Home Sweet Home: Creating Our Sanctuary One Room at a Time
Bytes of Life: 2025 Week 22 - From AI-Powered Design Hacks to Foundation Shade-Matching Adventures
House Update
Since purchasing our first home back in October, we’ve been taking a thoughtful approach to furnishing - choosing pieces that truly spark job rather than rushing to fill the spaces. While process has been slow and sometimes confusing, I’ve truly enjoyed designing our home. So far, we’ve welcome a sofa, two accent chairs, a coffee table, and a storage bench into our living room. Next up on our wish list: the perfect dining set, a statement rug, and a chandelier to tie it all together.
Design with ChatGPT
I finally found the perfect virtual design consultant…ChatGPT. Instead of spending hours scrolling through Pinterest or hiring an expensive designer, I’ve found a clever hack to reimagine my space. By simply sharing photos of my existing furniture and room layout with ChatGPT, then asking it to generate design options in specific styles, I’m getting surprisingly helpful visualizations. Here's the exact prompt I used for consistently helpful results: “Using the image I’ve provided, generate an image with 4 options of a minimalistic, bistro, and eclectic interior design.”
Here is what it came up with:
The suggestions actually helped spark a breakthrough - a black and white rug would be perfect to brighten up my space while still letting me play with deep, rich colors I love. The goal? Bringing our backyard forest vibes indoor through a warm and natural palette. I also love the idea of hanging large artwork above the sofa and keeping my walls neutral.
Coming up next: my hunt for the perfect area rug and statement art piece. Fingers cross I find “the one’! Wish me luck!
Life with my Mini Me
As someone who loves a clean and organized home, living with a curious toddle who turns every drawer and cabinet into a treasure hunt has been…challenging! Finding random items throughout the house has become our new normal (who else finds sippy cups in the most unexpected places?) Let’s just as say I’m dealing with the growing pains. My next mission: Cracking the code on staying organized with a tiny explorer. Stay tuned as I navigate this next adventure of motherhood - and please share your toddler-proofing organization hacks!
Beauty Update
When my go-to foundation ran out, I spotted the Tom Ford foundation on sale and headed to Saks for a shade match. Spoiler alert: not the best experience. First of all, there was no one at the counter. After tracking down someone to help (the first associate was off the clock), I got matched to a shade that looked in the store but in natural light, it was way too yellow. The foundation’s finish? Absolutely obsessed with the airbursh finish! The color match? Not so much. I loved the finish enough to take matters into my own hands and consulted Tom Ford’s shade chart and ordered two potential matches online (wish me luck!).
But here’s the plot twist - a few days later, I stopped by Sephora and the associate found the perfect shade match for a different brand. *drum roll* It’s Haus Labs! The shade 330 Medium Cool is my perfect second-skin match. Talk about redemption! Sometimes the foundation journey takes a few wrong turns before the finding ‘the one’!
TikTok Viral Trend: Shade Twin
Thanks to TikTok’s viral Shade Twin trend, I’m using my perfect Haus Labs match as a blueprint to find my foundation shades across other brands - no more shade-matching guessing games!
Here is what I’ve compiled so far:
Foundation Shade Match:
Haus Lab: 330 Medium Cool
Nars Light Reflecting: Tahoe
Huda Beauty Easy Blur: 420G
Huda Beauty Foundation Stick: 420G
Charlotte Tilbury Airbrush: 9 Cool
IT Cosmetics CC Cream: Rich
Armani Luminous Silk: 8.75
Maybelline Fit Me Matte + Poreless: 330
Hourglass Soft Ambient: 11.5
Hourglass Veil Hydrating Skin Tint: 12
Hourglass Veil Foundation Stick: Amber
Merit Complexion Stick: Buff
Dior Foundation Stick: 4N
Mac Studio Radiance: NC47
Urban Decay Face Bond: 24 Medium Neutral
L’Oreal True Match Hyaluronic Tinted Serum: 3-8 Tan-Deep
Ilia Complexion Stick: 32W
Estee Lauder Double Wear: 4N2
Shade Twins:
This whole journey has inspired me to start documenting my foundation trials and review.
I hope you learned a thing or two in this post and until next week, cheers!
These are the Bytes of Life for this week, as told by Rika!