Making A House A Home

One of the things I miss most due to my schooling has been decorating/redecorating/reorganizing/decluttering my home on a regular basis.  The last time I did something like this was after my first semester of nursing school was complete last August.

It feels so good to have gotten back to this again, even if it is for a short while.

To create a space that feels like home and feels comfortable has been truly therapeutic.  To get rid of the clutter.....my goodness, what a liberating thing!  It's a good thing I only have another week left in my break because my house may be completely empty if it were longer due to my de-crapifying my house.

I realize that I am not a professional by any stretch of the imagination, but I have been able to take things that represent my family and make our home feel like OUR HOME.  This has been a difficult task because the house we are currently in is a rental and we came into it from a necessary short sell of our beloved Point Break house.  I really did love that house and have missed how comfortable it was, how many memories we had there and we OWNED it.  Cedar Bird has been fine, but in the back of my mind, it's not truly ours, and it has been hard to make it feel like home.

This past week I think I've finally bridged that gap.

Perhaps now we can belong here for a while longer.

And now for the tour!

GARAGE

The garage is where the junk goes to collect dust, dirt, and just be forgotten.  I took back the garage by purging it of everything we brought with us in our move two years ago and have NOT EVEN LOOKED AT.  I filled my mom-van full of stuff and hauled it away to Deseret Industries.  I then took the corner where the garage leads to the house and made it a little more welcoming and a little less junkyard.  Props to this website for inspiration.

Not oft-worn shoes and nearly all of my flip flops (don't even ask me how many pairs I own) are in the drawers.  Two baskets hold school bags and shoes for Zac and Noodle.

I love the jacket rack!

I created this and had it printed at Costco.  Yay for cheap printing!

LIVING ROOM

Our living room is a bit odd-shaped with a wall that I've been perplexed about since we moved in.  Our piano is up against it, but I've not known how else to fill it without it being cluttered and awkward.  I've tried a variety of things, but have felt it wasn't quite right.  I brought shelving that was in my bedroom downstairs, put two stand lamps on either side and voila!  It feels MUCH better to me.

Once again, a print I created that sits on the piano.

LOFT

We have a fairly large loft over our garage that is the main hangout/video game headquarters for our kiddos.  It's a great space with plenty of room, but the windows/wall situation once again left me wondering how to deal with it.  So I've sort of ignored it until I got my lightbulb moment and realized that I have about 30 kajillion family picture prints from over the years and they would be great in that space.  So I snagged up a bunch of frames from IKEA (for CHEAP) and framed some of my favorite pictures.  If ever there is a reason to take annual family pictures, this is it.  It's amazing to see how much we have changed over the years.

I also had an empty space by the entertainment center that was begging for attention.  So I created a family print to hang in that space.

Yes, Scott's hands are on my butt.  I never realized it until we got the prints back.  He loves it.

One of my favorite pictures EVER of my kids.

The family print.  You can't see it, but the word FAMILY is interwoven into our names.

MY BEDROOM

Since I took the shelving that was here downstairs, I used IKEA (I really should buy stock in this company) shelves to give this area a bit of a redo/declutter.  I had many of my nursing books here and lots of other books as well.  Some of these were transferred to the living room and this enabled me to put things here that are meaningful and I love.  The prints once again were something I created with inspiration from Pinterest for the 'Peanut Butter' print and the other is one of my all-time favorite quotes from my all-time favorite movie.  It is exactly how Scott and I feel about each other (even after 21+ years of marriage).

I love these figurines.  These represent all of my children, including my angel baby (the one standing to watch over her sister and brothers).

I also cleared off a lot of STUFF from my desk and now I feel I can study more effectively with less stuff to distract me.  The most important thing on my desk is my chocolate stash.  Amen.

I like my chocolate dark.  And small portions so I don't overdo it.

That's it.  I feel just about projected-out now.  There are still a few spaces that need purging (Boys Room!), but having re-done major parts of the house makes it feel more like OUR home.  I know that home is where the heart is, but having it FEEL like home makes all the difference in the world.