Decorating in Seasons

When Jordan and I bought our house this past January, we jumped full force into decorating.  We spent an entire week painting for hours every night after work, so eager and excited to make this space feel like home.  Once we moved in, we spent more hours arranging furniture, hanging things on the walls, and dreaming of what we wanted our space to look like and be for people.

Some spaces came together quickly.   I had dreamed of a gray dining room for a while, so my vision for this room was already pretty set.  We had bought the dining room table and chairs on clearance at World Market because they had a scratch, the world map was my Christmas present from Jordan that year, and the chandelier was a spontaneous purchase when World Market had a flash sale on lighting.  It all came together so quickly, and this room is maybe my favorite in the house!

Other spaces took a little longer.  Our entryway has a weird nook, and it took me about a month to figure out what I wanted to do with it.  After shopping our basement full of random decor items from our previous apartments, I came up with a combination I liked and my husband helped me hang it. I love the combo of the quirky animal print, the globe, the wood slice I found at a flea market, and the delicate little teacup from Anthropologie.  I’m a big fan of how this little piece of our house turned out!

By about three months in, we had gotten the majority of spaces we wanted to get done pretty well decorated (or at least “good enough for now”).  With the craziness of the end of the school year, leading our church small group, and starting this bloggity blog, some of the home projects we’d dreamed about fell to the wayside.  The hutch I’d dreamed about painting sat covered in clutter.  The guest room sat without trim, outlets and cables exposed for almost two months, even as we had 25 Airbnb guests stay there.

For about two months, I just didn’t think about home stuff at all.  And folks…I think that is A-okay.

In our previous apartments, I was so eager to get things done that I sometimes decorated walls and spaces in ways that I didn’t end up loving.  I bought things to fill a space, rather than buying things I loved that were beautiful or functional in our space.

In this new home, I’m learning the art of waiting until inspiration hits.   I’m learning to let spaces sit until I know what I want to do with them, until I feel inspired and get a vision of what I want the space to look and feel like for the people who walk into our home.  This doesn’t mean waiting until I have the PERFECT vision for what the space will look like, but rather letting ideas for the purpose and prettiness of a space come naturally instead of forcing it.

For two months, I had no inspiration and my heart was in other things, so I just let our home sit.  I spent free time snuggling my puppy, sitting on the porch with my husband, and diving deeper into relationships with the people I love.  Home and decor and craftiness took the backseat for a while, and some of our rooms sat empty and bare like this one.

But I’m happy to report that as of a random Pinterest and blog-exploring session this week….I am feeling the beginnings of some inspiration!  I spotted this beautiful picture of a guest room in A Prudent Life, and all of a sudden started getting some ideas for what I want to do with a big, blank wall in our guest room.  This one picture just got my mind spinning and ready to jump back in! Seriously…Melissa’s blog and home are beautiful, so head on over there if you need some inspiration too!

Guest Room Essentials – A Prudent Life

Filling and decorating that guest room involved taking some furniture out of our front room, which has been pretty beige and bare since we moved in (see picture above).  Moving that furniture got me inspired to work on the front room too, and this weekend, I finally started my first DIY project in a while….painting our hutch!

We inherited this bad boy from a friend’s grandparents and have loved filling it with pretty books and knick-knacks. But in our new space, the dark wood was sucking the light out of the room, and it needed a change.  And if we’re honest, most of the time it became the drop zone for anything we didn’t have a place for (unopened mail, gift cards, random junk from thrift stores, etc).

#RealLife

I removed the hardware then sanded and primed the hutch this past weekend, and am hoping to get it painted a pretty color somewhere in the blue-green-gray family (specific, right?).  I’m dreaming of something like this…

Source: The Nesting Place

Or maybe something with more blue in it like this….

Source: Home Talk

Or maybe this? This is maybe my favorite color, even though it’s a very different piece than our bulky hutch.

Source: The Golden Sycamore

I also love the look of the blue exterior and white paneled back like this.

Source: Pinterest

I’ll probably play around and do more research (aka hours on Pinterest) before I settle on something.  The beauty of painted projects like this is that you can just keep on tweaking them until you find something you like!

The process of decorating and turning our house into a home is much more fun when I’m actually feeling motivated and inspired, and that inspiration sometimes takes a while to appear.  But when it does…it’s so fun to dream and plan and create!  With summer school ending in two weeks, I’ll have a month or so to get working on all my ideas, and I can’t wait to share more pictures of some projects in the weeks to come!

How are you feeling about decorating your home? Are you feeling inspired or taking a break and letting your house sit for a while? 
    

 I’m linking up toJust a Girl And Her Blog, Life on Virginia Street, Miss Mustard Seed,  Remodelaholics Anonymous, Cedar Hill Farmhouse, Cupcakes and Crinoline, Home Stories A to Z, Sand and Sisal, Kleinworth & Co, Coastal Charm, Between Naps On The Porch, A Fresh Start On A Budget, Mad In Crafts, New Nostalgia, Funky Polka Dot Giraffe, Mabey She Made It, Memories By The Mile, Ladybug Blessings, Hope Studios, Posed Perfection, Common Ground, Anderson and Grant, The Charm of Home, Dwellings Amaze Me Monday, Sugar Bee Crafts, and Elizabeth and Co Vintage, Live Randomly Simple.  Check out those blogs for more great recipes, projects, and ideas!