Inspirational Day!

This morning I started out with my breakfast smoothie and was reading my wonderful new book, Frugal Luxuries, by Tracey McBride. This book and it's cousin (sister?), Frugal Luxuries by the Seasons have rapidly become some of my favorites. I guess I could best describe this book as a combination of Simple Abundance by Sarah Ban Breathnach, The Tightwad Gazette, and Martha Stewart. The author shares her belief that life is worth adorning in beauty and with attention to details, no matter if your budget is humble or huge. She has tons of great ideas and inspirational quotes all throughout the book to help the reader get into the mindset of enhancing their life by using commonly found objects.

This morning I got really inspired by what she shared in the section about our homes. She talked about going ahead and adding details and embellishments throughout your home that reflect your personality and that make you happy. She also talked about not waiting, always thinking that you should not do anything too permanent in your home. She says:

"I don't believe in someday. Someday is that great hoarder of 'best' things."

Indeed!

This reminded me of the home we lived in for 8 years. It was a mobile home on a farm on the outskirts of a town we loved. We were back from the road, enjoying peace and privacy. My husband had a job working on the farm, which was in exchange for our rent and utilities. What a deal! When he was offered this job my husband was a college student and I was trying to be a stay-at-home mom to our one son. Money was t-i-g-h-t. The job came at the perfect time. We had gotten to the end of a semester and thought we probably couldn't afford for my husband to stay in school. Then, amazingly, the gift of a great job with wonderful people, and a home that we didn't even have to scrape up rent money for! Wow.

But things we so tight that we had literally been living to the point where I could not buy anything extra at all. No plastic containers for organizing if I got the urge. Not a new spatula if my current one broke. No trips through the drive through. Nothing. No.thing.

So I brought this poor mentality into my homemaking. That, combined with the fact that I had virtually no experience with decorating or wallpapering or painting or.....anything! Well, it didn't even hardly occur to me how I might spruce the place up. I didn't feel like we could spend money on extras like curtains or plants or whatever. And I didn't know what to do with what I already had, except for maybe put a few pictures on the walls.

When we finally did have some spare money, we had lived there for a year or two and I thought, "Well, we probably won't live here that much longer. Why buy curtains when the next place will have different sized windows?"

After we had lived there 6 or more years I was thinking I should have gone ahead and bought those curtains....but then I knew that surely we weren't going to be there for that many *more* years!

Ha.

So, anyhow, I never did have curtains there, and actually I'm not even a big fan of curtains at all, since I like to be able to see out of my windows as big as the window will let me.

Now we own our home (well, the bank does...) and I have had some ideas about things I might like to do here, but a lot of it seemed so....personal....I've been hesitant to do it. I don't know if it's more about making myself vulnerable enough to do really unusual decorating things for all who enter our home to see, or if it's that thing in the back of my head that makes me think that we probably won't live here forever, so maybe it's not worth it to do stuff to it.

Recently we went to the home of some new friends and I was amazed and inspired by their home. She had these beautiful shimmery silver-and-beads curtains at the long narrow windows on either side of their front door. She had purple walls and bright lime green walls and little color accents on the spindles going up their stairs! So many beautiful, cheerful colors, daring colors, little special touches. I LOVED it.

So, I've been thinking....

And then this morning I was reading this book and was reminded that there is so much I can do to enhance my home right now, from simply keeping it clean and clear of clutter, to finishing all the half-done projects, to going ahead and taking a chance on some new things, and knowing that it won't be a big deal if I don't like something.

So, first I decided to clear off the top of the refrigerator. There were wrapped Christmas gifts that I had bought in bulk for Christmas 2003, candy canes from the same year, a broken air purifier, Halloween candy in a pumpkin can, plenty of confiscated toy guns and swords, and MY DIGITAL CAMERA! It had fallen behind something and I almost didn't even see it. I was quite thrilled that now I can document all manner of daily accomplishments and minutiae for your enjoyment. :)

After that I went into the bathroom to take a look around. I've been thinking about what to do in the bathroom for quite some time. (almost 5 years that we've lived here) We have a nice yellow on the walls, and just painted the long cabinet that the sink is in a boring white. I have one small/medium window that has privacy glass on the bottom and plain glass on the top, and I just had a tension rod with some lacy fabric covering the top of the window. Nothing terrible about it, but not really what I wanted for long term.

In the summer I found this painting at a yard sale for $5 and I just loved it.

Painting that hangs in my bathroom.

I love the colors, I love the vibrance. And I love it that the woman is so vibrant, and also peaceful. It's not the kind of artwork you'd normally find in a bathroom. (Sorry, but I'm just not the seashells and butterflies type. ) The only reason I even put it in the bathroom to begin with was because there was a screw in the wall with nothing on it, and I didn't know where else I would put it.

Now that it's been in there for awhile, I love it. It's staying. As you can see, it's got tons of color in it. So, with the help of an idea from Frugal Luxuries, I got an idea about using the colors from that painting for the rest of the room. I found some paint sets that my kids got from a 4-H activity in the summer, and started mixing.

Now, this is BIG for me. I've never considered myself to be artistic. And I've always been intimidated by paint. I guess I didn't think that I could mix the colors or apply it right or something. And, really, for a lot of things, I probably wouldn't be too good. But the painting on the wall is somewhat abstract, so that's not too difficult of a look to imitate.

I took down the lace window covering, washed the window, and started painting on the glass. And now I have a really, really cool and unique colorful, cheerful privacy window. it kind of looks like stained glass. My kids think I'm an artist!

New window!

One of the best things about it is that I can scrape that paint right off of there any time I decide I don't like it or want something else.

I decided to paint the sink cabinet as well, and actually was gutsy enough to use blue and red paint that we had left from another project, mixed it to create a slightly purplish blue that ties in with blues from the painting, and started painting. The second coat is drying right now..... Looks good!

I got to thinking about other things I have around the house that I might be able to use in some special way to enhance our home. One thing I got to thinking about was this:


tissue paper

It's just tissue paper that I bought at Dollar General and used for wrapping a gift. There was a lot of it left over, and I just love the happy, funky stripe. I realized that my daughter's lilac colored walls would coordinate nicely with this, so went in her room to think about how I could put the tissue paper to work. And do you know what I saw?

plain door

That's right. Two plain white doors.

And I got a happy idea. Decoupage! I had a bottle of decoupage glue left from a Christmas craft (again, circa 2003). So, in between coats of paint in the bathroom, making dinner, and so on, I did this:

groovy doors!

Close up of one of the panels.

This was a totally simple and easy thing to do, and it looks fabulous! My daughter is thrilled.

And we still have lots of tissue paper left over. Wonder where it'll turn up next......