Summer Home Tour And Easy Decorating Tips

Get your home summer ready with ideas and inspiration from our Summer Home Tour! Lots of simple and easy ways to add a bit of the summery season to the rooms in your home.

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Summer! What a beautiful time of year in Lancaster Co! Right now the days are gloriously warm and the evenings cool. No oppressive heat and humidity yet! The evening is getting longer and everything outside is growing and taking its turn to bloom.

Inside the Taglewood House summer is making its presence known! So it’s time for a tour!

A big thank you to Kelly at The Tattered Pew for organizing our tour! Kelly is such a sweet friend! I met her at Haven blogging conference years ago! Make sure to stop by her beautiful home and see what she is sharing this summer.

If you are coming from Suzy at Worthing Court, welcome! Suzy is a very good friend of mine and my almost twin. We were born one day apart. I visited Suzy a few years ago and we had a blast! Her home is gorgeous and she is the epitome of Southern hospitality! Her blue and green forward porches are stunning! I would love to sit on the back porch and drink sweet tea with her! I know you were blessed by your visit with her!

No matter how you found this tour WELCOME! I’m so glad you stopped by for a visit!

When you are finished visiting, see Part 2 of our Summer 2023 Home Tour. Come see my Summer Kitchen.

The Front Door

Every season begins at our front door. I like to start each season by making a wreath or basket or other door decoration.

This summer I made a basket full of faux hydrangeas to hang on the door. It’s a cheery welcome for anyone who graces our front porch! And that means YOU! Hydrangeas are my favorite summer flowers. We have quite a few varieties around the outside of our home. So it seems fitting to add hydrangeas to our front door!

This summer door basket was super easy to make. Even if you are not crafty you can make one and use your favorite summer flowers!

JOIN OUR STONEGABLE COMMUNITY

The Foyer

Let’s start in the foyer. Summer is the time I like to keep decor simple! This year I’m all about using annuals and perennials indoors instead of cut flowers. I think it is important to decorate our homes with things we love.

Because I am a seasonal home decorator I love giving a nod to the season at hand with things I find right outside my front door. And this year we planted lots of flowers, so using annuals and perennials indoors makes decorating sense to me.

I’ve used outdoor summer flowers indoors in the past but this year they are a big part of my summer decor. Instead of buying flowers, I planted annuals in containers. I chose mostly white blooms with the exception of the pretty peachy begonias I used in the family room.

For the foyer, I planted a whispy white browallia hybrid called Endless Flirtation in a soup tureen I retrieved from the kitchen. These annuals will last longer than cut flowers, need little attention, and when the blooms fade I’ll plant them in my gardens outside. When they are planted outside they will keep blooming until frost.

Using perennials or annuals indoors and then replanting them in the garden is such a big win/win! I get to enjoy them indoors and then outside. You can see more about How To Use Summer Annuals And Perennials Indoors here.

We have a very long foyer. It has some interesting architecture, arches, and different ceiling heights. When you first come in our front door, the office is to the right, and a foyer console table is to the left. The image below shows about one-third of our foyer.

Keeping things simple in our home means less to take care of and that makes me very happy! I would rather be outside tending our raised beds and container of flowers or sitting on the patio working on my blog! And speaking of our patio, you can see our Summer Porch And Patio Here. The patio is my happy spot!

In the summer, I love a little candlelight in the evening. The gold lantern has a battery-operated candle on a timer so I don’t have to worry about blowing it out. Just that little glow makes the foyer look so pretty! Think about adding ambiance with candles and lanterns to your summer home.

My summer hat and grab-and-go straw bag hang on a hook in the foyer. I love this hat! I wear it almost everywhere when I go outside! It is crumple-proof and provides just enough shade for my eyes and face.

When my straw hat and tote are not in use they double as decor!

At the end of the foyer sits a white bookcase with metal and glass doors.

I mostly keep decor in this bookcase with a smattering of white and burlap-covered books and a few animal print decoupaged books too. In our open-concept, downsized home we don’t have a lot of walls to put large pieces of furniture on. I am so grateful to have a little wall space at the end of the hallway to house this versatile piece.

We have lived in our Tanglewood home for three and a half years. I have always said it takes about three years to make a home feel like yours. And I was right, especially about making this home feel like us. It took me quite a while to figure out how to embrace this space and decorate it. Open concept is lovely to live in but honestly, it is a bear to decorate!

Fall will bring some new changes to the foyer. I’m hoping to finally put hardwood floors in the foyer like the rest of our home. I am not a fan of tile!

And I would like to change out our solid front door for one with glass windowpanes. Our home is so light and bright except for the foyer. We will have to get the change approved by the Home Owner Association. So we will see.

You might like to read…

Foyer Decorating, The Evolution Of Our Foyer

Decorating A Bookshelf The Easy Way

Let’s head into the living room.

The Living Room

I have a bit of a confession to make. Well, maybe not a confession because I did not do anything wrong. But I want to explain something.

I’ve been taking pictures for this tour for about four days. A few here and there. And while taking pictures I also have been changing things around!

Here’s an example…

The drink container, aka, the planter filled with verbena was originally created to go on the white buffet.

However, when I was styling the dining area, I liked the planter with verbena better there.

So, you will see an assortment of items changed around from picture to picture. I hope that is not too confusing.

As a decorator, I have a compulsion to change things around and try different variations of the same thing like planting different outdoor plants indoors. It’s my way of honing my skills. Do you do that too? My accent decor is never too cozy in one place!

The largest wall in our home is in the living room and our white buffet and antiqued mirror live there. I’ve kept the living room very light and airy for summer. Lots of whites and light neutrals.

The views from our windows are just so pretty. They are the real focal points of our rooms. It took me a few years to figure out why I did not like using color (other than neutrals) in our home. It is mostly because of all the windows we have and the ever-changing views of the golf course and countryside!

This summer, I defaulted to using decor I like instead of bringing in a lot of new summer decor. The tall vase with the faux greens is a favorite of mine. I think the greens are so graceful and whispy.

Since we added a big painting over the mantel, I keep the decor on the mantel minimal. A trio of brass candlesticks to either side of the painting is all the mantel needs. This year I added a few more pieces of art to our home. It all started with the Corner Barn painting on the mantel.

This summer I tried a couple of pillow combinations on the spindle chairs. The floral pillows are a holdover from the spring. I really like these pillows and think they work for summer too.

I recently got neutral striped pillows and used them on the spindle chairs as well.

Which ones do you like for summer?

This summer a white rush seat bench became a coffee table. This bench is usually in the dining room with an upholstered cushion on it. But I called it to stand in as a summer coffee table!

It changes the look of this room. The bench has a very informal almost cottage look that gives a relaxed vibe to our living room.

The centerpiece for the coffee table is an old planter with three white geraniums and diamond frost euphorbia. I love the look of these two annuals together!

To keep these annuals looking fresh, I pull off the individual blooms as they begin to brown and when all the flowers are spent I’ll plant them on the side of our house with the euphoria. The euphorbia will bloom like pretty airy clouds of white flowers till frost!

I’ll add more annuals to the little planter all summer long.

I’m thinking peach begonias like the ones on the Curlacue chest would look pretty.

In the floating frames above the Curlacue chest are summery prints of meadow flowers. I found them Here and Here. It’s fun to change up art seasonally! And these floating frames make it so easy!

And on the Curlacue chest is a hobnail planter with pretty peach-colored begonias.

The begonias should do well indoors. I’m hoping they will continue to grow and bloom. I LOVE this pretty soft color!

You might like to read…

How To Decorate A Buffet, Sideboard, Hutch, Console, Or Any Other Flat Surface

9 Best Tips To Help You Update A Tired Room

Best Living Room Decorating Ideas

The dining room is next.

The Dining Room

Our dining room is small and open and used every day!

I read cookbooks like other people read romance novels. I LOVE them!

The dining room table is a great place to read decorating and cookbooks! The views outside the dining room are so pretty. I can see some of our raised beds and containers full of flowers. This year we added a few birdfeeders right outside a couple of our windows and have lots of yellow finches visiting. I could watch them all day. And so could our little cat Teddy.

This summer, the centerpiece on the table is a large drink container filled with white verbena. These plants are perennials. So when the blooms are spent I will plant them in the back garden and these pretty plants will come up year after year.

I put purple verbena in this container a couple of summers ago and it is thriving outside!

You might like to read…

Best Tips For Decorating A Small Dining Room

Beautiful And Easy Dining Room Centerpiece Ideas

The Evolution Of A Dining Room

Ready to head to the sunroom?

The Sunroom

Our sunroom is small but lives large! Changing out the pillows and the centerpiece on the coffee table gives a nod to the season at hand. Pillows can change the look of a room like no other accent decor.

This summer I used pillows in light neutrals and my favorite indoor/outdoor pom pom pillows.

If you have a room that gets lots of use, keep the seasonal decor simple.

I planted annuals in a footed bowl for the coffee table.

This little planter has Swedish ivy, euphoria, and caladium. I’m hoping to keep this planter all summer long. I think the Swedish ivy and caladium will do well, but I am not sure about the euphoria. I think I’ll replace the euphoria when it is spent with white begonias.

Besides the planter, the coffee table is a great place for books. I love books! Right now my three favorite decorating books are stacked next to the planter.

James T Farmer is one of my favorite Southern designers. I love low country sensibility and the way he describes things. He has a gift beyond decorating. His book Celebrating Home is a beautiful read.

A Place Called Home is another book by James T Farmer and probably my favorite decorating book.

And Home Made Lovely is a book about the blessings of home. Its author is Shannon from Home Made Lovely.

Here is my favorite spot in the sunroom. I like to sit and read and watch the golfers. This is such an old chair but it is so so comfortable. Everyone loves it! The little drink table next to the chair is another favorite of mine.

I have an obsession with drink tables! They are so useful! Great for a little plant, a drink, or a place to put my reading glasses! I have them in every room. If you don’t have a table or flat surface next to a chair or sofa, think about getting a drink table. They are decorative and useful! What a great combination.

The upholstered cubes under the window get moved around in the sunroom. We use them to prop our feet up or for extra seating. I like to keep a stack of books on the cubes that I can easily reach from my chair. These upholstered cubes were very inexpensive and quite a bargain!

You might like to read…

How To Decorate A Small Living Room

How To Redecorate A Room Step-By-Step

How To Make A Small Space Live Larger

Click The Video For More Inspiration

Shop Our Summer Home

The exact items are listed when they are available. Similar items may be listed when the original ones are no longer available

Hey friends, our tour here is about over. But there is lots more touring to do today and the rest of the week. I hope you are taking some easy summer decorating ideas with you!

Next on our tour is my dear friend Julie from My Wee Abode. Julie is an amazing person! Right now she is taking care of her mother who has dementia. Julie blogs about small home solutions. She inspires me and I know she will inspire you too!

Thanks for stopping by. Happy Summer!

Bloggers’ Best Summer Home Tours

This week I am joining some of my blogging friends for the Bloggers’ Best Summer Home Tours. Twenty eight talented and creative women will be opening their homes up for you to tour all week long. You can visit each summer home tour by clicking the links below.

Monday’s Tours

The Tattered Pew // Worthing Court // StoneGable

My Wee Abode // Southern Home and Hospitality // My Thrift Store Addiction

Tuesday’s Tours

She Gave It a Go // Cottage In The Mitten // Eleanor Rose Home

Peacock Ridge Farm // Bricks n’ Blooms // Cottage On Bunker Hill

Wednesday’s Tours

White Arrows Home // A Life Unfolding // Simply2Moms

WM Design House // White Lilac Farmhouse

Thursday’s Tours

The Ponds Farmhouse // Thistle Key Lane // Open Doors Open Hearts

Robyn’s French Nest // Cloches and Lavender // DIY Beautify

Friday’s Tours

Pasha Is Home // My Family Thyme

Midwest Life and Style // Amy Sadler Designs