Confession time: I am 55 years old and I have never lived in a "grown up" house.
I have never bought living room or bedroom or dining room furniture. Oh sure, I have bought furniture from time to time, (usually used) but I have never bought a bedroom set or living room set...heck, I've never even had a dining room and won't really in the new house.
I have a few pieces of furniture that I love for sentimental or asthetic reasons, but most of it is just functional.
I get all excited when I go into a furniture store and see those room displays. I mean I could wander around in IKEA for hours. I love the way the furniture and accessories all go together so stunningly.
But I am very afraid that I may have multiple decorating personalities.
I love the simple straight lovely functionality of Shaker furniture AND the soft cozy comfiness of overstuffed chairs in cabbage rose prints. I love retro 50s stuff all shiny and plastic AND American Craftsman style. I love black and white AND bright secondary colors. I like beadboard AND corrugated tin on the walls.
I love all of these things and if that isn't bad enough, then I want to hang cute handmade things from the ceiling or in swags across the bookcases or door ways. I want to have a pink Petunia where you might least expect her and a hand made bowl with dots swinging from the sides full of something surprising.
What am I to do so that I have a "grown up" house when we are done?
Luckily I have a little time to dream this out....
11 comments:
See. I had a problem with this for the longest time. I spent YEARS cutting pictures out of Better Homes and Gardens magazines and planning what our house would look like. However, I also suffered from multiple decorating style personalities. It used to bug me. I mean, how do I settle with one? Then I realized that I don't have to. The marriage of styles that you love will make your home reflect YOU. When things are chosen because you love them, they will work side by side.
I am convinced it is that kind of decorating that makes a house look like a home. Of course, it is the love inside that makes it FEEL like a home, but you already have that covered. :)
Hmmm. I must need a nap. This made me cry...and I believe you. Your house is one of the most homey homes I have been in. I think it's the green and the Fiesta! And the kids and the laughter...
Maybe you liked it better when I couldn't comment. ;) Thanks for the compliment. My home is a work-in-progress. I don't think it will ever be finished. It'll always change as our family changes. I'm sure yours will be wonderfully whimsical. I look forward to seeing it.
And helping to paint it, as I recall! :-)
And I am thrilled you can comment again.
Of course, painting. I love the instant gratification it brings. :0)
I have never bought a lick of new furniture. It's all been hand alongs, yard sale finds, rootin' around in the barn finds, and otherwise thrifted. And you know what? It all comes together with the REST of my thrifted, rootin' in the barn finds, and passed along stuff that lives in my home. It's all mismatched and everything has its own story. And the kids are BRILLIANT at adding all sorts of character (ahem) to it all.
I'm with Karyn, your whimsy and love and creative multiple decorating personalities will transform your house into a beautiful home. And I can't wait to watch it all happen!
So, I'm thinking no magazine photo shoots...oh, unless they start a new magazine, Whimsical Homes and Gardens!
WSW, I do have to plan around the amount of character cat and dog children can add to furniture...
Personally I'd much rather visit your house than a 'grown up house'! Sounds like way more fun... :)
Blessings, Debbie
Keep reading and you will know when the first open house is...and you will be invited!
Oh, oh, oh - I am distressed and grumpy. And I want to quit everything. Especially taxes, wars, volcanoes, car window opening motors that stop working, dishwashers that freak out - Ack, ack, ack. I spent half this dang day wrestling with genealogical stuff, which is my own fault. I could just do it like 98% of genealogists and download other people's stuff that sounds good as if it were the truth instead of INSISTING on historical accuracy. Or I could just QUIT futzing with it all together. And flood irrigation. In the middle of the night. I want to quit that, too.
And that's why I'm always late. Always, always, always. Tomorrow, I have to help my friend study for her CLEP test, which I will never take and probably wouldn't pass myself because I've already quit worrying about advanced degrees. And I want to quit mosquitoes.
I have been living in a grown up house for thirty years. But the inside wasn't very grown up for the first many years because we had to live with the equivalent of KMart furniture, being very poor - and out of the four bedrooms and living room and kitchen and family room, we only lived in one bedroom and the tiny family room, because there was no furniture for the living room except the ancient baby grand piano I'd bought with my entire teacher's retirement fund (because I'd quit that, too) of 1000 dollars.
Now, it really is a grown up house, but stitched together out of a wide variety of styles and woods and periods - like a scrap quilt house. Grandmother stuff. New stuff. Books. If the house fell away, there'd still be walls of books standing. And piles of them. And heaps of things connected to memories -- stuff I'll never be able to get rid of because they MEAN something. It would take me a year to pack up this house - kind of like packing up your classroom.
I want to come to the open house. I want to go shopping with you. I want to bring Zion to your place and ride him all over the property. And a scrap quilt house IS grown up. I think that the more grown up you are, the less uptight you are about keeping order, and the more you actually live in your house - like a pair of well stretched out jeans.
I wish we could all come - Wabi and Debbie and Linda and Rachel and all of us. Phooey on the space/time continuum.
I had one of those days yesterday. I wanted to quit packing at school, old house, new house, diet, exercise...I didn't even get to the big things like war and taxes...too pitiful in my own little world. But then there is always something that jollies you back to life, isn't there? Like a friend sharing a book (that I am loving!), or Zumba, or a dog who cuddles and a husband who tries so hard to take care of me. I do believe he is the steadiest person on the planet.
I have just never lived anywhere that I believed was my "home" for the rest of my life. I want it to be me and I'm sure it will be, but I just don't know which me yet...part of the adventure!
And we will do an Open House, even if it is only virtually. Maybe by then I can figure out how to do a video on here...maybe. I am going to be kind of busy. :-)
By the way, I am SO glad the geneology bug never bit me!
Hope you have a sweeter day today. Love you!
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