Hi friends, you probably already know this, but I OPENED A SHOP! It’s been a long time dream and in true Jeran fashion, I decided very spontaneously to lease a building and open.

I want to document more of this decision and process here on the blog. But to be completely honest, right now I don’t have the time or energy to share more then this announcement and some images my friend @allyswenphotography took for me just before I opened. I’ll be back and share more, but for now here’s where we are located and when we are open.

Oleander + Palm

1022 Truxtun Ave, Bakersfield CA 93301

Tuesday – Saturday 10 am – 5 pm

I hope you can come a visit me, but if that is not possible my online shop is still there and I’m adding new items to it all the time. Thanks for all the support friends.

This post is sponsored by The Company Store. Thank you for supporting the brands that help make this blog possible.

Happy Monday!

There is no time like Spring for wanting to spruce up and give rooms a refresh. I’ve been itching to change things up a little. And while I’ve been on an “all white bedding” kick for quite a few years, I’m craving a lot more color these days. My husband, Lonnie, is always happy when a stray from neutrals and add a burst of color. Since I’m ready for the sun and warmer days, we decided to bring in a little sunshine with a beautiful warm mustard colored Legends Hotel™ Relaxed Linen Duvet Cover and Shams from The Company Store.

We paired this rich colored duvet with Company Cotton™ Pinstripe Percale Sheets in Gray.

I’m very impressed with the details like the pretty linen hem stitch around the duvet and the shams. This grey and yellow might be a combo we’ve all played with before, but it still feels current to me with this subtle pattern and just enough texture.

And the duvet cover has four interior corner ties to secure the duvet insert in place – because there is nothing worse than a duvet scooting all the way down to one end.

I love wearing linen, especially when the weather gets warmer. It’s great breathable natural fiber. It’s relaxed and the opposite of anything fussy or fancy. And, for all the same reasons, I’ve been wanting to try linen bedding. This is the softest linen and this gorgeous Legends Hotel™ Relaxed Linen Duvet Cover comes in 10 beautiful colors. I had a hard time choosing. There’s a gorgeous Green and a rusty red/orange called Russet that were both very tempting. But, I’ve been wanting to push myself a bit with colors lately, so this golden hue felt like the brave and bold choice. I think I made the right choice, It matched the brass of my bed frame spot on, which is kind of fun.

I also added a fun Ink Spot Cotton Voile Quilted Sham to the center of the bed to add a little visual interest and pattern. You know I’m a fan of black and white and this sure does look sharp with the mustard yellow.

I’m such a fan of working with what you have and just making a few simple tweaks here and there. Fresh bedding is all this room needed to feel like a new space.

Happy Spring Friends!

This post is sponsored by Carpet One Floor & Home. Thank you for supporting the brands that help make this blog possible.

There’s one room in our home that gets very little screen time, our primary bathroom off of our bedroom. It’s a lot of “90’s remodel” vibes. Peachy/Pink walls, so many mirrors, shiny cheap brass fixtures, broken metal mini blinds and rust colored stone are just a few of the extra special features. I’m honestly just not ready for a full gut reno of this bathroom and really I don’t think it’s necessary. There actually is some great storage in this bathroom. So, I think I’m going to keep the updates to just upgrading the floor, painting EVERYTHING and then adding some art, accessories and new hardware. As much as I’d like to replace the dated (and not the date of our house dated) bathtub and retile the shower, it’s really the floor that needs some attention.

Carpet One Floor & Home has analyzed products in every flooring category to introduce their Trending Ten products of 2021. Carpet One Floor & Home is a trusted advisor when is comes to flooring trends, products and the latest flooring features. They sent me a sample box with the Trending Ten and I was immediately drawn to 2 of their flooring selections for our bathroom – Concrete Look in Power Grey by Bel Terra Tile and Ralston Creek in Charleston by Invincible XT (seen in the mood boards).

I decided to lay out a mood board of my vision to get a better feel for the space. Some of you might be really surprised by all the saturated color I’m infusing into this space. This is a little bit of a departure from my norm. But, I’m wanting to take some risks and have a little fun outside of my comfort zone when it comes to design. I’ve been all for keeping a space somewhat neutral so that you don’t end up with a design decision you don’t love in a couple years. But, there is something to be said about diving all in on a look that you REALLY love in the moment. Who knows what you’ll like in a few years. You can kind like it for quite a while or really LOVE it right now. I guess I’m liking the idea of living in the moment instead of playing it safe for some future time. So, let’s paint the cabinets a bold color and play with a brand new color palette!

I decided that just embracing the rust colored stone counter tops was the best way to go. So, I believe the plan will be to paint all the cabinets a rich rusty red color and maybe even keep the walls a pink tone. The Carpet One samples I was drawn to the most are quite different, but they both work so well with this palette. The wood grain feels warm and more like all the hardwood that is already in the home and the grey concrete look feels like a nice juxtaposition to all the warm reds. Because we live in a old house and I want to honor it’s age, without living in a museum. So, I’m always designing with a mix of vintage and modern. I think finding that balance with a little old and some new is what keeps our home feeling fresh.

A modern material on the floor, but lots of vintage touches when it comes to art and accessories – that’s my game plan.

If you had to pick, which would you go with, the grey cement look or the warm wood grain?

This post is sponsored by Sherwin Williams. A big thank you to Sherwin Williams for helping provide paint for this project. And a thank you for supporting the brands that help make this blog possible.

AND…. a very big shout out to my brother, Ash (who helped us run the lift and kicked off our first week of painting), my dad (who helped us problem solve the sprayer on more than one occasion and rebuilt new railings on my porch to match the rest of the house), my mom (who helped keep us fed and full), and last but definitely not least, Lonnie, my husband (who worked more hours then we can count prepping and painting this giant house).

It’s a big day for the McConnel house, WE PAINTED THE EXTERIOR OF OUR HOUSE! This is going to be a doozy of a post, so buckle up. Painting an old house is a BIG deal. Oh man, this feels like it was a long time coming. If you are new here, we own a 1918 two-story craftsman. I LOVE our house! We have only lived in Oleander neighborhood in Bakersfield, California. It’s our hood! I always knew that this is the house I wanted to own eventually. So, when it came on the market we listed our house the very next day.

When we bought this house, 4 1/2 years ago, it needed a fresh coat of paint. On the South side of the house, a lot of the siding was down to the bare boards. Even with peeling paint, I loved this house. But, now that it is freshly painted, I’ve fallen in love with this place all over again. It really looks like a totally different house, it’s crisp and fresh, but still feels like a classic old house.

Early on, we figured out how much it would cost to hire someone to paint our house (way too much), so we knew it would have to be a DIY job. And to be honest, my husband started scraping and sanding the exterior of our house over a year ago. He would put in at least 10 hours a week in the evenings and weekends. But when it came time to do the actual painting, we knew it was a job that would need to be done all at once and it would probably time a few weeks to complete. My husband is a high school teacher, so we do have a couple months in the Summer available. But, Summer’s here are 100+F, so that would be a very painfully hot job. So, year after year, we just put it off because we were busy with full time jobs, an airbnb to run and 3 kiddos. And then…. the pandemic hit. And we were here ALL THE TIME! Lonnie, my husband scraped and sanded more and more through the pandemic and right after the New Year, he said, “Let’s do this!”. And he rented a lift and ordered some primer. We probably could have prepped and sanded for the next decade, but once we had an actual date set we knew we had to go strong until it was done.

Our house is BIG and complicated with lots of different roof pitches and so, so many windows. And these are original windows, so it’s all wood and they all needed to be painted. We counted, there are over 300 panes of glass!!! (I will get an exact count for you soon).

3 years ago I wrote a blog post about painting our house all white. I made my mind up a long time ago that I wanted a white house. Originally, I thought I’d have some black details, maybe on the trim, windows or the airplane wings. I should explain, our house is an Airplane Craftsman. The second story is really only 1/2 a story and it comes up out of the middle of the house, with windows on all sides, making it feel like a cockpit. And then all the oversized eaves and exposed rafters resemble the wings.

Anyways, the more I looked at our house once the primer was on, I decided that the black was just not needed. My biggest worry was that the rafters in the eaves (which are a really unique detail to our house) would not be as visible as they were before. With the house being a darker color and the rafters being white, they really stood out. So I thought the rafters needed to be a contrasting color. But, when I saw them all white, it just made sense. It really is all about the light and all the shadows that are cast at different times of the day. The details were not lost when everything went all white.

Before I give you all the DIY steps and details, let’s talk color. While we went with no color, picking the right white really is important. If you have been around here for a while, you know that Sherwin Williams Alabaster White is my GO-TO white. I’ve painted all the trim and many walls in my last two houses this same warm white. I chose it 17 years ago for our built-ins in our first house, and I’ve been using it ever since. It’s warm without being yellow, and crisp without being cool and flat. It really is a perfect white for an older home (in my opinion). So, we HAD to go Alabaster with the exterior.

At the beginning of the pandemic, we had the kids paint the fence. Yep, we were those parents. But honestly, it got them out in the fresh air and doing something when there was absolutely nothing to do. The fence was a bright emerald green. and while I love the color green, it felt too bright and brought way more attention to the fence then the house. We went with Sherwin Williams Black Magic and it is absolutely perfect with our all white house.

Ok, from start to finish, it took us just over 6 weeks. That was every afternoon, evening, weekend and even some days we both took off work to paint. Yep, it was a lot of work, but I honestly think we did a better job than any painter we could have hired. We were perfectionists and took care of every inch of this exterior.

Do I think you should paint your house? YES! If we can do it, you totally can! But, you’ve got to really want it. Because you are going to be frustrated and tired and covered in paint at times. And you aren’t going to have any down time for quite a few weeks. But, SO SO WORTH IT! I feel so much pride and accomplishment with finishing this project.

Well it turns out I had a lot to say and a lot of pictures of our house to share, so please come back tomorrow for the full how-to. I have all the supplies and details on how we did this job start to finish.