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Just Our Thoughts
Jul. 18, 2008
The Hidden Art of Homemaking Chapter 5: Interior Decoration
Okay, I kinda let this book sit un-read for a while. I don't know that it got overwhelming but seemed to tough on areas I didn't figure I was interested in. I'm not an interior decorator by any means and didn't want to read the chapter. But I did and found that she doesn't suggest what I thought she was going to suggest! I should have just trusted that she was going to be level headed and practical about it all.
"I would put under the heading of 'Interior Decoration' anything we do with the place where we are living for any length of time at all. Here, wherever, it is, is your spot. This place should be expressing something of yourself. It should be communicating something of you to your visitors, but it should also satisfy something within you. You should feel 'at home' here, because you have made it home with something of yourself." (page 66)
I never thought about how our homes, no matter where we live or in what we live, are an expression of who we are. My house does not really express who I am. It expresses someone that I don't like! I want to change it! I need to. I'm not a cluttered disorganized person with piles of stuff everywhere. I don't like who I've become. I don't like the story of me that my house tells. The little things she suggests are so simple, and will make a world of difference.
I have fallen into the trap of saying to myself, "When the house is renovated, I'll make it the way I really want it to be. Right now it doesn't matter because it's going to change soon anyway." I'm not really fooling myself. I know it's could be years before my kitchen is on the main level. And many months before I have a real bedroom. So, why do I try? Why not just make what I've got a home, an expression of me and of my DH?
She goes on in the chapter to talk about what I call "making something from nothing" or "one man's junk is another man's treasure". We have a friend who does this and his wife, bless her, has embraced it. He comes home with all sorts of things that she doesn't figure they'll ever have a use for and he turns it into something wonderful for their home! She has started to even ask him if he found "any finds" when he gets home from work or from wherever he's been. It's an adventure for her too now.
She touches on a number of other things including having a few things that move with us from house to house, as a continuity; being single and decorating; and helping others who are not able to, to decorate their homes.
A very simple-to-implement chapter.
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