Skip to playerSkip to main content
  • 4 months ago
On this episode of Sweet Digs, we explore content creator, Megan's ranch style home in Northern Austin, TX. She brings her space to life using it as a creative outlet. Watch this week’s Sweet Digs to see how she lives.

ABOUT SERIES
High rent, small spaces, nosy neighbors — we put up with A LOT of things to live where we love. In Sweet Digs, Refinery29 gets a peek inside the homes of the coolest people we know, from tiny studios to sprawling houses, and ask the real questions like, "Wait, how much is your rent?"

ABOUT REFINERY29
Refinery29 is a modern woman's destination for how to live a stylish, well-rounded life. http://refinery29.com/

RELATED CONTENT
What $1,200 Will Get You In Texas
https://youtube.com/watch?v=JG5M0rZB6XE

What $165,000 Will Get You In NY
https://youtube.com/watch?v=CgeYQ39a0AQ

What $360,000 Will Get You In NYC
https://youtube.com/watch?v=OAd8tFIKRmI

SUBSCRIBE TO REFINERY29
Subscribe to the Refinery29 channel: http://bit.ly/subscribe-to-r29
Follow Megan on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mid_centurymillennial/
Follow Refinery29 on Instagram: https://instagram.com/refinery29/
Follow Somos on Instagram: https://instagram.com/r29somos/
Follow Unbothered on Instagram: https://instagram.com/r29unbothered/
Transcript
00:00Hi, I'm Megan. Welcome to my Sweet Digs.
00:02I live in a three-bed, two-bath in Austin, Texas.
00:05Fun fact, this home was built in 1971.
00:08Come on in.
00:15My design style really evolved naturally.
00:17If I find an item that I absolutely love at a thrift store or a vintage shop,
00:21I'll anchor a room on that item.
00:23But I would say throughout the house,
00:24I let each room kind of take on its own design style.
00:28My husband and I pay about $2,000 a month for a mortgage.
00:31We paid $320,000 for the house a couple of years ago.
00:36So we have a pretty open concept home.
00:39I'm going to take you through the entryway into our kitchen,
00:41which is off here to the left.
00:43When we first moved in here, it was really dark, all brown cabinets.
00:47Everything's very kind of mid-2000s, builder's grade kitchen.
00:50So I repainted the cabinets this, like, fun, bright, mid-century turquoise.
00:55The upper cabinet's white to keep everything really light.
00:57And then added some more vintage touches throughout.
01:00So really just trying to maximize what we have.
01:03And eventually we'll replace our countertops
01:05and make other little finishing touches as we go.
01:07So I'll take you out into our dining room area,
01:10which is here just off of the kitchen.
01:13I really wanted to have something that felt like a little bit more of a formal dining space
01:17where you could sit down and have a meal, but still really funky and fun and bright-colored.
01:22So we went with, you know, a vintage table.
01:24And then I made this big glassware display that I was able to source from estate sales and thrift stores.
01:30And so just little details like that in this space, really keeping with the orange, kind of vibey, 70s color
01:36palette.
01:36My home style is definitely eclectic and bold.
01:40It mixes a lot of different eras, so it doesn't sit firmly in the 60s or 70s.
01:45It kind of spans everything from the 50s to today.
01:48So mixing a lot of modern pieces, vintage items, and just having a really bright, bold style.
01:54This is one of my favorite pieces of art I've ever found,
01:57and I just feel like she's kind of my inner vibe, this, like, crazy ginger with a cheetah.
02:03So I love her, but I really wanted her to be a focal point of the dining room.
02:06There are a lot of great vintage shops in Austin.
02:08That's where I've gotten a lot of my furniture.
02:10I found this table, which I think is super unique.
02:12So I'm always looking for things that are a little bit offbeat,
02:15something that you don't see typically in a dining room
02:17that makes it feel a little bit more casual and comfortable.
02:20So the dining room area really shares a space with this living room space over here.
02:25This is where we spend a lot of our time.
02:27I still wanted it to feel formal enough to go with the dining room,
02:30but really still have that relaxed, kind of sunken-in, loungy feel.
02:34When I laid out the space, I was really thinking more about functionality,
02:37so all of the different things we want to be able to do in our home,
02:41especially being home so much lately.
02:43We've got, you know, both of us working from home,
02:45so two home offices and then these main living spaces
02:48where we really wanted to be able to both do our hobbies as well,
02:51spend time together.
02:52I'm always looking for affordable ways to add color to my space,
02:54and I feel like a way to make a really big impact
02:56is by adding things like blankets to a blanket ladder
03:00or really big pieces of statement art, you know, like stretched canvas.
03:04My next home upgrade are windows and skylights.
03:08This house currently is a little bit dark, especially during the day,
03:11even when it's fully bright out,
03:13so adding a couple windows is going to help a lot.
03:17So coming in from the living room and dining room area,
03:20we have this really sweet archway,
03:22and I wanted to really accentuate it,
03:24so I added this orange paint to the inner side of it.
03:29So this is our addition bonus room area.
03:32Honestly, when we first moved in,
03:34it was so much space than I was used to,
03:36but we decided to make it more of a kind of casual,
03:39loungy, entertaining area thinking about function
03:42and what we really wanted to be able to do in this space.
03:44So we read back here.
03:46We listen to records.
03:47So it's very much a multi-use space,
03:49so we really had to kind of section it off into these different areas.
03:54This is probably my least touched space.
03:56It's my husband's office space.
03:57I've kind of let him, you know, design it the way he wants it.
04:00My husband's super agreeable with design choices, which is great.
04:05We've lived together for a long time.
04:06We've been together for almost 12 years,
04:08so I feel like our design style has sort of evolved together,
04:11but he definitely lets me take the reins,
04:14especially as I'm experimenting with design choices.
04:17So some of our DIYs have been very functionality-based.
04:20We wanted a space that we could work out at home,
04:22so we took this brick wall.
04:24This actually used to be the exterior of the house,
04:26but when they added the addition on,
04:27they kept these brick walls inside here,
04:29so we used it as a place to kind of hang up
04:31all of our workout equipment, have weights,
04:34stuff that we could basically do our own
04:35kind of at-home virtual workouts.
04:39We have a lot of records.
04:40We love to listen to records back in this space.
04:43So I've got this vintage unit that we found off of Facebook Marketplace.
04:47So this is all of our record collection alphabetized.
04:51It's like the one area that I'm super organized in.
04:53So this area actually opens out into our covered patio,
04:56which we've got a really fun sort of tropical bar space.
05:01Typically, this is a really nice, warm space for us to come out and enjoy our bar,
05:06which I got off of Craigslist.
05:08Part of my design style is blending a lot of different eras.
05:11I feel like a lot of folks who design their homes in a vintage style
05:14stick very firmly to one era and are very, you know,
05:18concerned about making sure everything is era-specific and period-piece,
05:21but I feel like vintage and thrifting and kind of figuring out a way to blend all those styles
05:26is going to give a lot more people access to it.
05:28So I feel like I really appreciate bringing a lot of different eras and styles together.
05:33It's just kind of more of a fun space where I put a lot of different kitsch elements out here.
05:38When we first toured this house, I knew that I wanted to do some kind of big 70s-inspired mural,
05:43so this is kind of a sunrise motif out here in our bar area.
05:48It was one of the first projects I tackled, which, of course, was a little bit of a distraction
05:52from putting our home together out here painting a mural, but I'm so happy with it.
05:57And then out from that main addition area in the back,
06:01there are French doors that go into our main bedroom and our main bathroom.
06:05This is another space that we haven't really touched renovations-wise.
06:09We definitely need a window in this room.
06:10Right now there's not a single window in our bedroom,
06:13but for now we just designed it in a way that felt cohesive with the house.
06:17But, yeah, lots of fun little kind of vintage elements in here.
06:20We actually have two closets in this space.
06:22I have a nice big closet, and then my husband has a smaller closet,
06:26and then we also have a bathroom off of this space.
06:29I think the thing that influences my home the most is that I am a complete treasure hunter.
06:34I've always loved the thrill of the hunt.
06:36It was something I started when I was really young with my dad.
06:39And so I'm always incorporating those into my home.
06:42So this is a really fun vintage valet chair.
06:45These are really meant to kind of be your getting-ready area.
06:48It actually has a little compartment that you can store stuff in.
06:51So super fun kind of different vintage piece.
06:54So this is my dresser.
06:55I will admit that I have both the largest closet and the whole dresser to myself.
07:00My husband's very giving in that way.
07:03I've also used DIY to design a lot of elements in my home that you would typically have to buy
07:08retail.
07:09I've been using things like reupholstery to upcycle thrifted items.
07:12I got this really beautiful waterfall bench that was a great shape, but it had really ugly fabric on it.
07:17So this is the waterfall bench that I upcycled.
07:20So I found this vintage 70s kind of velour striped fabric at a local vintage shop and reupholstered it myself.
07:29Our main bedroom opens out into our hallway, which takes you to our guest bedroom and my office.
07:36So this is our guest bedroom.
07:37Because we're from Seattle, we have guests visit a lot.
07:40So I really wanted to make the space super comfortable, fun, almost feel like an Airbnb or hotel.
07:45So one of the main DIYs in here was actually a last minute DIY.
07:49I didn't know what to do with this wall.
07:51I had this great piece of art.
07:52It was definitely my anchor piece for the whole room, but it was sort of just floating on this wall.
07:57So I drifted a bunch of these frames and then was able to upcycle them with the same paint color
08:02and really create this dramatic effect that makes the room feel a lot taller.
08:06I love the design style in Wes Anderson movies.
08:08So you'll find kind of quirky little elements that hint at different movies that Wes Anderson has made
08:14and the design from those movies.
08:15I also come from a very artistic family.
08:17So my sister sent me a gift last year for Christmas.
08:21It was these really cute little foxes.
08:23She handmade them from, I believe, like thrifted sweaters and thrifted jeans and then fabric that she found.
08:30And I feel like they are a total fantastic Mr. Fox vibe.
08:33Because the closet didn't have to be super functional, I wanted it to be another designed area.
08:38So it's this kind of fun little, almost like a telephone booth.
08:41I've got my little gossip bench that I upcycled, reupholstered, painted, added some caning to it.
08:47And then I used peel and stick wallpaper.
08:51Down the hallway at the very end, we have my office.
08:55This is my office.
08:56It was the first space that I designed just out of that frantic need for needing my own space to
09:01be creative,
09:01but also work my nine-to-five.
09:03So I have actually two areas in this office.
09:06One that's really where I spend my nine-to-five time.
09:09And then I also have my creative space where I'm currently learning to sew.
09:13So for these side-by-side tables, I found these really great tulip chairs, bringing in a little pop of
09:18blue into the room.
09:19I was obsessed with Elvis growing up.
09:21It was kind of the start of my love for vintage and everything, you know, 1950s, 1960s.
09:28So I've got this Elvis bust.
09:30I'm really hoping for our next home to have those classic mid-century touches.
09:34So I'd love it to be an era-specific house with something like a sunken living room
09:38or one of those really cool design features that you don't see in houses today.
09:42This home has been my primary creative outlet.
09:46It's where I've been putting all my creative energy,
09:48and it's definitely something where I've gotten to DIY,
09:52learn a lot of new things, and really dive into vintage design.
Comments

Recommended