Home Decor Giveaway 2020 - Shop The Decor

This post is for everyone who entered last week’s decor giveaway and didn’t win. We truly wish we could give you all something from our stash, but that wouldn’t be a great business model…SO, we’re doing the next best thing. We’re sharing lots of similar decor options at ranging prices for you to treat yourself. And we’re even including styling inspiration to give you ideas on how to use them.

White Chunky Knit Pillow

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A chunky, soft knit has a casual feel. It’s great in a family room paired with a more tailored sofa or chair. In our Prospect Project Family Room, we added a variety of blue and white textural pillows on a tailored gray sofa. They feel ready made for a family movie night.

Prospect Project by Gray Oak Studio

Two-Tone Basket

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We consider baskets (two-toned or otherwise) essential to every family room. They add function and beauty by way of texture. In our Stafford Family Room Project, we used a basket next to the sofa to hold an extra throw pillow and blanket. Baskets are also great for next to a media console or bookshelf, they fill that extra bit of horizontal space. You can also fill them with magazines or toys. Whenever it’s used for the latter, we love draping a pretty blanket on top when guests come to hide the mess.

Stafford Family Room by Gray Oak Studio

Set of Stacking Boxes

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In the living room of our Prospect Project, we stacked some long brass boxes (the exact set linked above) on a bookshelf. We love how stacked boxes create height. They also create function - they are great spot to hide matches or cards or old movie theatre stubs. You can separate a set of boxes and use them on different shelves of a bookshelf or in different spots within a room to create visual cohesion.

Prospect Project by Gray Oak Studio

Round White Vase

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White vases look amazing against a colored background. In the sitting room of our Stafford Project, we scattered white vases throughout the built-in bookshelves that flanked the fireplace. The white was a beautiful, soft contrast to the blue/gray walls. You don’t even have to fill them with anything!

Stafford sitting room by gray oak studio

Oval Tray

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We used an oval tray on the round coffee table in the sitting room of our Hickory Project. Sometimes round on round doesn’t work because it’s too much of a good thing…but oval does. And oval is also really beautiful on a console table, the narrow nature of console tables don’t usually allow for a round tray, but an oval tray fits and is a nice contrast to cleaner corners. Plus, oval shaped anything is very on trend.

Hickory Project by gray oak studio

Lidded Wood Container

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We used all sorts of wood decor when decorating the built-in media console in the living room of our Enos Project. But, take particular note of the tiny round wood box on top of the books on the middle shelf. It’s the smallest piece, but the whole vignette would be imbalanced without it. The darker tone, the organic grain of the wood - it adds so much to the white and gray and blue backgrounds that we all love. And, it would be a fun spot to save lucky pennies.

Have a wonderful holiday! We're taking a nice break over the next couple weeks to unplug, relax with our families and recharge. We have so much happening in 2021, can’t wait to share it with you!!!

- Leah

*this post contains affiliate links*

Free Design Services Giveaway 2020

It’s been a minute since we’ve shown up on the blog. But we’re back. And we have some epic news.

We’re going to design one lucky person’s room of choice for free. The winner will send us photos of their room, some inspiration images and design goals. We’ll send back a layout plan, a design board and shoppable links, the whole kit and kaboodle.

this design board from a prior post - shop the furnishings here.

We had hoped to make our Gray Oak Gives Back project an annual occurrence - doing a full service project on the design house, so to speak. But, Covid. Which has been the answer to so many things this year, right? UGH. Well, we’re pivoting. We might not be able to do one mega giveaway, but we plan to do lots of mini giveaways throughout December. And we’re starting here.

How do you enter? Great question. Instagram is the answer. You need to follow us on Instagram, like and comment on our posts any day this week. Or every day this week! Each like and comment will count as 1 entry.

What’s more is that we’ll share the design board and shoppable links for ALL to see right here. It will be a lot like our month of free advice in April. The transformation will be tailor-made for the lucky winner - a layout to maximize the function and flow of their room and furnishings to meet their style. And we’re going to share the wealth here on the blog because there is always a universal tip or chameleon decor item that everyone can benefit from knowing about.

This is an excellent segway into an awesome before and after photo that we want to share. One of our blog posts during our free advice in April was created for a lovely follower who sent us the photos below. Here is the full blog post.

Just last week, we received an incredible email with photos of the completed transformation. Here is what this living room looks like now.

We were so excited to see the layout changes we advised, the fireplace transformation look as beautiful as we knew it would and the window treatments updated per our suggestion. She even added the two poufs in front of the window seat like we recommended! Doesn’t it look awesome?

So, head to Instagram and enter to win. Or tell a friend so she can enter to win. Or enter to win and then give the prize to your mom for Christmas! And remember that you can enter everyday this week. AND, remember that this is just the beginning…we have giveaways coming every week for the rest of the month.

We love the holidays.

- Leah + Sonia

Greatest Hits - Volume 1

The post you’ve all been waiting for - details and links for the most requested elements from many of our projects. We’re starting with some recent projects from this summer and going way back to the beginning of Gray Oak. Enjoy.

The Every Day Stuff

The Best Rug Pad

We want to kick it off by sharing something that we use in nearly every, single project - a rug pad. We were recently asked on Facebook how we prevent smaller area rugs from slipping and sliding all over the place. A great rug pad is the best solve - something that has thick felt on one side and rubber on the other.

The Best Faux Branches

We will always use and support real plants. Nothing better than the real deal. But, we also live in New England where you can’t walk outside year round to grab a fresh clipping from your yard. And it’s not always easy or cost effective to buy fresh greenery from the grocery store every week. So, we found these and we truly love them. And they’re a steal.

Onto the main event…

Hickory Project - 2020

We were so excited to reveal this project over the summer. The dark, moody sitting room hit a note with our followers and the requests for the wall color poured in. We’re happy to share that it’s Midnight Blue by Benjamin Moore.

Stafford Project - 2020

We don’t even have professional photos of this one yet because Install Day was less than a month ago. When we posted a sneak peek of the living room on our Instagram stories, we instantly got dozens of questions about the mirror over the fireplace.

The Flat Bottom Round Mirror

Prospect Project - 2019

We designed a lot of spaces for this amazing family. Starting on the first floor with their dining room, living room, family room, mudroom and powder room.

The Linear Chandelier - There were requests for sources of quite a few things in this project, but the dining room chandelier took the cake. And we get, it’s one of our favorites too.

After completing the common rooms of our Prospect Project we worked on a girl’s nursery and a big boy toddler bedroom. The wallpaper in the boy’s bedroom made a big impact in the room and a big impact with our followers. We even had a follower send us a photo of a room she used it in after seeing it in this project! It made us so happy.

The Blue Wave Wallpaper

Enos Project - 2019

We designed three spaces for this project - living room, family room and dining room. We got endless requests for links to the family room and dining room rugs. Rug source requests are something we get a lot. Understandably so, they’re a costly element of a room and easy to go wrong (by way of size, material or just general look).

The Perfect Indoor/Outdoor Rug

The Subtly Tribal Blue Rug

Curtis Project - 2019

It was so fun creating a colorful, eclectic bedroom for this client. From the start, she knew she wanted a colorful rug. When we found the rug we used, it was love at first sight. Turns out many people felt that way. It’s 100% wool, it has tassels, it’s awesome.

The Colorful Boho Rug

Lowell Project - 2018

This project stretched our creative muscles because we used almost no color. It was an exercise in texture as we layered neutral on neutral on neutral. Which made it very funny when everyone gravitated toward the non-neutral (though close) leather chairs. They have a smaller footprint than the average leather chair and a unique sleekness.

The Leather Accent Chair

Lovell Project - 2018

This project has a lot of relevancy to the current state of the world - we were tasked with designing a living room that included a work station for the whole family to use. There was a separate office in the home, so it needed to be simple and beautiful and functional for a laptop or writing. The photo below is by far our most popular Instagram image to date based on like/comments/lots of shares (we have our most popular image on Pinterest that is yet to come…).

The Writing Desk

Windsor Project - 2018

This was a really fun bathroom renovation because our client was a 10-year-old boy. To inject some non-permanent fun into the room, we found a video game controller “blue print” for art above the toilet. We love how it ties in seamlessly with the ageless design.

Video Game Controller Art

Hutchins Project - 2018

This project takes the cake for our most pinned image (bar none) and the most coveted piece of furniture: the nubby ottoman in the family room. It’s even better in person. And as a bonus, the wall color in this room is Nimbus by Benjamin Moore (we get asked about that a ton too).

The Nubby Ottoman - We used the natural wool color, but it also comes in gray.

Windsor Project 2017

This was our first phase with these clients. We designed a family room, dining room and foyer. The overall aesthetic was a mashup of farmhouse and transitional. The elegant (versus rustic) side of farmhouse. Three years later, we still get requests for the the source of the foyer console table with the arch detail.

The Arch Foyer Table

We hope you enjoyed walking down memory lane with us. There are a lot of projects we didn’t cover (Dover, Tappan and Pearl) and there may be elements of these projects that are your personal favorite that we didn’t cover. SO…let us know what you loved most. There will be a volume two. Promise.

- Leah

*this post contains affiliate links*