For the past couple of months, I've been wanting to make some changes in my living room and freshen it up. While, I love the flat weave rug in our living room and the color grey. It was just too much grey, grey sofas + grey walls + grey rug = grey overload. One of the cool things about having hardwood floors in your home, is they can handle loads of color. After looking at a slew of rug options, I came to the conclusion a natural fiber rug for our living room would be a fantastic option and look timeless.

I'm a modern girl at heart I love clean lines and non-fussy spaces and I also love classic elements in rooms that look good year after year. I'm all about staying power when it comes to my foundation pieces in my home. I've been a fan of natural rugs for quite sometime, specially woven jute rugs. Prior to re-building our floor, we had a jute rug in our living room. Jute rugs just look so timeless and can be a great foundation for laying another rug on-top. After searching high and low, I found a fantastic Woven Jute rug, and I'm in love!

Our new rug arrived about three weeks ago, and I wanted to make sure I absolutely loved the rug before sharing all the deets on the blog. I ordered the Barley Twist Jute Natural rug from West Elm for an incredible price, only $399 for a 9x12 rug. Which was a total steal! I was a little nervous to pair a natural color rug with my grey sofas, but they look so fantastic together.

I'm also happy, I went with a larger area rug this time, the 9x12 rug fills out our small living room nicely and basically floats in the room, with about 1.5 feet to spare. Another plus, is the light color and larger size helps to create the illusion our living room is bigger by drawing your eyes down and out. We placed the new rug over our existing rug pad to give the jute jug extra cushion + help protect our hardwood floors.

Barely Twist Jute Rug Pluses & Negatives

The woven pattern & design look fantastic both in real life & in person
The bottom of the rug is almost flat woven like, nagative - the rug can;t be flipped
Its pretty soft underfoot, but can feel a little bumpy
We've experienced a little shedding on the rug, which is normal since its made with natural fibers

I was a little nervous to unroll the rug since our puppy is only 8 months, I was mostly concerned with him getting overexcited and marking our rug! I was also nervous about his nails potentially getting caught in the rug. So far all my fears, haven't happened! Our puppy seems to like layer on the rug.

I'm seriously smitten & addicted to Jute rugs, they're perfect options for high traffic areas. My family spends a lot of time in our living room and this rug will for sure get a lot of action. Next up on my list to update in our living room, pillows. You all know how much I love pillows and now that my floors have gotten some love, its time to give my sofas some love with new pillows. I freaking cannot wait until the goodies arrive in my mailbox, I'm so ready to do a happy pillow dance. I'll share more pictures of our living room, along with some additional changes I'm considering making to our space once the pillows arrive and are in place.

What time of rug do you have in your living room? Are you a natural fiber rug person too? What do you think our new rug?

Earlier this Summer, I planned on planting a veggie garden outside, the usual suspects: bell peppers, jalapeno peppers + some herbs. Yeah, didn't happen. I did plant a few herbs, however its so been so hot in Sacramento, that most of the plants we did plant died [Whomp Whomp].

I recently decided a small indoor kitchen herb garden was a absolute must. Not only do I love adding fresh herbs to meals, I love how they smell!

Plus the herb garden addition provides instant greenery in my very white kitchen. For the one-pot spaghetti I made last night for dinner, a couple of snips from Italian Parsley I planted and dinner was good to go. Also, trust me when I say you need these herb scissors in your life, they make herb & green onion snipping so much faster! Best under $8 bucks I've spent in a long time #treatyourself

It's seriously so cool to snip herbs from your indoor herb garden

I'm a sucker for pretty planters (needing planter inspiration this post is for you!) and decided a simple modern rectangle ceramic planter that would fit my style and windowsill perfectly. I found the perfect modern planter on Amazon, 10 inches long which is perfect for my windowsill. I love that the planter can with a tray to catch water. I used Miracle Grow potting soil to fill the planter.

I selected the four basic herbs I use the most everyday: Cilantro, Italian Parsley, Mint & Basil. This time of year most 'nurseries' at the big box stores are cleaned out of herbs. However, it's definitely not to late to start an indoor herb garden, pop into your local nursery for a larger selection. Also check your local grocery store for Living Herbs, that you can plant in your indoor garden. Most grocery stores carry them year round. I bought my herbs from Green Acres in Sacramento, my go-to local nursery, and topped the soil with natrual river stones to help keep the soil moist.

It's only been a few days, but I'm already loving the convenience of snipping a few herbs and adding them to meals, plus meals always look a little fancier with fresh herbs. My cilantro is looking a little sad, so I snipped it down a bit. Hopefully it will bounce back in a few days. All my other herbs are growing like crazy!

I just love the fresh greenery in my kitchen. Having a little herb garden in my kitchen just adds the perfect extra touch. I love how simplistic and pretty the herb garden looks in my windowsill.

Do you grow your own herbs inside or out? Which herbs are your favorite?