I’m trying to track back to find out where I got the urge to finally make my house a “home.” For a long time, our house has been a place to store our stuff and for us to hang out in, but I’ve never actually made any place I’ve lived feel like it’s where I want to be. I used to have pity parties for myself (okay, still do sometimes…) that usually ended with “I just want to go home!” But I was already home. It just wasn’t making me feel very welcome.
So, let’s walk back the cat. Most recently, I’ve found a home for all the little odds and ends that have been shuffled from this shelf to that table to that countertop. That started from the purchase of a cabinet for the living room, because I put almost all the kids’ toys in there and suddenly had room to put other stuff, then got motivated to find a home for some other stuff just by looking for a home for stuff I had handy but rarely needed, then decided some of that stuff I really didn’t need.
I got the cabinet (hutch? technically it’s a buffet, but we’re not using it that way) mostly on a whim. The Christmas tree made us move the furniture around, and we decided we really liked that arrangement, but we would need something where the tree was to keep it “right” after Christmas. I think we rearranged the furniture in the same way last year, but we didn’t have a coffee table last year. The coffee table really ties it together.
A few weeks ago, I wandered into a thrift shop and found an old Ethan Allen coffee table – a little beat up, but for $10, I thought we could risk whatever damage the boys might dish out to it. It turns out to be an excellent table for a child who likes to play cards but can’t hold them all in his hands. The drop-down sides form a perfect card sized track against the main section of the table. But I digress.
Now that I have the cabinet and the boys can actually get the games away, they are following the rule of “Put it away before you pull out another thing.” Yes, they sometimes need reminding, and some games require more than one set of equipment (my favorite was army guys with Bakugon bombs and Cuisennaire rod and Connect 4 Stackers battlements), but my floors have remained miraculously clear since we got the cabinet.
Maybe it’s that I can finally look at my house and see something besides toys that need putting away. It feels like my brain finally got sucked through the domestic vortex and can clearly see that the globe belongs on the desk in the office, the square trivet should be hung over the stove, the Monet print scrapbook paper can be framed and hung over the bed for some cheap and easy art, paint the bathroom the same green as the bedroom but put a blue wash over it and for God’s sake, get the curtains put up and the trim touched up. Just to be clear, I am not on display to my neighbors at all times, I have “temporary shades” in my living room and office. Temporary means they won’t be there forever. So what if it’s been three and a half years already!
Maybe it’s because it’s finally sunk in that we live here and will be living here for quite some time. I was surprised last year that we were still in this house. There’s no way we’re moving until the real estate market recovers considerably (or we become independently wealthy and don’t care if we take a major loss on the house).
I’ve had the urge to make my house homey before, but I’ve never been able to pull it off. When we left the B&B, we let the new managers move into the living quarters right away since we were already mostly packed and would be leaving in a couple of days. Within a couple of hours, Emily & Jorge had everything out of boxes, pictures hung, fabrics draped, furniture arranged and had it looking nicer than we had ever managed to get it or, for that matter, any other place I’ve lived.
Where does this knowledge come from? How do people instinctively know that you need a red vase just there, or that a little statue here would have a stunning effect? I have a friend who is interested in interior design. She tried to help me down this weird path by asking me what kind of energy I wanted. Huh? She offered some examples – warm? calm? cool? exciting? It was, I now see, a good question, but at the time I had no idea what I wanted. She suggested looking through magazines and pulling pages of rooms I liked. I liked a lot of bizarre combinations. I liked (and am still somewhat slightly obsessed with) an Indonesian wedding bed (or like this), preferably with a lot of rich fabrics and the smell of good incense. I liked the blue and white scheme that looks like your windows will be open at all times to let that gentle breeze in to waft to all corners of the house the fragrance of the fresh flowers on your kitchen table. I liked the simple, clean lines of Ikea’s displays. I liked the Shaker look of bare wood, simple furnishings and (what used to be) utilitarian decorations of the herbs drying in bundles and bonnets hanging from the wall, a spare bobbin lying on the sole side table. I liked the fussy look of too many fluffy pillows with tassles everywhere, with so much art it felt like a museum for people who were allowed to touch. I liked the Holly Golightly incredibly stylish yet tiny apartment look. I liked the artsy snob look, with local art on the walls and funky things the resident produced all over the place. The only looks I could really nix were anything that had a lot of hearts, toile or camoflauge in it.
Currently, I’m going for warm and comfortable in my living room. Since we rearranged with the cabinet, I enjoy sitting on the couch much more. It’s motivated me to try to make something out of the “parlor.” Technically, our parlor is a dining room, but since I won’t be serving food over carpet for quite some time (as in, probably enough time to get the hardwood floors put in), we call it the parlor. Ideally, it would be a room that was always fit for drop-in company, especially since it is right next to the front door. It is perfect for most of our guests right now – it has a train/lego table, a rocking chair and a sideboard full of books. I’m not sure how many playrooms my kids need, but they only play in the living room and actual play room now.
I bought a candle plate to use as a soap dish for my bathroom that looks very mermaid-like – kind of a pale turquoise mother of pearl looking thing. It is now my motivation to paint my bathroom, although I’m considering replacing the light fixtures first. This is the room that I’ll paint green and then put a wash over it. If it were mine and mine alone and I would never have to think about selling the house, I would use a very pale blue with some sort of sparkly additive for the wash. I’ll have to ask at the boys’ old preschool – they both came home with something that had a very delicate sparkle to it that would be perfect. Then I would want a print of Botticelli’s birth of Venus hung next to my sink, and either some greenish-blue-ish-grey or peach towels. Yes, lovely. But might that be too juvenile with the sparkly? Would that bother me later? Hmm. Crazy idea – make a sample board, leave it up for a month. Yes, just nutty!
As for the boys’ rooms, I’ve been inspired by Ikea. I accompanied a friend down there to get her bed shortly before Christmas, and picked up a nifty decoration. Technically, it’s a curtain rod. It’s a wire that goes from one side of the room to the other. I’m going to put clips on the wire and let them hang up their artwork, favorite pictures, posters, or whatever on it. I think I’d like to have a shelf run along the wall a few inches above it, to display the random things that they get (such as the trophy that’s the only thing disrupting my living room). Ikea had a tiny kid’s room on display. It was half the size of my closet, and had everything a child could need. Baskets hanging from the wall held all sorts of little things (which tend to get left on the floor, then they have no idea where to put anything). I would like to put more bright, bold colors in their rooms, but I’m not sure which way to go. I love the knight/castle thing I made for John, but the colors aren’t terribly inspiring.
Back to my original question – where did this motivation come from? I think it may be that I am closer to anwering my friend’s question – I want my bathroom to make me feel clean and light (like a mermaid!). I want my living room to make me feel warm and cozy. I want my kitchen to make me feel like a master Italian cook. I want my parlor to make me feel elegant and formal. I don’t know what I want my office or kids’ rooms to feel like. Does this say anything about me? Does it mean that I know myself better? I could point to lots of other examples in my life that say I do (but I won’t, because YOU don’t know me that well, either!) Does it mean that sometimes you just can’t see the forest for the trees – in this case, the trees being all the toys and games and junk strewn everywhere? I’m afraid I can’t just blame the kids, my housekeeping skills have improved vastly over the last decade or so. Or does it just mean that I’m finally growing up? Have I finally brought the right experiences together to make me aware of who I am and what I like, and therefore how I want my house to look?
