Home Tour: Our Morning Room :: How to Decorate Your Home With Natural Materials

When we purchased our new home back in December, I couldn't wait to begin decorating it. In order to do so, however, I quickly realized that I needed to decide exactly what kind of style best expressed our family and the vibe I wanted to create inside our home. While my immediate thought was "farmhouse chic," I knew that the French Provencal architecture of our expansive home wouldn't always lend itself to that design. Was I more industrial than bohemian? Perhaps a little folk-y, too?
Above all else I knew that I wanted our home to be a direct reflection of how we live. No matter what style I chose, it needed to create an environment that was comfortable, visually appealing and inviting. I wanted our home to be a place where friends and family wanted to be, a place where they felt comfortable tucking their feet up on our couch and catching up or gathering around the kitchen table to share a meal.
Curious as to what style I ultimately chose? A few different ones, as a matter of fact! I'm not a very cut and dry person, there's a lot of layers to my personality and similarly there's a lot of different rooms in my house that each give off a different vibe. 
Over the next few months, I'm thrilled to be working with local home furnishing retailer Gardiner Wolf to share one of my most favorite rooms in our home, the morning room located at the back of our house off of the kitchen. 

With its floor-to-ceiling windows and abundance of natural sunlight, it has quickly become one of my favorite rooms, not to mention one in which we spend a great deal of our time together as a family. Inspired by the sunlight that floods this room each morning, I chose to bring the outdoors in with furnishings that mimicked nature. 
This concrete top dining table boasts subtle, clean lines in conjunction with beautifully crafted turned wood legs in a toasted pecan finish. I struggled a bit when choosing chairs and couldn't decide between slat and cross-back styles. Ultimately I chose these wood cross-back chairs to compliment the natural wood legs and I couldn't be happier!
Finally I knew I wanted to add a bit more texture to the space with an upholstered end chair and jute rug. While it wasn't the most logical of choices with three small boys running around our home, I immediately fell in love with these Magnolia Home demi-wing upholstered side chairs and knew that I had to have them. 
Gardiner Wolf offers a wide variety of concrete pieces to fit any design taste. I'm so beyond thrilled with how this room came together and that table, the focal point of our morning room, couldn't be more perfect.
Why Natural Elements?
The organic appeal of natural elements not only creates an inviting space but one that is soothing, calming and full of warmth.
Concrete has been extremely popular over the last few years when it comes to home decor. Not only is it raw, variable and industrial but when used in conjunction with warmer natural elements, it can create a sophisticated, luxurious furnishing. While concrete has typically been used in outdoor settings, recent design trends have it in places all throughout the interior of a home. Whether it's flooring, counter tops, table tops or just peppered throughout the home in accessories, concrete has certainly found it's own seat at the proverbial design table. 

How To Choose Organic Home Decor
It's easier than you think to avoid choosing synthetic materials.  Wood, organically shaped stone or concrete and woven baskets are just three elements to help you start integrating natural materials into your home. Earthy tones such as fresh greenery and brown wood immediately transform spaces such as table tops, servers and even as wall decor.

It used to be that people only used artificial greenery in their homes. These days, however, people are bringing nature inside in both real and natural states in the form of potted plants, succulents, hanging vines and flowers. If it's maintenance that overwhelms you, start with potted succulents, or other low maintenance plants. It wont be long before you  notice how cheery and inviting the addition of just one or two plants to a space can be!
Shop Local
As I mentioned earlier, Gardiner Wolf Furniture is a local retailer with brick and mortar locations in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia. When shopping for furniture I think it's so important to get your hands on the pieces you'll be bringing into your home. To feel them, to sit on them, to truly get an idea of the texture of a piece of furniture. These brick and mortar locations allow you to do just that and with friendly, helpful sales people and an incredibly knowledgeable design team, I can't imagine shopping for furnishings anywhere else.  
For a discount on your next online or in-store purchase, my friends at Gardiner Wolf have to put together this amazing promotion for all I Love You More Than Carrots readers!  I look forward to sharing more about this space with you and this great home furnishing company in the coming months! Stay tuned...
All opinions expressed above are honest and my own. This sponsored post is brought to you by my working relationship with furniture retailer Wolf Furniture.