Featured Designer - Gray Rose Home

In an effort to avoid annoying family and friends on her personal page, Melissa started her Instagram page Gray Rose Home as a way to document the process of personalizing her home. The original page used a different Instagram handle, but as she grew her following she felt it important to change the name in an effort to create a brand around a passion. Gray Rose Home has since amassed nearly 13k followers. 

Melissa believes that when it comes to her home, less is more, which in part is why she describes her style as “simple modern farmhouse”. When it comes to furniture and finishes Melissa says, “I stick to a small color pallet and love rustic type furniture that my kids can beat up and it looks intentional.”

While her page shows off many impressive DIY projects, Melissa’s favorite room is her son’s. She built her son’s bed, her first large furniture build, and if you can’t tell by the photo, it turned out amazing! Melissa also shared, “I used the back cover of a coloring book to make a stencil for his wall on a whim one morning and included lots of decor that can grow with him with a few of his favorite things, like dinosaurs, that can be switched out easily and inexpensively when he’s looking for a change.” Talk about a great use of creativity!

We asked Melissa to share some of her tips for designing a home. Here are her top 5 tips. 

• Make your home functional for you and your family. 
• Spend money and search for items you love even if it takes time. 
• Don’t fall into trends or decorate to suit what’s hot now.
• Do what you love and can live with. 
• Don’t rush, slow down and enjoy the process. Have fun and don’t be afraid to build, design, create, choose...just do it!

Finally, we asked where she finds her inspiration. Like most of us, the answer included Pinterest and Instagram. If you are on the hunt for some inspirational pages for your projects at home, Melissa has several pages for you to follow, , “I love Our Faux Farmhouse and have been following Holly and Brad for years before starting my own page! If I could move into any house on IG, it would be theirs or Yellow Prairie Interiors. I’ve been following Janna for years also. Two totally different homes but both styles I’m absolutely drawn to. Angela Rose Home and Philip Or Flop give me all types of DIY inspo!”