Armoire Design and Decor Ideas

I recently discovered Chairish, and was invited to style an armoire from their collection!

Chairish is a fun, gorgeous and easy-to-navigate site for vintage design and modern design lovers alike. Chairish offers the chance for those who maybe have collected one-to-many decor options (hides) to sell their vintage furniture and decor to one another - and of course, buy some more too, while you're at it. ;)

What makes this different from other online options is that Chairish "exclusively features curator-approved treasures in a full-service and trustworthy environment." So you know that the item you're going to receive is true vintage, in great shape, and worth your investment.

You can check out all of the armoires they have available at the moment here. The collection is always changing and really does feature something for everyone's taste.

So, how would I go about decorating an armoire? Check out what I picked!

See the entire design on Polyvore, and click the items to go to Chairish here.

When styling an armoire, I think bigger is better. More than bigger, I think TALLER is better! Take the back most item to the ceiling (or close to it) to bring your eyes up. This will make the room feel taller as well!

I picked out a painting to get this affect. I also love vintage items, so I selected a soda crate from Chairish.  Everyone needs a wooden crate. I'm serious! I love to stack vinyl in mine, or hide cords on the ground with them. You can see all of the different wooden crates at Chairish here.

I put ivy in the crate to give it a little "life." I'm notoriously bad at houseplants, and would definitely forget to water it up there, so I would use faux. It's far enough away that it won't be obvious!

After that, what fun is decor without a little color? I picked out red terracotta bottles for that added kick. Bottles are SO handy, because you can put a little plant in them, some string lights, feathers - really, anything you can think of. Or, you can just leave them as is! Bottles of every shape and size, I found at Chairish.

Another fun thing about decorating an armoire is that it can be seasonal, too! Using the same grouping concept, think of the seasons:

- A box wrapped in Christmas paper replaces the wooden crate, your square shape.
- A fun print of a vintage Christmas scene, in the frame
- A few springs of evergreen tree replaces the ivy.
- You can replace the bottles with that old, vintage santa figurine. Items that you didn't know where they should go before are PERFECT for the top of an armoire.

The ideas are endless!

Thank you to Chairish for reaching out and inviting me to style an armoire!

{Review} My K-Cup Reusable Coffee Filter

Back in September of last year, Influenster sent me a Keurig 2.0, free of charge, to try out and share my opinion, which seems like forever ago! You can read my review here, along with the pros and cons of what I thought back then.

I am pleased to say that my Keurig 2.0 still works like a charm, and I love to use it for a quick grab-and-go cup. My absolute favorite has actually been making tea and hot chocolate with it, though. It's infinitely simpler to get hot water from the Keurig and let it fill over a tea bag than other methods.

The one thing that the Keurig 2.0 just couldn't address right away, that made other, older Keurig's more popular that didn't use the DRM, was the fact that you couldn't use a reuseable coffee filter cup, because the seeing "eye" wouldn't recognize it as something that could be used in the Keurig. In fact, it was my number one con when I wrote about it beforehand.

About 2 weeks ago, I got an e-mail from Influenster, and they were sending me the Keurig 2.0 My K-Cup Reusable Coffee Filter to test out with my Keurig 2.0. Yay!

Included was a bag of Green Mountain Nantucket Blend ground coffee, which coincidentally is my favorite K-Cup flavor. 

 Included inside the K-Cup Filter box were directions for different series of Keurig machines. Smart!

The K-Cup Reusable Coffee Filter cup has some heft. It's definitely made of a nicer plastic and quality mesh. That little disc that's kind of a purple-ly orange is what the Keurig "eye" reads to let it know that hey, this is a Keurig product, and we're good to go here.

When you open the cup, there's a nice little suction that is in place to help all of the pressure go to your grounds. There's a little green "max" line for your grounds too. I didn't even come close to that, but felt it was enough. Locked it up, and into the machine it goes.

 Well, this isn't the most attractive picture, not Pinterest worthy by any stretch (nice brown blob on the words! :( ) But it does show you that your lock icon should align with the bottom, the K on the right, and the eye on the left. It's important to line this up (the cup is designed to make this the most "right" way to put it in) so that the eye can read the cup.

And we're off! Placed it in, selected my options, and my cup started a'brewin'.

 Now, this is where it gets a little ugly. Sorry Keurig, in advance. I've been drinking coffee for a pretty good long time, so I feel like I have a decent handle on how much grounds, how much creamer, etc, etc for a good cuppa joe. Instantly, I knew something was wrong. The smell was not right.

My water was fresh, it was preheated, I didn't overfill or come close the fill line...

This ring immediately appeared, along with a floating ground or two right after brewing. Anyone that drinks coffee knows that sitting coffee tends to leave a ring around the cup where it sat... but this was immediate. And the smell. whoa. Metallic and sour? I did rinse the cup too before I put it in there too, you know, so I didn't get any residue. No soap, just water.

Even after adding creamer, it was still a no-go. I washed it down the sink.

I am totally willing to give this another try, I think I'll try with even less grounds though and see if that doesn't help.

So Keurig, a bummed out 5/10 on this one. The concept is there, and I am going to try it again, but until then...

Thank you Influenster for giving me the chance to try it out!

(Disclaimer - I was sent these for my review for www.influenster.com. I was not compensated in any other way to give a negative or positive review of these products and was allowed to keep the products in return for my honest reviews.)