Best of Driven by Decor 2019

Happy new year!! How were your holidays? We spent ours down at our new house in North Carolina with my extended family and Jeff’s dad. It was in the upper 60’s and sunny almost our entire stay – heaven! The trips we’ve had down to NC since buying the house in September have mainly involved painting, putting furniture together, and removing wallpaper so it was really nice to just spend some time relaxing this trip. Now we’re back home in Connecticut and I’m ready to jump into some decluttering and organizing projects for the new year!  

Before sharing the first of my 2020 posts, I’d love to take a look back on 2019 and share the posts that were reader faves! If you’re new to Driven by Decor, now’s the perfect time to get caught up on the blog and if you’re a long-time follower (thank you, I so appreciate it!), you might just find a post or two that you missed along the way. Let’s get to it… (affiliate links included in post – full disclosure statement available {here})

Favorite Decorating Tips

I love sharing decorating tips and tricks and they tend to be some of your favorite posts! For 2019 the most popular decorating tips posts was {this post} where I share my favorite coffee table decor along with helpful styling tips!

Scroll & Click/Tap to Shop my Family Room Coffee Table + Decor:

Another popular decorating tips post was {this post} on ten favorite greige paint colors that includes real-life images of each color. I wrote it when I was trying to figure out the best greige to lighten up our living room – can you guess which one I picked after narrowing it down to these four?:

Other decorating tips posts from 2019 include {this post} on how to space pendants over your kitchen island, {this post} on bed-making 101, {this post} on how to clean your stainless steel appliances, and {this post} on the best way to paint interior and exterior doors. 

Favorite Room Makeover

The reader favorite room makeover in 2019 was our laundry room! I had totally neglected this sad little space ever since we moved in and now I’m wishing it was one of the spaces I had done first since it didn’t take a ton of work to make a big difference. It’s a pretty standard, small laundry room – previously, when you walked in and looked left there was nothing but a washer and dryer:  

We added a butcher block countertop above the washer and dryer which has been awesome for folding laundry (and sometimes just having a spot to throw clean laundry until I have time to get to it!). We also had some inexpensive IKEA cabinets installed for some much-needed storage space (I added {these acrylic and brass pulls} to dress them up) and then I prettied up the space with {these super cute tangerine wall decals} (see {this post} for details of how to apply them!):

Scroll & Click/Tap to Shop my Laundry Room:

Across from our washer and dryer, there’s a recessed area that previously had some simple open shelving – the only “before” pic I have of it is this one that I took when we toured our house when it was for sale:

I removed the door going into the laundry room to make the space easier to access (our laundry room is tucked away in a corner of our house so I wasn’t worried about going door-less) and added three IKEA PAX wardrobes. I customized them with storage space for gloves, scarves, etc. in {these baskets} at the top, coats on clever space-saving pull out racks in the middle, and shoes in drawers at the bottom (see {this post} with all the details on our IKEA coat/shoe storage):

We have no coat closet on our first floor and use to just hang our coats on hooks by the door so having this coat and shoe storage has been big! I also added a bunch of great organizational features to it, including {this over-the-door ironing board hanger} and {this narrow rolling cart} between our washer and dryer that has worked so well for storing our laundry supplies so that they’re quick and easy to grab – you can see all of my laundry room storage and organization tips in {this post}. 

Favorite DIY Project

The makeover of my daughters’ bathroom vanity was your favorite DIY project of the year. If you have a dated vanity that you don’t want to pay to have replaced, it’s a post you’ll want to take a look at if you missed it! Here’s what my girls’ vanity looked like before jumping into this project:

And here’s the new look after painting both the vanity and the walls:

So much better! You can find the step by step tutorial for painting my bathroom vanity {here} – it was really much easier to do than you might think! Do you know what was also super easy and something I should have done years ago? I replaced the glass shades on the light above their mirror with {these shades} and it instantly took their light fixture from looking dated to current!

Favorite Organizing Projects

I’m going to cheat on this one and share two favorites since they were neck and neck for reader views! The first is this organized command center that I created in one of our kitchen island drawers:

Scroll & Click/Tap to Shop my Kitchen:

Instead of a jumbled junk drawer of crap, I now have an organized spot where I file papers I’m working on (bills, to-do’s, etc.) and can grab everything from my keys to pens, paperclips, hair bands, and tape – get all of the details and links in {this post}:

Scroll & Click/Tap to Shop my Command Center Drawer:

The other organizing project that was a hit is my post about how to handle and organize your incoming mail and put an end to your mail clutter! I shared tips for how to stop extra junk mail, get informed about mail and packages that are heading your way, and how to sort it on the spot once it comes into your house. You can check out my post on creating a simple home mail organizer center {here}. 

Scroll & Click/Tap to Shop my Mail Organizer Center:

Favorite New Home Accessories

I narrowed down my 2019 home purchases to three favorites – first is {this nightstand} that I bought for our guest room in North Carolina. I absolutely love the look of it and it’s a sturdy, well-made piece:

I’m also a big fan of {this lamp with a USB port built into the base} that’s sitting on top of it. It comes with the shade and looks great everywhere you put it! You can see more of this bedroom and get other sources for it {here}.

Favorite accessory #2 is {this round wood tray} that I use to corral bedside essentials in our Connecticut guest room:

and I have a second one to corral a few things next to the stove in our kitchen. Love them so much!

Favorite accessory #3 is {this new upholstered bed} I bought for our guest room. I love it because it goes well with any bedding you choose and is such a high-end looking bed for the price!  

Scroll & Click/Tap to Shop our Guest Room:

There are several fabric options to choose from – I went with Zuma White. I love it so much that I bought the same exact bed in the king size for our master bedroom in North Carolina. I forgot to take a pic of it before we left (we just put it together a few days ago) but will show you the next time I’m down there!

My Personal Fave

My personal favorite project and post of the year was the makeover of my daughter’s dorm room – you can see it {here} if you missed it! The two of us had a lot of fun working on the design of this space together and I love knowing that she has this pretty little home away from home to come back to every day 🙂

Thank you all so much for stopping by the blog throughout 2019 – I look forward to lots of new projects, room reveals (can’t wait for our master bathroom to be done!), tips, and DIYs in 2020. If you have any ideas for posts that you’d love to see in 2020, I would love to hear them – let me know in the comments!

And if you aren’t already subscribed to get notified of new posts on Driven by Decor by email, now’s the perfect time to do that too! It’s typically only 1-2 emails/week, you can unsubscribe at any time, and you’ll no longer miss posts or miss out on favorite new finds (I always feature several in each post) by not catching them before they’re sold out. Subscribing is simple – simply provide your first name (optional) and email address below:

Happy new year everyone!