Making a House a Home

It's easy to feel behind the times, out of touch with the current trends, unstylish. (Is that even a word?)   Pinterest has so many great ideas to update your home on the cheap, and as fun as those ideas are I'm starting to find myself drifting from the "trendy" and the "now." I like to frequent places like the Hobby Lobby clearance aisle and flea markets just like anybody else, and even bought a dresser that my bestie and I made over (post to come later.) Sometimes, though, it feels like if I don't have every space on my wall covered, I'm not making my home pretty enough. Heck, I even have big old screw holes and unpainted patches on a wall in my living room, results from our (not so) recent move around of furniture, and I have just never taken care of it.

I guess my thought is that I really could care less about buying lots of "stuff" to make my house look "pretty" in the current times. I have lots of big plans for it, sure, but I'm taking it slow. I'm a little intimidated for the amount of "stuff" we will probably need to purchase once our basement is finished, considering I will have almost another entire home to decorate. Yikes! I want the decor in my home to mean something though. I remember walking through my grandparent's homes, when everything had a story and a reason for being there. My Grandma Nancy had the gallery wall down way before it was cool, covering two entire walls in the hallway with family photos. My Grandma Mitzi had dolls displayed everywhere that she had made with her own hands. Even in my mom's kitchen you can see many special objects that she had in her own home growing up. One of my favorite blogs is http://fortheloveofahouse.blogspot.com/, a story of a husband and wife who bought an old farmhouse and are completely gutting and remaking it. Every piece in her home tells a story of her and her husband traveling the world looking for antiques together, and it's incredibly beautiful. I doubt it will ever go out of style, either.

I want my home to be more than pretty pictures I find at Hobby Lobby. I want it to tell the story of my family. I want it to represent events from my family's history, stories of my children from infancy to adulthood. I want to not care if it looks "perfectly coordinated," and most of all I want it to feel like home. My current mission is to find a paint color for my living room and basement that I can live with for a long time, and over time add pieces that represent us as a family. I want my home to be an ever evolving palette, adding texture and dimension the way our lives are shaped. I'll have a couple of spots for some "trendy" items here and there that will over time be replaced, but for now I am okay with it taking a lifetime to make our house a home.