On Hospitality & Dining Tables

I recently finished Jen Hatmaker's For the Love (slowly but surely chipping away at my 2016 reading list!) and it got me thinking a lot about hospitality. One of my favorite chapters was Supper Club (chapter 15). In it, Jen discusses community, friendship, good food, fellowship, and hospitality. And let me tell ya, I was more than just a teensy bit jealous as I read about the monthly supper club that the Hatmakers enjoy.

Here are Jen's rules for supper club (with her commentary, of course!):

• One night a month, rotating houses.
• No kids. (Since we have 16 children between us, SC starts at 8 p.m., and the host’s kids are already in bed or bribed with Cheetos and movies. The other parents get sitters, unless they are awesome like me and Melissa and have big kids to babysit, in which case, actual supervision is an incredibly loose concept.)
• When you host, do everything: plan, shop, cook and clean. So three out of four months, just show up, drink wine, eat amazing food, laugh until you cry and leave your friend’s kitchen an absolute crime scene.
• The food is serious. If you haven’t started planning your menu a week in advance, you are in the weeds. Don’t you dare put taco soup on the table.
• All anyone can bring to SC is wine. And you’d better bring some or die trying.
• SC is any night we make it work, which means we’ve seen 1 a.m. on a Tuesday and paid brutally. (After one such late night, we bemoaned our exhaustion in a group text the next day. [My husband,] Brandon, wrote, “We made the littles eat breakfast at school this morning. Hope the pancake on a stick with sugar syrup works out.”)
• What happens at SC stays at SC. Failure to comply will result in flogging.

Anyways, I think supper club sounds like one of the best things ever. And so after reading the book I realized that even if we wanted to have supper club, we couldn't because we had a tall square table with 4 tall chairs... not super conducive to more than 4 people eating at it. 

Thus ensued the Great Table Search of 2016. And after looking high and low we found the perfect table that comfortably seats 8, would really easily seat 10, and you could even squeeze 12 around it. Much more conducive to supper clubs, large brunches, family meals, and dinner parties. 

Sometimes you just need to go ahead and get that thing that will help you reach that goal (like that one time when we got a new headboard so we could read in bed). No, getting a new dining table wasn't necessary for living. We had one that worked fine. But it didn't work fine for the goals and dreams we had of having big groups over for meals. It wasn't doing what we needed it to do. 

But now that we have this new spacious table, we get to have family over for Easter, and a few couples over for a Saturday brunch, and another group over for a Friday night dinner party. We get to host and open our home and practice hospitality and create warmth and safety (not that we couldn't before. Now we just get to do it to more people!). As Shauna Niequist puts it in her book, Bread and Wine, “The heart of hospitality is about creating space for someone to feel seen and heard and loved. It's about declaring your table a safe zone, a place of warmth and nourishment.”

I don't know about you, but I want our home to be a place where people are seen and heard. Where they feel safe and loved and nourished. And yeah, a dining table doesn't do that. But it might just make that possible.

3 of My Favorite Rug Sources

I have a confession. I am obsessed with rugs. This is very good for the cuteness/coziness factor of our home, but could easily be very bad for our wallet. But thankfully, I have found some pretty stinkin' sweet (and affordable!) rug sources! And when you've got a secret like that, you've just got to share it, right?

Ikea

Ikea was the first place that my love for rugs was ignited! I bought a few rugs there back in '08 for college, and when we got our first (fully wood-floored) apartment, it was the first place I headed to cover our floors. I love the variety, and although the prices vary, there is a good selection of decent sized rugs for under $100. 

Rugs USA

Rugs USA is like a magical place filled with millions of beautiful rugs that seem a little spendy until you realize that they ALWAYS HAVE HUMONGOUS SALES. Like, 70–80% off! You can usually get the best sales there on holidays, so if you can wait til some random holiday rolls around, you should be good to go! We got our gigantic living room rug there for right around $100 which is insane!

Thrift Stores
Last but not least, thrift stores can be a GREAT place to find rugs on the cheap! I say can be because you really have to be careful when buying rugs from thrift stores. Whenever I find a rug at a thrift store I always make sure to unroll it completely and look carefully for any stains or tears (and then depending on price decide if it's a big enough deal). And the most important thing is to get down there and take a big ol' whiff of the rug. Yes, not the most pleasant of things, but it will be better to do it now to catch any pet/smoke/pee/etc smell than to smell it in your house. I recently scored some awesome oriental rugs for $10 and $30 a piece and last year I got a grey and white (pictured above) West Elm runner in perfect condition for $15. So thrift stores can definitely pay off!

What are your go-to places to buy rugs?

Living Room Updates & Dining Room Reveal

It's been awhile since I've shared our home here on the blog, and a lot has changed! (Because let's be real, change happens around here every week or so.) The last time I shared our living room, we had far less seating and the vintage mirror and bar cart hadn't made an appearance yet. Although we liked the spaciousness of the first arrangement, bringing in our other couch has been the best idea ever. Not only is our living room more cozy, but much more practical, which in the end is probably more important than the cuteness factor. 

I'm still so obsessed with this giant rug we got for the living room! I might have to do a post on good rug sources soon. 

Here's the cute little bar car that I snagged for $15 at a thrift store in Nebraska last year. There are some missing wine glasses on the bottom that are waiting to get washed from a little double date dinner we had the other night. It's my favorite when things like that are just a little "off" because it reminds me that we actually live here and this house "works" for us! 

Speaking of working for us, we've so loved this little 4-seater table, but are hoping to move on soon to something a little larger. (No, this is NOT a pregnancy announcement... we just really want to be able to invite more than two people over for dinner at a time!) So the last week has consisted of lots of internet research and checking things out at a few stores, and will hopefully result in a new big table that will allow lots of room for rambunctious dinners and more of those wine glasses getting used. ;)

Thanks for taking a peek into our living and dining room! Maybe one of these days I'll get around to showing you our upstairs. :)

TDM: Kitchen // After

Welcome to another installment of Team Douglas Moves! Over a month ago I shared with you what our kitchen looked like when we moved in. I thought it was about time I showed you what it looks like now! Obviously, since we're renting it's not like we made any real big changes (we're no Chip and Joanna Gaines!), but we have put our own special touch on the room and it really is one of my favorite upgrades in our move. So without further ado...

We love that we get lots of natural light and the amount of space makes cooking so much more enjoyable! And I like that I get to sit at the table and watch my cute husband do the dishes. BEST part ever!

Sources//
Polka Dot Rug: Ikea
Black Wire Shelving: Target
Minnesota Cutting Board: Bed Bath & Beyond
Dishes: Target
Tea Towel: Bed Bath & Beyond
Hanging Planter: Ikea

Anything else you'd like to know, just comment below!

TDM // Living Room Reveal

Happy Monday, friends, and welcome to segment 2 of Team Douglas Moves (TDM)! It's been two weeks since we've moved into this quirky house, and every day I love it more. We've had our small group over for a bonfire, enjoyed cooking on all our counter space, had friends over for games, grilled out in our yard, and gone on walks around the neighborhood. 

I thought I'd give you a glimpse into the living room today. This was one of the first rooms (besides the kitchen) that we completed, because let's be real, you've gotta have a comfy space to lounge and watch Netflix at the end of a long day spent cleaning and unpacking, amiright?!

The couch is Nockeby from Ikea. It was the first ever new piece of furniture that Loverboy and I purchased together. After a year of marriage, people! We've bought tons of used furniture, whether from relatives, Craigslist, or thrift stores. But buying new furniture, now that was a rush! AND a hassle, let me tell ya. We ended up going to Ikea three time (three!) in order to finally get this couch...  and yes, it was due to our own poor planning of what vehicles to bring, but you live and you learn, right? (Also, count yourself lucky if you got to be a part of that Snapchat adventure. Sitting in line for an hour really provides lots of good Snapchat content.)

That beautiful little palm tree is from Ikea. I'm not really that good at keeping itty bitty plants alive, so I'm really crossing my fingers that I don't kill it... so if anyone has any tips on how to keep that baby thriving, bring it on!



The rug was an awesome find from Rugs USA during their Labor Day Sale. It's huge, and about the thickness of a towel, but as the husband of one of my friends put it, "it really pulls the room together." (And no, of course he didn't follow this super nice compliment with a twitching mouth and snort, letting on that he really didn't have strong opinions about the deep rug conversation his wife and I were having). But really, I couldn't agree more!


That's our backdoor and kitchen that you can see to the left. The backdoor goes out to a mudroom, which also provides nice storage for our bikes, shoes, and misc. car stuff and cleaning supplies.

So there you have it! The living room as it stands now. We have an awesome big vintage mirror and cute little bar cart (that is currently in Nebraska until a grandparent brings it over to MN) that will probably get added soon, so keep an eye out for updates!

Let me know if you'd like to know where anything is from... although unfortunately most of it is thrifted or the like. But if you can buy it at a store, I'll definitely let you know! :)

Team Douglas Moves: Kitchen // Before

Happy first day of Fall, friends! And welcome to the first of many installments of "Team Douglas Moves" (you can check out our Instagram hashtag here). This week has been exhausting (is it the weekend yet?!) and I can say with certainty that I have never done this much cleaning in one stretch in my life! But I can also say that I am so incredibly grateful for the wonderful family and friends that have come over and poured their blood, sweat, and tears into the place already (ok, maybe just sweat...). I seriously would be crying in the middle of the dirty floor if it weren't for them, so thank you to each of you who has scrubbed, steamed, wiped, and inhaled lots of cleaning chemicals along the way. 

Today I wanted to share with you a few before photos of the kitchen. This room was a pretty big selling point for us. After living in our 4-plex apartment for a year, there were 3 things we really wanted in a kitchen:

• Windows
• A space to sit and eat in the kitchen
• More space (especially counter space) 

This kitchen has given us all of that! There are two windows that let light stream in (no more depressing florescent lighting!), plenty of space for a table and couple of chairs, and the room is huge. We are hoping to find some kind of an island for the middle of the room for even more storage and counter space. The long counter on this wall makes me SO happy! We've been using a small chunk of counter for the past year and have used our stove as a counter multiple times!

We are hoping to put up some open shelving on this big wall above the sink. It's just asking for it, dontchya think? :)

Thanks for stopping by and taking a peak into our kitchen! I can't wait until there's some more plant life, a rug on the floor, some pretty shelving, and all those other lovely little touches that make a house a home and a kitchen oh-so-cozy!