When I convinced my husband to accept a navy blue velvet couch into our lives it was based on this photo (above) I stumbled across on the internet, somewhere. It’s bold and masculine while also being happy, refined and user friendly. But because things are pinned and re-pinned, tagged and re-tagged, and dare I say 
swiped and stolen, I had no idea at the time, the living room I was lusting over was an Emily Henderson living room. I simply loved it, took a snapshot from my phone and filed it away under my “one day” dream living room. Until one day, that one day came when West Elm, much to my dellight, featured this little beauty. The Peggy Mid-Century Terminal Chaise Sectional. Instantly I put two and two together, my one day couch photo with this real, here and now couch, and quickly went to work selling off our current living room furniture in hopes of replicating this look. And that is when my world got that much happier.
You see, a navy couch is a pretty specific statement piece and in comparison to other design searches, it’s a relatively small pool of results that comes back to you. And being as I had the image of the room and I had the couch (on order) and what I really needed was to figure out what was next, how to style the rest of the room, a simple tweak of my search lead me to my unexpected discovery –which is when I ran into my long standing designer girl crush, Emily Henderson — and suddenly my passion for this room all made sense. I have been a HUGE fan of hers ever since her first season on HGTV, when my then boyfriend, now husband and I would sit for hours in front of the TV on a lazy Sunday, glued to a Secrets From A Stylist marathon.
Constantly amazed by her styling secrets, I was always most impressed by 2 things the show never failed to deliver. 1. How she nailed the decorating styles of the men and women based on objects they gravitated to, like clothing or stationary, ties or toys and 2. how she brilliantly managed to blend both styles together by the end, styles that to many a designer, simply didn’t go at all. And I suppose I could say three things actually amazed me, because in each episode, it would always blow my mind how she literally perfected the chosen room in one style only to dismantle it and recreate the entire room all over again blending the two styles. And I don’t mean just swapping out the decorative accents, I’m talking re-painting, re-treating, re-hanging, re- upholstering! It was literally a two for one with each 30 minute episode and the payoff was huge. Add in her stunning style and her stunning beauty with her quirky personality, and it was HGTV gold for me. And I’m pretty sure my husband wasn’t just in it for the afternoon spent in bed, wink wink.
And when the series sadly ended, I didn’t forget my designer soulmate, I simply picked up with crushing on her via the internet and all things digital. But not in a creepy stalker kind of way, more of a checking in on a good friend kind of way because I yearn to know what’s she up to next and find my own inspiration through her work. And therefore, I have followed her career because I love translating her style but I also follow because I love the approachability she brings to design, especially after teaming up with Target.
I believe good style doesn’t need to be exclusively expensive to be appreciated and so does she. She’s never after perfection and neither am I, she has kids (one here and one on the way), and I have kids. She creates spaces that look like kids are home and so do I. And that really is my Emily Henderson girl crush explained in a nutshell. Oh, and her home recently featured on domino.com, is truly lust worthy as well.
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