’s going to blow your mind with its innovation, but this room means that there will be one less young, scared, single mom putting her newborn to sleep at night in the back of her car or in a tent on some sketchy street. That image is what made me want to do this ENTIRE project as I can’t imagine how that mom feels. So I’m happy to present to you the nursery in the shelter.

Welcome to the new series ‘Blast from Secrets Past’, or in other words ‘Emily revisits, rehashes, reposts and criticizes her…

This week, I’m delving into a bit more of the specifics and talking about, you guessed it, sofa choices! Exciting, right? This was a big one for me because sofas are expensive, and for my indecisive self I felt the pressure to not get it wrong. I couldn’t fumble this one. So I took the time to consider everything I wanted in the sofa first.

Transforming high quality vintage pieces from dated and ugly to modern and beautiful (like this table) is extremely satisfying. I’ve been doing this since I was 7 years old when I refinished my first desk by painting it a blush pink. I subsequently entered it into the county 4-H fair where I’m pretty sure I must have won the purple ribbon for cutest, most fashion forward desk ever.