Introducing: Meredith Rodday Design

drum roll please!!! today is the big day. i'm beyond proud (and also excited and little nervous!) to announce the new look for my interior design business:

meredithroddaydesign.com

image via coast to coast studio

about a month ago the lovely ladies, lucy and paige, of coast to coast studio reached out to ask if i'd be interested in working with them to create a real brand behind my work. it was exactly the kick in the pants that i needed. i created view from my heels when it was cool to name your blog back in 2010 but it doesn't really resonate with the work i'm doing anymore. i'd been toying around with the idea of creating a professional website for a while and never made it a priority. honestly i was scared to take that leap and i didn't completely believe that i was legit enough to have a professional website. it was so wonderful and empowering to hear their perspective because they saw me as a designer. not only a blogger or design enthusiast but a full fledged designer. having never had any formal education or experience in design, i've never felt completely comfortable calling myself a designer. even on instagram my profile has always read "interior design obsessed." just by reaching out and explaining the overall brand they envisioned for me, they helped me believe in myself. so really it's much more than just a new website and logo, it is complete empowerment and for that i am extremely grateful.

the process was very easy with lucy and paige. i sent inspiration images, colors, and sites and they came up with some ideas. we landed on a very clean and simple design which i think represents me to a tee. they were also incredibly patient as i changed my mind, changed it back again, and got into every detail. one of the biggest decisions was color and while it's hard to tell here, i opted to use a washed out navy (inspo was benjamin moore hale navy) as opposed to traditional black. it sounds pretty minor but i really wanted to use blue and it gives a slightly softer look than black. 

we created a new logo and lettermark which are both below. starting today, you'll start to see these logos and the new meredith rodday design brand mentioned and incorporated in my designs. my blog will stay put for now but can be accessed through the new website as well. i'm also keeping the viewfrommyheels name on instagram. i have a new email address that's up in the contact page.

as i said before, it's so nice to have a one stop shop so-to-speak of bio, portfolio, and yes even shopping! a huge thank you to coast to coast for all of their amazing work. 😘😘

Hello.

knock knock, is anyone home?! sorry guys for being so mia. i'm up to my eyeballs in work but the good news is that i do have some good posts in the works. leaving you today with some pretty images.

do you follow floret flower? her images transport me for a second to another world!

this kitchen really caught my attention on pinterest. there is a lot going on but yet somehow it still feels tied together. i don't know the designer - tell me if you know!!

i thought this entry by chango & co was just stunning.

this mudroom though.

la belle vie

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Catching Up

*quick psa - tomorrow i'm posting the full updated tour of our home as part of the #springintohome tour. please plan to stop by the blog and let me know what you think!*

happy monday friends! i have a full day today with client meetings and the less glamorous grocery shopping and laundry. :) we were away this past weekend at my parents' house on the eastern shore of MD. it was very nice and hot - like 85-90! - and now i have a ton of catch up from the trip. going away - even if only for a short time and to a comfortable place - takes a lot of work. anyone else agree?! we picked up the dog from the kennel (win) but then forgot to feed him dinner (fail). don't worry, we remembered later on and he had a special late night feast.

we went down to MD not only to see my parents but to go to my 20th high school reunion. 😱😱 feeling old as dirt but it was very fun to go back to school and see everyone. my school is an incredibly special place and not exactly your average facility - the campus is 800 acres! i was there from first to twelfth grades so always brings back great memories and has a special spot in my heart.

back over on the other side of the bay, it's always fun exploring the gorgeous homes tucked back on the water. this area is famous for uber long tree-lined driveways that lead to the water. i want to know what's at the end so bad!! here are a couple of my favorites.

this one actually gives you a little peek!

i'm also helping my mom redo their living room and we honed in on fabrics and furniture styles this weekend which was fun. i snapped this pic of the current set up which i thought was a pretty little moment!

please stop by here tomorrow for the full updated house tour! see you then!

5 Facts About Me! And A New Guest Room Design

oh blog friends, i'm so behind. seriously wish there were 12 more hours in a day! so now that it's the new year, i thought i'd break out of my norm and get a little more personal around here with another "facts about me" post. (and if this isn't your thing, i get it but don't miss the pretty new bedroom i designed at the end!)

1. i love excel and spreadsheets and i geek out about formulas. 🤓it's one of the few things about my past desk-job life that i miss. #nerdalert

2. we struggled majorly to have kids but it inspired my design business. read more about it here.

3. i eat horribly. 😬 i could subsist on cheese and chocolate but also have a passion for pasta, ribs, steak, and a good lasagna. you'll never catch me with a kale salad. 🙅

4. i used to decorate very colorfully (see most of my early blog posts for more on that) but the older i've gotten, the more i'm drawn to whites with little hits of color here and there. i blame the children. 😉

5. i'm a night owl. i've been trying to be better lately but midnight is a normal bedtime for me. i have about 3.5 precious hours to myself four mornings a week which fills up quickly with client appointments and super glamorous stuff like grocery shopping. so the evening hours are my work time and it's never enough!

bonus fact: my favorite color is blue! i have to push myself to use other colors but i'll always go back to blue. and this leads to a new bedroom design i put together. happily i've got our upstairs guest room in a much better place now but i am sick and tired of our basement guest bedroom. it's basically been the same design in all three of our houses and it's time for a change. so i designed a room that features my favorite shade and keep things fresh and crisp. i've been looking and looking for a navy and white wallpaper and when serena & lily released this new patterned, i immediately added it to my cart. voila!

Goodbye 2016!

what a year 2016 was, on so many fronts. for me personally and professionally, it was a year of huge growth. when i started my business in the summer of 2015, i really wasn't sure where i wanted to take it or if it was even going to be viable. this year my business really grew and went to another level and i have to say i'm pretty proud of that! i'm incredibly grateful to all of my clients who trusted me with their homes. i took on larger and more complex projects that take time and patience but in the end are so worth it. whether my clients know it or not, they pushed me to move outside my comfort zone which is so hard but critical to making this whole thing a success. i can't wait to share some of the design work in the new year and i also can't wait to see where my clients take me in 2017.

i'm also so grateful to the community of people and businesses on instagram who showed me major love this year - one kings lane, studio mcgee, and serena & lily to name a few! it's hard to put out high quality and fresh content every day - or even every week! - and i really admire the people who do.

and just for kicks i wanted to see what my IG top nine looks like for 2016 and i love that it's a mix of my home, client projects, and other designers who i admire.

so, thank you! and here's to a kick ass 2017!!

Blog Update

happy monday friends!! i did a few blog updates recently including the subscribe feature that i mentioned before but also fixed the instagram feed which had gone all wonky and officially added a "for sale" section along the top. now you can easily access an ever-rotating bunch of items! the newest addition is this dining room table from restoration hardware. currently sells for $1,795, asking $650.

in other news, we were devastated to find out last weekend that the house we rented this past summer on nantucket, and had lined up to rent again this year, is going up for sale and can't be rented. SO sad. i spent about 4-5 days straight bleery-eyed searching for another place that was in our budget, not already rented, and has a pool. not the easiest feat especially given the location we want. we realized just how spoiled we were in that other house so we had to expand our search a little but found a new one that looks amazing. i'm very optimistic that we'll be just as happy!

is it june yet?! (this post wins the award for most random post ever but that's what i've got for today!)

VFMH Online Store

i've been thinking for a while that i should just set up a page with a bunch of items for sale - like my very own craigslist - so finally i did it!

http://viewfrommyheels.blogspot.com/p/for-sale.html

i do have a bunch of stuff you may have seen before but i also added a few new items at the top. and every time i add new stuff i'll try to let you know and they'll always be at the top of the page. thank you everyone for the support!!

How I Got Here

another day and another attack and more sadness. my heart goes to the people of Nice. it's unimaginable. i've had the below post written for a while now and had it set to go for today but wanted to acknowledge what happened last night first.

***

ok, mr. r will think i'm nuts but i'm about to get personal - more personal than i ever thought i would - and tell the story of how and why this blog came to be. until now there's probably still only a handful of people who know the real story but it feels good, cathartic really, to be able to tell it nearly six years since my very first post. so here goes. (warning - this is a long one!!)

back in 2010 we were in the midst of an awful struggle with fertility. we started trying to have a baby in the summer of 2008 but miscarriage after miscarriage meant still no baby two years later. i was in a dark place and frankly very depressed. i was also deeply private about my struggle as many people are. outside of my immediate family, there were about 5 friends who knew. infertility is extremely isolating. it's debilitating. and it isn't something i would wish on anyone. my therapist compared it to cancer and while it's on a completely different level than cancer, some of the effects are similar.

for those who have gone through a similar struggle, this may sound familiar. i started the bad habit of rounding up all of the terrible things i had done in my life - mean things i had said or even just thought, the times i had cheated or lied, and on and on - to try to justify why this was happening to me, an overall healthy, young woman. i shut out everything and everyone remotely related to pregnancy or babies. the sight of a stroller would send me reeling and i stayed completely away from facebook. during the day i would manage to eek by, burying my head in my work at my office job. i strangely had some of my best job performance during that time because i was so desperate, and thankful, for the distraction. but when there was nothing to distract me, the bad thoughts would consume me. night time was particularly tough and i was scared to be alone with those thoughts.

so i started a blog. i had recently begun reading other blogs and it was cool - blogs were a newer thing and the pressure was off. i didn't have to tell anyone about it if i didn't want to and it felt almost anonymous. plus i was writing about frivolous stuff like shoes and sofas so really who cared! when i explained it to friends and family i was able to write it off as a new passion but that wasn't really the truth. the funny part though is that it became the truth.

we had more struggles but i continued to use the blog as an escape. and in doing so i learned so much! like what i even wanted to write about on a daily basis. my first post was about a pair of high heels because after all i had named my blog "view from my heels" (back in 2010 when naming your blog was the "in" thing to do!). a whole new world of interior design opened up to me and the more i poked around, the more interested i became. i started trying out little projects at home and posting about the progress. friends started asking me for advice on things here and there. it was far from taking off but i felt like there was a purpose. and then in the summer of 2011 there was that wonderful day when i posted that we were expecting twins. and no, twins don't run in my family if you catch my drift. ;)

i eventually went on bedrest and kept posting to keep sane! and then the nursery became a great opportunity to start a project completely from scratch and was the first time that i had professional photos taken of a space. after the boys were born i almost stopped blogging all together but one day a friend said that she missed my posts (which was fairly shocking to me!) and it gave me a renewed interest. over the years i've posted more and i've posted less but it's always a place to come to collect my thoughts or even still just escape!

so in a very weird, twisted way i'm grateful for that time when i needed to escape because without it i'm not sure i would have fully realized my passion; a passion that has now turned into a fun little business for me that i truly love. so there's my story! and if you've made it this far - thank you! xo

UGH.

some days the boys take all that i have. today was one of those days. also we're in the final push of finishing up the work on our house and trying to purge a bunch of stuff that is clogging up the storage space in the basement. so far this week is a tough one. maybe by friday the port a potty will be gone from our front lawn. {crying/laughing face}

p.s. have you seen darius rucker's (aka hootie) home tour on domaine? it's pretty old but for some reason i never saw it. check it out here.

designer: angie hranowsky, photo by julia lynn

Notice Anything New?!

as you probably noticed, things look a little different around here!! i'm so excited to reveal my new blog design today! it's simple, clean, and fresh which is exactly what i was going for. i'm hoping you'll find it looks loads more professional and is more representative of the person behind the blog! my own style has changed so much in five years and i think the blog design now matches the current me. who knows where the next five years will take me and my aesthetic!

later this week i'll be sharing the design of my new business cards as well. it feels so so good to check this long outstanding box on my to-do list and it makes me proud to share this website with friends, clients, and the social media universe. a huge thanks to kelly at kelly christine studio for helping to make this all happen!!

p.s. sorry for the radio silence here - we were on vacation last week. full recap coming up this week!

Blog Redesign In The Works!!

quickly first - if you go to ballard designs and scroll to the bottom, you will see my instagram shutter photo in the first box (also showcasing their calisse lantern)!! always exciting to see your own stuff on big boy sites :)

anywho, it's official y'all! i'm teaming up with kelly christine studio to make a lonnnng overdue and much needed overhaul of this blog. granted, i am not making money doing this so i'm not going to put a big chunk of change towards it but i am going to put a lot of effort into it because it's kinda like my little baby. it gives me a place to come, chat, and post some of my work. i want it to reflect me on a more professional level.

now i get to brainstorm about the look i'm going for and it's hard!! i'm glad i waited until now in some respects because i know i want to go neutral and calm. i think in the past i would have jumped toward color. neutral might sound boring but i think it will help on the sophistication and professionalism scale. my big question is do i add blue, my most favorite color? so i started to pull some images together that might translate into a palette.

pretty rooms to look at if nothing else :)

Happy Mama!

i'm so excited it's monday. unheard of i know but i'm serious because... it's a SCHOOL DAY!!! (and not a snow day!) i love my children more than anything but we have spent all but two days together in the month of february. i know one thing, i could not have a home daycare.

i also have a few client projects brewing right now which are all so fun! the newest is a nursery for a baby boy and i just know it's gonna be so stinkin cute. i can't wait to share more here on all of the projects but they tend to take a long time - i think hgtv does a bit of a disservice with so many renovation shows that last an hour or half hour! it takes a long time to make changes happen. just a reminder to anyone out there looking for help, please reach out (contact info in my profile)!!

and here is a random picture to make all of us in a non-warm climate drool. :)

i would do things for this house. i bet i'm not alone.

NOOOOOO

that's it. put a fork in me, i'm done. my house is officially on the market. if you stand in the street in front of our house you can't see our door. really!! i never want to wish away time and i consciously try to live in the moment but right now there is nothing more i would like than to fast forward a couple of months. we're supposedly getting more snow friday and also sunday - and not like a little snow - they actually threw the word blizzard out there just to terrorize us some more. my kids have had school 1 day this month. oh and to add insult to injury, my parents left on sunday for 3 weeks in hawaii. so yes i'm complaining...and crying and whining and throwing a huge fit!! if only tantrums were acceptable for adults. this has been a rough initiation to being at home full time but on the other hand i'm grateful not to have worry about missing a bunch of work and meetings!

anyway i am trying to transport myself somewhere else mentally and i've been looking at the beach people website. they make the coolest beach blankets. it's an australian company but i believe they ship worldwide.

and also this adorable cart.

australia? sure i'll go there.

The End Of An Era (And The Beginning Of A New One)

today is my last day of work at the company where i've been for the last 7.5 years. this is a big deal for me as my work has always been an important part of my life. but bigger than that even is that this is my last day of work - like normal office-type work. it's a crazy life change and a scary one at that! i'm feeling a bunch of emotions - excitement (i mean this is a choice after all), guilt (i should be contributing income to our household), embarrassment (i do have a brain and a college education but somehow i'm choosing not to put them to work at the moment), and a sense of focus (i can really focus on one job now because let's face it, being a mom is a job in itself).

i am also going to have a bit more time which i treasure. we're adding a new member to our family (more to come on him soon!) which will keep me very occupied at first. i volunteered as a room parent this year which if you know me is kind of, well, out of character. i'm thinking forward to the summer and might actually get my kids swimming in the big pool now that we're potty trained! (p.s. they're potty trained!!! i was dreading it so much but it turned out to not be so bad.)  i've been saying that i want to start painting again for a year now - i have all the supplies and now i might even have the chance. the list could go on and on...i don't think i'll be bored :)

in addition to all of those things i'm really excited about legitimatizing my design business. i need to figure out a name, a logo, update my blog, and get some big girl business cards. and the fun part is that now i think i'll actually have time to do it! so join me on this journey into next phase of life. oh and if you're looking for some design help, please reach out!! e-design clients welcome!

Back To Life!

hi all! we're back from our family trip to sea island! i kinda didn't mention that we were headed away but you may have seen on instagram! the boys had a fun time and while i wouldn't call it a "vacation" since traveling with two 2 year olds is not very vacation-like, we did have great weather and a nice change of pace!

but now we're back to 45 degrees and rain. only a 30-35 degree swing. ugh!! sometimes i really question this whole new england thing.

thanks to my in-laws for the very generous trip!

Big Decision.

drum roll please...

i've decided to give up decorating projects for 1 year.

whoop there it is. a whole year! it's crazy. cray cray. (a friend sent me a blog post once that said you shouldn't say cray cray over 30. probably shouldn't say whoop there it is either.) and i might go crazy trying to stick to this decision! anyone who reads this blog, and especially those who know me personally, may have already felt their eyeballs roll back in their heads and muttered *something* to the effect of "right." i'm an addict, i fully admit it. but i'm for real y'all! it's time to ratchet back all of those design lusts and just live. well not the lusts so much but the taking action on those lusts!

basically no room makeovers, no new rugs, furniture, etc. the exceptions to my rule are things that are already in the works, of which there are a few (e.g. kitchen/family room window treatments), and things that are a necessity (e.g. when the boys are ready for big boy beds). i think this is going to be fun, painful at first, but fun in the end. i know my husband will appreciate a break from the constant change that is always going down in our house! or at least the costs of those changes.

(adding a random pretty picture so you stay with me)

and it will take a ton of self control - kind of a big deal for me since it's clearly something that i tend to lack! i love love love doing design projects and taking you all on my journey. but as much as i love this blog, i think it has encouraged me/made me feel obligated to always be doing something "big" to share. and i think that's evolved - it didn't start that way. so back to the basics which just means that i'll have to get more creative. the projects that i am able to do going forward will be more of the diy variety. and otherwise i hope to feature more of other people's projects - big or small! did you get new pillows? i want to see! did you redo a bath? i definitely want to see! and anything in between! and then also do shorter sort of "mini" posts to help keep my life in balance. it takes a lot of time writing all of this stuff!

so, my to-do list will wait and i'm sure my inspiration files will grow out of control :)

p.s. super wordy post - thanks for sticking with me!

Funny Ha Ha

a little humor for you today, especially if you are a mom of young children. is there anything that tina and amy can't make funny? my favorite is the sleep quote. rings so very true.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/09/tina-fey-amy-poehler-parenting-quotes-_n_4556970.html

Gifting To Yourself

so this christmas my lovely husband was sitting in a chair with a pile of gifts that he had been given. i saw him pull one out – a red lumpy package with a tag that said “daddy.” it took me a couple of seconds but i realized - i did not wrap that gift and it was definitely not my wrapping job! he began unwrapping it with this little smile on his face and so i had to ask “what is that?!”. "oh, it’s from lily." lily is our dog for anyone who doesn’t know, and while lily is a very smart dog, she is in fact incapable of going shopping or wrapping gifts. sneaky sneaky!

innocent lily

have you done this before or did you do it this christmas? buy yourself something, wrap it up, put a tag on it, and open it christmas day? this is something i would fully expect from someone like say, myself, but not someone like my better half. it made me wonder maybe everyone does it occasionally?! anyway it ended up being a duffle bag that he claimed i wouldn’t have bought it for him. he may or may not be correct about that ;) i am not a duffle fan (see here). although if he had asked for it, i’m sure i would have put my own feelings aside and got him his beloved duffle.

A Break

i think i kinda already started this break last week but i guess i'll make it official! taking a break here for the holidays and i'll be back with you next week. i hope you have a wonderful week filled with family, friends, and great memories! and i hope you have a chance to truly unplug - both literally and figuratively - it's such a challenge to disconnect but i'm going to really try. (mr. r please remind me of this when you see my phone in my hand!!)

xo

via pinterest

Insta

that’s what the cool kids call it right? well i’m finally on. kinda like fb, late to the game. i was purposely holding out b/c i know i'll get so addicted. buuuut i caved (thanks a lot AF).

(new laundry room art from etsy seller stephanie creekmur in silver foil)

so follow me here!

http://instagram.com/viewfrommyheels/

who are some good people to follow?

p.s. follow me on pinterest too! i'm up over 1,000 pins - should i be proud or embarrassed?! :)