My Cycle of Home Decorating

Decorating is a passion that I enjoy.  I especially enjoy decorating my home and my children (as in choosing what clothing they are going to wear).  I probably enjoy these two things because they are the two things that I see the most of everyday and who doesn't want to look at something beautiful/cute.  As a stay at home mom I am constantly looking around my home and walls and day dreaming about this or that.

We have lived in our home for a year and a half and it is still only 1/2 way decorated.  The amount of money and time that it takes to complete the "vision" that I have for my house was something that I underestimated when I bought our home (along with many other things about buying a home, but we won't get into ALL of those details).  I was actually pretty frustrated the first few months that we lived in our home because I had expected for things to come together a lot faster than they were.  I am pretty sure we didn't hang a picture for at least two months because I was scared of putting a hole in my brand new walls.  The process felt like it was taking FOREVER and I felt like I was going to finish it just in time to start REdecorating since styles change so quickly.  Over time and practicing a lot of patience (because I am pretty sure that I would still love to go out and have a nice shopping spree and "finish" decorating tomorrow) I have learned that it is just a process that is on going and honestly I don't really ever want it to be 'done' since it is a hobby that I enjoy doing whenever I have the time and energy. 

Ok with all of that background information out of the way we will now get to the point of this post...

I have discovered that I gone through stages or a cycle while decorating my house.  Every few months I get bored with whatever project I am doing and so I switch things up and focus on something else.  Here are my stages thus far-

The perfectionist:
When we first moved in I just wanted everything to be perfectly organized.  I was very focused on everything having a specific place and everything to be in its place.  Oh and I wanted it to look pretty. :)  So I saved things in boxes and waited till I knew exactly where it was going to be put F.O.R.E.V.E.R.  But I soon got tired of having boxes so I just roughly estimated where things are going to go and put things there.  Everything basically has a 'home' but it isn't super organized.


Breaking in the new home:
After a few months I slowly got over my fear of putting nails in the wall and so we painted Adalyn's room and hung pictures in the living room.  We also bought my favoritest (totally not a word) piece of furniture... the dresser in our dining room. 

The only way that I would love it more is if we had a cute dining table to go with it (our dining table has definitely seen better days).  Things started to slowly come together but I was still super picky on what I wanted to go where.  For some reason I didn't feel like all of the old decorations that we had were good enough for our new house so I kept wanting to buy new things. 

Home Decorating... What's That?:
After a few more months of SLOWLY putting a few select things on the wall and painting our room and Adayn's I got pregnant with Jensen and basically went into survival mode for 3-6 months.  We did get a new to us, beautiful king size bed during this time from some very generous friends of our (pretty sure the bed is worth more than our car it is the best of the best) and I was SO excited to have space to sprawl out during the last few months of pregnancy.

The Procrastinator:
Then after we found out that we would be having a boy I started imaging and designing our boy room.  I was so excited that we would now get to have a boy room and a girl room.  ...But I still didn't actually do anything besides buy a crib.  Finally a month or so before I was due we kicked it into gear and finally finished the bare minimum on the boy room and added a few more touches to Adalyn's girl room.  To see what the boy room looks like today, click here. 

About the only thing I did finish while I was pregnant was this plate rack in my kitchen.  Unfortunately this is a terrible picture of it, but in real life I am totally in love with it.

Bored?  Lets decorate!:
After Jensen was born we spent a TON of time at home.  Recovery from my pregnancy went really well and I was able to bounce back pretty fast.  We still had to stay home a lot because it was the middle of winter so I used my time to get back into decorating a little bit.  This time I decided to try and use some the leftover decorations that we had bought for our apartment that were now just sitting in our basement.  And much to my surprise (haha I should have known) I was able to use quite a few things that we had that could 'work' in our new house.  More pictures got hung on the wall and things started to look a lot less bare.
I also finished a few projects that I had been thinking about/working on for a few months.  Such as... Adalyn's red shelves (one had been hung for a year, but I finally spray painted the other one). 

and I  finished a Valentine's wreath that I had started the year before but had to stop when my glue gun broke. 
p.s. I really like decorating for holidays, they are a good excuse to switch things up every few months. 

 

We had a fun splurge. We bought a leather recliner for our bedroom.  First piece of furniture in our whole house that we have bought brand new.  We went out and bought it ON THE DAY that I came home from the hospital with Jensen(nice timing right).  Shopping was pretty much the last thing that I wanted to do that day, but we wanted the chair and the wholesale warehouse was only open on Saturdays so it was then or never.  I really like having this chair in my bedroom and it is super helpful when I am nursing.  It also happens to match REALLY well with our bed frame

McKay got me a surprise for when I came home from the hospital/ late Christmas present.  New Lamps for our bedroom!  I have been drooling over clear crystalish lamps for our bedroom since the day I painted it gray, but I could never bring myself to spend the 60+ dollars that they cost.  So McKay spent the money for me :)  That man is the biggest penny pincher alive, except when it comes to presents for me he will spend tons of money.  I guess I can't complain too much because I finally got my lamps and they are beautiful. :)

A few other things I did was turn Adalyn's big girl bed into a couch with fun pillows for us to sit on until she out grows her crib,  and I got matching rugs and towels for our master bathroom (so exciting right?)

Current stage:
Then something hit me, still not sure what... but I am currently back to the perfectionist stage.  Daily I am decluttering (wow I feel like we have too much stuff) organizing and cleaning.  I am currently slowly gathering cute and coordinating boxes and containers to put things in so that the closets and pantry are less cluttered.  I even spent some of my birthday money on some baskets for our closet so that our stuff isn't just sitting out on the shelves.  McKay doesn't like plastic containers with our food because plastic is technically not very healthy for you so we are slowly getting glass containers to store our food in.  But I have a feeling that glass and toddlers don't really mix so we will see how it goes.  Luckily the containers are on the higher shelves so she can't reach them. 

Last weekend we went downstairs and found 10 big random items that we aren't using today and are in the process of selling/getting rid of them.  McKay is a saver so this stage isn't very fun for him, but I LOVE it.

Also we have now lived in our house long enough that I feel like I know what works best for us.  So hopefully someday we will actually reach the stage of everything has a place and everything is in its place.  It should hopefully make things efficient and easy as we are busy taking care of our little ones. 

I am most excited about a little command center that I am going to create in our laundry room that is just off the kitchen.  Maybe it will look something like this...

Source

 

I will keep you updated if anything too exciting happens.  :)  So there are all my house decorating thoughts and ideas (probably more than you ever wanted to hear). 

 

Oh and I have a feeling that I will be going into the home decorating... what's that? stage after organizing for a while.  And no it will not be because I am pregnant :) I will probably just switch and focus on another area in my life.  I can't stick to one thing for too long... 

Any projects that you are working on in your house?

Have a great day!