When Brent and I got married, we were able to move into a small house on his parents' property (the same house we are living in again now). Brent moved in a couple months before our wedding day, and I moved in after our honeymoon. It was so nice to not have to think about our living situation on top of planning a wedding (if you read my "10 Facts About Me" post, you'll know that Brent and I dated and were engaged for a total of eight months before we tied the knot).
Our furniture and decor at that point were very much "newlywed" in style. Brent's grandma bought us a new bed, and Brent and I bought a couch set, but other than that, every piece of furniture or decor was either something one of us already had or something that our parents had and weren't using. I'd say our style was a hodgepodge of "unintentional-vintage" and Target. Brent had a couple art prints (that I actually liked) and I framed many of our wedding photos. I also got really into the painted word sign fad while planning our wedding, so I had a growing collection of hand-painted word signs (that I made) and every new one went straight up on the wall. I've never been afraid of color or mixing patterns, so I didn't even try to match things - I was just filling a house and figuring out how to be married, and later, how to be a mom.
We brought Emmeline home to that house, but when she was around four months old we felt like we needed a change. Brent drove around 30 minutes (without traffic) to work, and our church was about 40 minutes away, as well as my family and most of our friends. As a new mom with a rough start to nursing (my daughter was never able to nurse, I'll post about that another day), it wasn't always easy for me to get out and visit people and I was lonely. So we found an inexpensive apartment closer to work, church and friends and made our first move as a family. The apartment was in a central part of town but was seriously outdated (why the rent was cheap). It was two stories and the indoor staircase was iron and stone - no joke, like something you'd find at an outdoor park. It had old carpet, a tiny back porch area, interesting neighbors, and bad lighting, but we loved it. It was our first place where we truly felt independent and it was sweet.
We kept basically everything (furniture and decor) that we already had and made a place for it there. I didn't put much focus on interior design at that point as I didn't feel like we would be there long, and we were just focusing on other things, like parenthood, improving our health, and our jobs. However, moving to a the smaller space did help me start to declutter, which is probably one of my favorite things about moving. For example, I had acquired a medium-sized collection of vintage books, even though I don't especially love vintage things and I had no intention of reading them but I thought they were interesting decor. That ended up being an impractical thing to move around and find a space for, so I sold them on Facebook and have never missed them.
This house was owned by artists, so it was very unique - beautiful, multi-colored concrete floors, stone backsplash in the kitchen, a custom stone shower, beige walls, etc. It was unique and fun, but hard to make my own since it already had so much style on its own. Once again, nearly everything we owned went back into the rooms and on the walls. At this point I started to weed through little pieces of furniture that I didn't love, and replacing them with ones I liked better. Moving, changing careers and having babies are all expensive activities, so buying new furniture and decor was low on the priority list. I found the most enjoyment from decorating the kids' rooms, and the rest of the house was a collage of things I liked, made, or was given. I continued to paint signs or abstract paintings for wall decor, but found it hard to be creative in this house - maybe because of the size or just my season of life, but I did very little creating during the almost two years of living there.
We thought that we would be in this house more long-term, but over time it became clear that it wasn't a great long-term fit for us. We also started the process for buying our business during this time, and after we closed escrow and set up our office 40 minutes away, we knew that we wanted to move again to be closer to Brent's work. So once again, we packed up our things - this time back into our first house, next-door to Brent's parents.
In a little over four years of marriage, we moved four times and I've learned new lessons each time. I've learned what to ask and check for when looking at a rental property (like if all of the doors close properly and the windows open), what items really aren't worth keeping and storing (like our unexplainably large beer and wine glass collection, when we hardly ever drink alcohol, much less beer or wine), or how to sell things quickly on Facebook without needing to give complete strangers my home address. Below are some of my top lessons/resolutions after four back-to-back moves. This fourth time around we were moving into a space that we were already familiar with, and we hope to break our personal record by living here for over two years, at least. I wanted to do things right this time and create a space that my family and I love living in every day.
1. Discover my decorating style, keep what compliments that style, and let go of what doesn't.
I've spent much of the last year trying to figure out what my decorating style is and how to execute it in my home, with what I already have and my very small decor budget. I started studying every home I stepped in, finding ideas I loved and ideas I didn't love. When I'm in homes that I like, I ask the owner what their style is and what their decorating strategy is. I started following many home decor and artist accounts on Instagram, as well as gathering ideas on Pinterest. Two of my favorite accounts on Instagram are @the.hectic.eclectic and @barij. I love their use of color, florals, and mixing patterns. In all of my exploring, I would say that my style is "simplistic eclectic meets functional". I love color, mixing patterns, statement pieces, layering...but I also love simple spaces. I don't like clutter or disfunction. I love white walls with one, large, beautiful art piece in the middle of it. I love organization that makes sense.
2. DECLUTTER DECLUTTER DECLUTTER!
We have so much stuff! Maybe it's because we have kids, maybe it's because we're Americans, or maybe it's just because we love stuff. But I'm over it. I don't love cleaning, and dusting is even harder when you have more things to dust around. It's so easy to hold onto things when 1. They were gifts or 2. We think we might use/need/want them someday. Before this last move, I had a few months to plan/scheme before the big move day, and I took advantage of that. I went through my ENTIRE house (multiple times) and picked out all of the things that I didn't want to move with us and either donated it, sold it, or threw it away. I think we had at least two, maybe three, garage sales before we moved. I love garage sales - they combine three of my favorite things: making money, getting rid of stuff, and eating donuts.
I went through my closet and got rid of every piece of clothing that I didn't love and/or wear regularly, or had another item that could serve the same purpose. If I put something on and didn't like how it looked, I got rid of it instead of putting it back in my closet. I went through my jewelry and only kept the items that have deep sentimental meaning or I wear regularly, and gave away the rest. I went through my kids stuff and only held onto the essentials. I finally gave up 3 of the 4 baby books I had been given and will probably never fill up. I went through our bath supplies overflow and got rid of everything that I didn't use regularly and most likely never would (like lotions, make-up samples, etc.). I went through our kitchen and only kept the tools that we use regularly. For example, I do not need to have TWO large stainless steel pots when the only thing I ever use them for is filling up the kiddie pool with hot water.
Anyways, you get the picture. I decluttered. If I didn't use or think about using it within the last six months, it was gone. I applied this to decor as well. There were a few items I had because they seemed like a good idea, not because I loved them. For example, I had a small globe that I had bought at World Market and seemed like a cute decor idea, but it didn't match anything, took up space, and didn't serve a real purpose. So I sold it on FB and haven't missed it.
If I wasn't sure about whether I truly wanted to part with something, I put it away for a few months to see if I thought about it or wanted it. If I never thought about it, then I knew I could officially give it away.
3. I want the storage in every room to MAKE SENSE.
This one was really important to me and I put a lot of thought into. We don't have a ton of storage in our house, but we have enough and I want to use it wisely. The kids' rooms both have large closets with sliding doors, so I made all of their things fit in their rooms, and left some extra space in the closed end of their closet for other household things. I only put the things in our garage space that we want to be able to access easily, or would get ruined in the hot attic, and everything else went in the attic. Basically, if we didn't need to access something easily and regularly, then I put it away and out of sight. For example, we have a small collection of board games that we don't play very often, but I definitely want to keep in the house. We used to have them in our living room, taking up space, and the kids would get into them and throw the pieces everywhere. So now I have them up in one of the kids' closets - that way I can access them when I want to, but they aren't taking up valuable storage space and creating messes that I have to clean up.
I thought about what was important to me for our house and what I wanted easily accessible so that we were more encouraged to access it, and vice versa. For example, I've set up a central crafting space where nearly ALL of our craft supplies are in one space - all of my knitting, all of my painting supplies, all of the kids' paper, markers, and stickers, etc. Above it I made a frame with wires so I can display the kids' artwork as they make it. I LOVE this space. It's important to me that I foster my kids' creativity so I wanted to make sure that we were set up to be able to easily start a craft without having to rearrange, find, or set up too many things.
The bathroom was important to me, too. I wanted there to be a clear and pleasant system for the countertop so that it didn't get too crowded and messy. The top drawers are simply organized and filled with things we access daily. Everything else is in lower cupboards. One funny thing that I really thought about - I wanted extra toilet paper to be visible and accessible. I don't care if it's not the most stylish thing to have out - it's a bathroom, I'm not going to pretend we don't do in there what we do in there. Have you ever been at someone else's house and you run out of toilet paper and can't find the extra rolls? It's traumatizing. I don't want that to happen to anyone in my bathroom.
The kitchen was perhaps my most thought-out room. Have you ever been in someone's kitchen and you open 10 different drawers before you finally find the silverware? Or the glasses are in the cupboard on the complete opposite end of the kitchen than the sink, but the tin foil is sitting right on the counter? I wanted things on the counter that I touched multiple times a day, and everything else put away. I wanted the drawers and cupboards to contain the things that you would instinctually think to find there - the cups next to the sink, the oven mitts next to the oven, the tupperware and cutting boards below the counter where we usually prepare food. When we first moved in, I even moved things around after a couple of days if I found that I was constantly walking back and forth across the kitchen to grab similar things, or if I was reaching up to a high shelf for something daily, while things I rarely touched were on a lower shelf. I knew I had succeeded in my goal when my brother (who owns his own cleaning business and prides himself in his efficiency and multi-tasking) emptied my dishwasher (after not using my kitchen before) and was able to put nearly everything away without needing to ask where it went. He was impressed and I gave myself a solid pat-on-the-back.
4. I took it SSSLLLOOOOWWW with decorating and only put out and up what I LOVE and makes me (and my family) happy to see everyday.
I've taken it VERY slow in decorating our house. We've lived here for about three months now and I still have totally blank walls. I've only put up items that I love, and I've left walls blank until I knew exactly what I wanted to put there. I knew that when I moved I wanted my decor to have more white and blue. I FINALLY sold the horrible pillows that had come with our couches and purchased some pillows that I liked (white and blue ones from Target). We bought a grey ottoman from Homegoods, that has both served as an ottoman and toy storage space. It's my kids' house, too, so I don't have an unrealistic expectation for my house to look like kids don't live in it. But I also don't want my kids to rule every space. I'm trying to find that balance.
Another thing that I really wanted was some open shelving to both display some of my prettier kitchen items while also providing extra storage. I bought this shelf from Target and it has been perfect! Our kitchen doesn't have a ton of storage space so this has been a great addition for our kitchen/dining area.
One thing that is important to me is to have family pictures EVERYWHERE. I love them, they make me happy, and my family loves seeing them, too, so I'm going to put them wherever I want. I have multiple framed pictures on our bathroom counters - we're in there everyday, multiple times a day, so why not? I made a large open frame so that I can easily change pictures in and out as we take new pictures and make new memories. I only put out pictures that I love, not pictures that I feel obligated to put out. In other words, it's possible that not every member of our extended family is equally represented in all of the pictures displayed in our home. It's our home, we live in it every day, and I'm not going to feel guilty about what I do or don't put on display.
Overall I'm happy with the choices I've made and how our house is coming together! I've managed to make many changes on a limited budget. I've found large picture frames and furniture pieces on the side of the road and made many wall decor pieces myself. Most of our furniture are inheritance pieces and I love that. I believe that anyone can make a home that they love by simply figuring out WHAT IT IS that they love and making one change at a time to get there! Slow progress is still progress, so go for it!
Love always,
Caroline
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