About Maren Vance — The Woman Behind decorstylester.com

Okay, so here’s the thing about me and bathrooms.

Most people walk into their bathroom in the morning, splash some water on their face, and walk right back out. Maybe two minutes total. Three if they’re really taking their time.

I used to stand in mine for twenty minutes just staring.

Not because it was beautiful. Because it wasn’t — and I couldn’t stop thinking about how it could be.

Hi. I’m Maren.

I’m a home decor blogger based in the Pacific Northwest, which means I spend approximately half my life indoors, wrapped in a blanket, rearranging throw pillows and second-guessing my tile choices. My husband thinks this is an illness. My readers — hopefully — think it’s a calling.

I started decorstylester.com in a weird, kind of chaotic season of my life. We’d just moved into a house that had good bones and absolutely terrible everything else. The bathrooms especially. We’re talking beige. Wall to wall, floor to ceiling, grout-line to shower curtain — beige. The kind of beige that doesn’t even commit to being a color. It just… exists. Apologetically.

I started documenting the renovation mostly so I’d have something to look back on. Before and after photos. Notes to myself. A record of all the decisions I agonized over for way too long. And somewhere along the way, people started reading it.

That surprised me, honestly. I didn’t expect anyone to care.

But they did. And they kept asking questions — What grout color did you use? Where did you find that vanity mirror? Is it worth it to retile yourself or should you just hire someone? — and I realized I actually had answers. Real ones. Not the vague Pinterest-caption kind. The kind that come from standing in a Home Depot aisle for forty-five minutes, holding two samples up to a flashlight on your phone because the store lighting is completely useless.

So I kept writing.

What This Blog Actually Is

Decorstylester.com started as a bathroom blog. It still is, at its core. I genuinely believe that bathrooms are the most underestimated rooms in any home — they’re small, people dismiss them, renovation budgets always seem to get slashed there first. But they’re also the first room you’re in every single morning and the last one you’re in every night. That matters more than people give it credit for.

I write about bathroom design a lot. Tile trends, vanity styles, storage solutions for tiny spaces, walk-in shower ideas for people who don’t have a walk-in shower budget. I write about what works and — maybe more usefully — what doesn’t. I’ve made enough mistakes renovating my own spaces that I can save you at least a few of them.

But I also wander. Into kitchens, living rooms, entryways, that weird little nook nobody knows what to do with. Because home decor doesn’t really stay in its lane, does it? You fix the bathroom and suddenly the hallway looks wrong. You repaint the hallway and the living room feels off. It’s all connected. So I write about all of it.

My style is somewhere between collected and intentional — I like spaces that look like they came together over time, not all at once. I’m not a minimalist (I have too many vintage finds and too much affection for pattern for that) but I’m not maximalist either. I land somewhere in the middle. Warm. A little layered. Real.

A Few Things I Actually Believe

I believe good design doesn’t have to be expensive. It has to be thoughtful.

I believe Pinterest is genuinely useful and also slightly dangerous, because it will make you want to renovate your entire bathroom at 11pm on a Tuesday when you have no business making any decisions.

I believe grout color is more important than most people realize and I will die on that hill.

I also believe that not every space needs to be a statement. Some rooms can just be calm and functional and nice. That’s enough. That’s actually kind of everything.

Why I’m Still Doing This in 2026

Honestly? Because I still love it.

I love finding a light fixture that changes a whole room. I love when someone messages me saying they finally did the thing — repainted, retiled, ripped out that vanity they’d hated for six years — and it worked. I love the research, the rabbit holes, the deep dives into whether zellige tile is worth the price (it is, for the right wall, with the right budget, and I have opinions about which wall).

This blog has grown a lot since those early days of photographing my sad beige bathroom with my phone propped against a shampoo bottle. The community here is genuinely kind and curious and full of people who care about their homes the same slightly-obsessive way I do.

If that’s you — welcome. You’re in the right place.

Poke around. Ask questions. And please, for the love of everything, don’t pick your grout color in the store. Take the sample home first.

— Maren

decorstylester.com | Pacific Northwest | Bathrooms first, everything else close behind