La Maison

 

Well, I told you in the ‘Bonjour’ section of my blog that some days it will be interior design, because that is one of my favorite hobbies. However, I have yet to post any on the topic. So, to kick off this category, I thought, why not share some photos of my home? These are some photos I took and edited for a friend’s blog that asked if she could feature it. She is a real interior designer– I just dabble!

I sometimes have people ask for my help to decorate, which is such a compliment! However, I think this is mainly because people feel overwhelmed– or intimidated even, by the task of decorating, or even worse: the dreaded re-decorating. I want to include some tips (from one amateur to another) in this post to hopefully encourage anyone that feels this way.

1). Decorate in the same manner that you would eat an elephant.

I often feel overwhelmed by tasks. Whether that’s due to my tendency to stress and worry or my wait-until-the-night-before syndrome, I don’t know. In these moments, my mom, a very wise, timely, and organized person, will say “Hallie, how do you eat an elephant?” I’m pretty sure the first time I was like how in the world are you going to steer this in any direction that will help me… But I replied “I don’t know, mom, how?” Patiently awaiting this exact response, she answered, “piece by piece.” Ahhh. I get it. However, I am not a piece by piece person when it comes to projects. I want to sit down, turn on my music, and craft, paint, write, just work away until it is complete! I wanted this same thing when we moved into this house with essentially no more than a couch, a bed, and some mis-matched chairs. But I didn’t buy, and couldn’t buy, everything at once. In fact, I think the fact that I couldn’t afford to decorate that way probably contributed a lot. It made me search, take my time, enjoy, and carefully select every little piece–down to the trinkets. In fact, if I could have bought all our furniture, rugs, and curtains in one day, my house wouldn’t look anything like what it does. With searching, patience, and research, you move past what you like to what you love. So, if you are thinking of undertaking this great feat anytime soon, take a deep breath, make a list of priorities, and allow your house to slowly transform. That brand new chair is gonna have to make friends with your duct tape couch for a while, and that is okay.

2). Decorate like you would cook. 

We all change recipes according to our liking, right? Calls for onions? Bleh. A dash of onion powder it is! No one will ever know the difference! A special cut of meat? That is a cruel joke to us small towners– so you find a different cut and you make it work. Decorating is often the same. If you don’t like the color trend that is in every house on the block, use different colors! As you can see, I am not afraid of colors. Colors are my friend. However, I love a good neutral, cozy home. I hope to have one some day. But today, c’est la vie en rose! You pick what you like and not what your neighbor likes. They can live with your choices when they come to get their cup of sugar. Likewise, when I cook, sometimes, ok a lot of times, I don’t use a recipe. I just put together ingredients that I know and trust. I mean garlic, pasta, chicken, cream, spinach, butter– these things just aren’t gonna let me down. None of these ingredients are anything like the other, but they go well together. As you can see, I don’t have a lot of matchy matchy, which I like, but don’t have. You don’t have to have a tight color scheme or theme in decorating, everything just has to hold hands and you just decide what goes and just doesn’t go. Eclectic is good.

3). Not everything can be special.

One of my mom’s best friends who did interior design for years would often say this. This is something I have not mastered. I want every piece to be so fun and special, and because of this, I often refer to my house as feeling like ‘Dr Seuss.’ What I mean by not being special is that you must prioritize. If you love couches, pick your couch, let it be the focus, and work from there. If you absolutely adore rugs, pick that first and work from there. But let some of your pieces be neutral or just accentuate your stand-outs. Not everyone can be the star. Also, I highly recommend, unless you are like 100% positive (in which this can totally be fun– bold stripes, wall paper, etc), that your walls be the neutral. I didn’t say they can’t be colors, I just mean that they fall in the background. You can still have bold presence from light colors. It tends to make everything else pop, like art and furniture. It also allows you to move things around more freely without being tied down to the wall color. By the way, light blue, gray, beige, white– these are my favorite neutrals.

 

4). Move things. Change things.

That chair does not have to live there just because that’s where you pictured it when you bought it. If it doesn’t work there, and blends beautifully in another spot, move it there! Like cooking, you can stumble upon some happy mistakes! Like the time my husband accidentally bought chocolate chip cookies with brownie pieces. A very, very happy mistake. Even if you do love an arrangement, if you get bored, move it around. This makeover is free! Keep it for the weekend. Instagram it, see what people say. You can move it back on Monday if you don’t like it! But like anything else in life, if you can’t work with what you have first, what makes you think you’ll love it with new? If you look at our home, especially the living room, aside from the red (I call them orange) chairs, I can pretty much take out all the color without much cost to me. I’m not married to the colors of the pillows, books, or even art. I purposefully did not invest in pieces that would make me feel contrary. When we first moved in, the rug that is under the chalkboard was under my  bed. I really liked it but I found that at night, I wanted to feel like I had a getaway in my own house. Somewhere that felt more like a retreat than part of the house. So, I moved the rug, re-arranged some pillows on the bed, moved the lamps to the living room (which needed some anyway), and bought some new ones from TJ Maxx. Later I added another rug and some mirrors from Target. I didn’t waste anything, I just ended up buying things for a different room than I thought I was gonna be buying for. No harm done. And now I have my getaway after a long day!

 

5). Play to the bones of the house.

I am all about eclectic. I love seeing modern chairs in an old house and vice versa. However, this needs to be intentional. Play to your home or apartment’s strengths. If you have a really cool nook, accent it! Put a chair and a little book case and maybe even a baby chandelier and make it your getaway. I love seeing what people do with small spaces, or any spaces really, when they have to be creative. Pinterest is great for this! Start a board and dream up some things! This step can only start when you realize your home’s potential. If your attitude is that you hate your house, and want to change it, you’ll be hard pressed to get happy with it. But if you see things you love, and want to improve, you can be a really happy camper. My house is pretty unique in layout. I did not like that at all when I first saw it. For some reason, God brought our attention back to it, and thankfully so, because we have loved it. But when he did bring me back, I realized that with some TLC, this house could have a studio apartment feel. I love the idea of a big city with a studio apartment, but I likely won’t have that. However, God showed me that perspective on this house, and I took it and ran with it. It may not be how my next house looks, whenever or if ever, but right now, in this season, I love it! I try to refocus on how I won’t get this season back if ever I feel like I’m dreaming of another stage.

6). Don’t be too proud or too stuck to shop other places.

If I took you on a tour through my home, and I mean the long-winded-southern-woman-let-me-tell-you-about-every-knick-knack tour, you’d find that every piece has a different story. The two red chairs? Goodwill. $20 each. Came with footstools that now sit side-by-side at the foot of a guest bed. The coffee table? Antique store. Old farm table cut down. Hutch in the dining room? From England. Bought it also at an antique store. Dining table? My parents for years and years. Took it to college, let me husband borrow it for a year, got it back when we got married, eventually refinished it with an electric sander, some chalk paint, and routine shoulder massages. Chalkboard I painted and my father in law made the frame, pink couch was my parents’, and our bedside tables are from target. And I’m going to spray paint the handles gold soon because I’m picky. But I tell you all that to say, search! Hunt! Don’t settle! And definitely don’t be stuck in a rut about where you look! I recommend target, estate sales, garage sales, tj maxx, ikea I’m sure although I’ve never had the pleasure, and thrift stores! Oh and if you’re feeling bold, Joss & Main. So addicting.

7). Do some projects.

I know that working all day on one project when you have 40 lined up can seem taxing. You have to start though. You won’t realize how good it feels to finish and stand back and look at what you’ve accomplished if you don’t do it. Get some help and inspiration, but just get started. This takes us back to tip 1.

 

I hope that something in these tips, or photos even, inspire you. I hope you not only get ideas or motivation to start on a project, but that you also get motivation to stop and realize what you have and what you’re capable of.

 

Anyway, below are the photos of our home. These areas change almost every day– even if it is just a new saying on a chalkboard, or mason jar of flowers on the table. Have fun with it! Send me pictures, too! 🙂