Decor

This past week I set out to totally revamp my living room. It has been five years since I shifted around the furniture and splashed on a new coat of paint, so it seemed fitting to give my favorite room a new look. It’s quite amazing how we begin to feel comfortable in our surroundings, and after a while we subconsciously start zoning out highlights of a room we spend many hours in. It could be a painting, a couch, or a simple rug…I kid you not, as the months roll by our eyes can easily start factoring them out….until one day when we decide to make some changes….we then look at every square inch to see what stays, and what goes. For me, that time was this week.

As I went about moving the furniture, repainting the wood floor, and repositioning pictures and paintings, it was as if, after a while, the living room itself started to have a conversation with me. Each change I made I felt was done in agreement with the room. This process took two days…the room was transformed, bright and new, while still retaining its original character. I only wanted to give the room a fresh look….while not erasing the memories.

How about you? Have you ever gone through this experience? Possibly so. When you go out to run errands, and return home, the difference can be striking and gratifying. So many of us feel we have to move on to a new house after five years or so….forgetting that it is quite simple to just re-invent the house that we have. A friend of mine who was considering selling his house and moving, fixed it all up to put on sale, and it was at that point he looked around and said, “What, am I crazy? The house is now the way I wanted it all along! So why move?”

As we enter each room in our home, the walls speak back to us of all the time that we have spent in that surrounding. In this day and age, it is so easy to get bored in the shortest span of time. While we forget the history that we are personally creating, revamping our surrounds gives us the opportunity to look back and plow ahead.

If home is where the heart is, it too needs a little tender loving care to let it know how much it means to us.

Home Sweet Home,

love, Jennifer Avalon