Welcome to this weeks Tour Tuesday! Today we are spending some time at my friend Tami’s home in East Sacramento. I met Tami about three years ago. She is so incredibly talented and resilient and must plain GOOD. She owns a fabulous shop here in our town called Patina Home and Garden. Some of my favorite items in my house are from her shop. I have also purchased all of the paint I use in my home decor projects from her store, as she is an Annie Sloan stockist. You can also check out her Instagram and get inspired right this second :). Anyhoo, come along and take a peak into her calm and lovely home. Welcome Tami!

Me: “Hi Tami! Ok, let’s get down to it. How did you come to live in this home and when was it built?”

Tami: “I have always been in love with the charm of East Sacramento and the restaurants of Midtown.  We moved into our new home the summer of 2017.  Our neighborhood is a new development that continues to win accolades within Northern California. The neighborhood is a master planned community called McKinley Village and is just blocks away from McKinley Park, Midtown Sacramento, the American River, and less than a two hour drive from Lake Tahoe. We decided that the summer between our son’s 8th grade and freshman year of high school was the perfect time to make the move.”

Me: “What is the feeling you were going for with your furnishings and decor?”

Tami: “ I believe in these three things.  1. Your home should be your soft place to fall and you should enjoy coming home to it.  2.  You don’t have to go broke decorating your home.  3.  Your home should reflect things that you love. I am a state licensed contractor in painting and decorating, so you will find a variety of painted furniture pieces in my home.  I do love a “modern mixed with antique vibe” and that’s exactly what our home design is.  I love to create and re-create signs, so you can find some of my personalized touches in my home.  I prefer clean lines, muted tones, lots of greenery and generally, an uncluttered look.  Many of the pieces in our home have either been passed down or were gifted and they mean so much to me, including my 1800’s Hungarian Hunt Cabinet that my husband bought me for Christmas just before deploying to the Middle East.”

Me: “I LOVE your three home requirements! I completely agree with all of those. So did you decorate all at once or a little bit at a time?”

Tami: “We moved in and I just had to get everything done within the month.  Having moved seven times with the Air Force, one of which was overseas, you get pretty good at moving! I can’t stand the thought of living out of boxes and I was excited to decorate our beautiful home. Our previous home where we raised our three children was just about 2000 square feet and built in 1988, so everything was on a smaller scale and for the most part, my larger scale pieces just looked out of place.  One of the pieces, a 4 foot by 8 foot vintage American flag that was a gift to my husband upon his retirement from the Air Force, fits my new home perfectly.  We joked that even our bigger furniture pieces looked like doll furniture along the 10 foot ceilings in our new home.   It took a bit of adjusting and the right additions to the house to make it the way I wanted it.“

Me: “I love the background on the flag in your home! So, what is your favorite thing about this home?”

Tami: “Well, first of all, the floors!  They are the showstopper in our home.  We have the most beautiful Heirloom Oak Floors made by Provenza Floors.  The downstairs of our home boasts 1600 square feet of it everywhere. It’s wire brushed and has a UV cured oil finish and is pretty durable and dog tested!  There are so many other elements I love.  We have a butler’s pantry area, which is just an added bonus of cabinets and counter space.  There is a walk in large shower and free-standing tub in our master bathroom and our kids all have their own bathrooms.  My favorite thing that I added to our home were the two 19” antique Brass Harmon pendants from Restoration Hardware that rest over our kitchen island. “

Me: “What decor projects have been the most fun/rewarding to accomplish and which ones have driven you crazy?”

Tami: “My living room is my solace. The story behind my Restoration Hardware White Linen Cloud Sofa is a good one.  I spent the better part of five weeks traveling back and forth to the Restoration Hardware Outlet in Vacaville. They had multiple pieces for sale for dirt cheap but had no slipcovers.  It came to me one night in my sleep that I could just buy new slipcovers for them and it would save us so much!  It took about a month to finally get them all.  One piece, the ottoman, I actually got for free because a guy bought the wrong color for his Cloud to add on! I saved thousands of dollars buying it like this.”

“Everyone loves the white sofa but cringes at the idea of keeping it clean but I’ve actually had a white sofa in my home for over 10 years. Spot bleach is my friend.  My slipcovers wash up nicely, too, and we can all watch movies comfortably on it.  We were able to actually purchase our media cabinet on Craigslist that had some surface damage and all it really needed was a little putty and a few coats of Chalk Paint® by Annie Sloan in Pure White to have it looking new again!”

Me: “What are some of your favorite sources for your home decor?”

Tami: “I have owned Patina Home and Garden since 2013, so I have the best sources at my fingertips!  My home is a good sampling of what our store is like.  I really prefer to buy local and support local artisans and we stick to mostly California made.  I believe in buying good quality pieces of furniture, such as sofas and beds, that will last the test of time.  We bought our Pottery Barn Charleston Sofa in 2000 when we moved to California and over the years, has only required a new set of cushions for it.  It was the best purchase we ever made and it’s still in our loft!”

Thank you so much Tami! See, isn’t it such a calm and lovely home? I especially like what Tami says about home being “a soft place to fall”. As soon as I read that I realized that is exactly how I want my home to feel too! I want my home to be a sanctuary to all who are in it but never knew quite how to phrase that feeling; Tami said it perfectly. Thanks for being here for Tour Tuesday! I hope that you have found some inspiration in Tami’s home :).

*Would you like to appear in a Tour Tuesday of your very own? Contact me at trulaaluu at yahoo dot com; let’s collaborate!