I guess if I had to look back on where and when my obsession with a home began, it all went back to my mother. My mother has had a terrible record with keeping a consistent home and growing up I think we moved yearly. Most of it wasn't her fault but honestly, it all was. It was her decisions that led us to the asshole step-father that led to her being a single mother, to her not affording to keep one place or I dunno why but we kept moving from place to place.
Every new place we moved to, I would carve a space for myself in whatever room I was in and sharing with my sisters. It was all about THE DESK. The desk was cluttered with mementos and things I thought were cute but come on were ridiculously tacky, this was my spot of privacy, this was mine. I was always in charge of decorating my room, I picked and bought what I wanted (that cost $1 or at most $5) and mom never questioned it. I dunno if it was that she didn't care or if it was that she understood how important it was for me in particular to feel grounded. My siblings never seemed to care or mind all the moves and neither did I. I just knew that wherever I landed, I had to make that place home. Wherever it was I needed to feel a part of it was mine and that I was safe.
Then I moved to Biola. My areas were always cluttered with crap. Am can attest to it. Just so much going on and seriously, less is more but not to me back then. The sucky thing about that was moving out every few months and starting over again. I just wanted to be home.
Finally our own apartment. Filled it with whatever we could afford. Few things made sense. I thought the red couches were a superb touch and unique at the time. But it was a mish mash, we didn't seem to mind. Home was important and I did spend whatever I could on it but nothing was ever what I really wanted, it was settling on what we could afford. For three years I had a home I never moved out of. Actually it seems I never did move out of it since my brother stayed in it and then he got married and he and his wife now live in it. That apartment's been in my family for six years and it makes me happy that when Am and I chose it, we chose a place so right it's stuck around longer than we expected. In fact if I hadn't married that cute drummer boy I'd possibly still be living in it now.
Well the drummer boy and I got married and now we needed a bed to share. Which led to dressers. And nightstands. Still though, I settled with what we had. Whatever we could afford reasonably. When we got the six free chairs, it was pulling teeth to get the $60 table that I no longer need but cannot bear to part with. I think getting married in terms of a home meant that I could start all over. Now that I knew who I was going to be hanging out with for the rest of my life and would be my permanent roomie (sorry Am), now I could really decide on how we lived and what our home needed and what I really liked. I wanted to make the place where we lived not just basic with the stuff that we needed but also the stuff we needed to truly enjoy being home together. We realized that we were homebodies from the get go and it shot to the top of my list that home for us mattered a lot.
And now we live in a house that's the best decorated I've lived in and it was decorated by the same person that decorated the last homes I've lived in.
What changed that made this house look so much better than the last? Why is this house better than homes past? Was it that I felt we were free to do with a home what I pleased? Was it because duh, it's way bigger? Is it because I can paint?
I think it's pretty simple. I grew up. I refused to settle anymore. I wanted to chose the right dresser for the dining area in the living room and it took me awhile to pick one and the end result was one I am very happy with and won't change. Also, we have money. Instead of getting the crummy Target TV stand that cost $40 I can wait and get the nice $300 Ikea one that I really want.
So was this good taste always inside of me? The good ideas, was it always in my head and I was only now able to bring them to fruition because I have the resources to make them possible?
I know a big part of it has been the simple acquisition of knowledge from what others have done in their homes. If it hadn't been for reading so many blogs, I would never have thought to put a table behind the sofa while the sofa was in the middle of the room with it's back to the main entrance. Never. So, bigger ideas, better ideas, ideas from other people get me started and I run with them. It's like I was freed. It's like they gave me excuses to do silly things and then come up with my own ideas and trust my own judgement. And patience and allowing things to be fine tuned over time and seeing how we really live and choosing furniture and placement around that. We always put our feet up so, we don't have a coffee table, we have an ottoman. When I come in the door I dump things on hooks, so more hooks. Etc.
I still don't quite know what changed and why this house is much nicer than the rest and not just because it's bigger and a house though those are pretty big reasons. I certainly planned this house more than the others. Everything was thought out. There was a floor plan. There were colors. I laid the groundwork and chose the big pieces and somehow the rest of the stuff fell into place. Maybe that was part of it.
I thought about real estate today and of the future of our home. I saw houses in my ideal price ranges and saw their crappy interiors and nothing scared me. A big part of how I see real estate now is that nothing is permanent. If you don't like the faucets in your house, change them. If your kitchen sucks, gut it. If you want to turn a dining room into a bedroom, do it. Reading blogs and seeing people transform houses has completely opened my eyes to possibilities never seen before when I was living from apartment to apartment where you just dealt with what you had like crappy lighting fixtures.
So one of the things I've been seeing in this home and feeling much more free about is knowing that when I chose the furniture I chose, I chose it for this house but it can work in our houses to come because by and large, my style is in all of them. Okay most of them. I still don't know what I would define my style as, modern I guess, but well I have a style! I look at things and know what's me, what's my home. The things we'll be spending money on in our next house will be big things like flooring and molding and doors. But we'll still be in it, Matt and me. It will be our home.
'Cause home is where your heart is.
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