i shoulda spent the weekend at bernie's.

i need a weekend to recoup from the past 48 hours. here's a quick recap...

friday afternoon i planned to run some diagnostics on my computer to see what was up with the SMART event. i thought it might take a few hours. maybe 4? 5? let's just put it this way, i'm writing this at 8:37p on sunday and the diagnostics are *still* running. is that a bad thing? or worse, bad for the computer?? this is the fun part of working from home. 3 timezones away.

also friday?? we saw a mouse run across our kitchen counter and disappear behind our stove. we'd had our suspicions that we had one (there was a hole in our bread bag--since then, all food lives in closed cabinets), but it's always nice to have evidence. i guess.

saturday was exciting. steve fell down our basement stairs. [the man has already broken his tailbone and has back problems. needless to say, i lept off the couch when i heard the crash.] luckily the worst thing that happened was that his side was all skinned. sad panda :(

even worse?? when we got to the bottom of the stairs, i turned to him and said, "what's that hissing sound??" we turned the corner to see the pipe coming from our hot water heater spraying water onto our furnace. awesome. steve was able to stop the spraying by holding the pipe in place. i called the emergency maintenance line for our management company. no one called back. after about 20 minutes of steve standing in wet socks, with a torn up side, holding a leaky pipe, i called the plumber. they, also, did not call back.

so i called the emergency call line again, this time emphasizing that my husband was holding the pipe in place, and so we would really appreciate a return call. and guess who didn't call us back??

and while i was wasting time going through the appropriate channels to get help, steve (who is brilliant, have i mentioned this??) figured out how to get the spraying to stop. he turned off the water going to the tank, and had me run the faucet in the kitchen to empty the tank. we also put the thermostat to "vacation mode." oh the irony.

and here we are, about 24 hours later, and no one has come. steve called this afternoon and they gave a non-committal answer about probably making it on monday. i'll keep you posted on whether or not steve and i are able to bathe some time this week.

is it just me, or does it feel all 1890s tenement all up in here??

the problem with blogging.

is that sometimes i get tired of the sound of my own voice.

i know i'm supposed to be still talking about making a rental a home, and i have a whole bunch of fun and good posts in the hopper ... but i need a little reprieve from it all.

hope you don't mind. :) life has just gotten a little hectic and this was supposed to be fun, not another burden. so i'm slowing the pace, and giving myself some grace :)

thanks to laura from along for the ride [whose 31 days in on finding a little balance] for inspiring me to give myself a little grace :)

31 days to make your rental a home// share those projects!!

last week i talked about how inviting someone over can really help to give you the kick in the pants you need to get a project finished, and make your home your home. today i want to talk about the other effect of having someone over when you've just finished a project--you get a little praise!!

i'm gonna be honest here, i *love* it when people come over and ohh and ahh over my home--and it's not because our rental is oh-so-great, it's because i've dressed it up for the party :) and i also *love* it when i put a picture up of a project on twitter or on the blog, and readers or friends in real life comment. the whole reason i started this blog?? because i was doing home decor projects and my ny friends wanted deets.

who do you share your projects with?? how do you show them off?? do you have people off?? do you share before/after photos on facebook??

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to see the previous 31 days' posts, check out day 1, where i've got a running list of posts. :)

31 days to make your rental a home// bringing storage in.

when we moved from new york to arizona, steve and i went from a large 2 bedroom apartment with good sized rooms, a large living room, a dining room, tons of closets, and a large storage space to an itty bitty one bedroom apartment that had 450 sq ft. total. [see pseudo-floorplan here.]

we'd been married for 2 years, and so we had all the things married people in their mid to late 20s have--lots of small appliances, camping gear, kayaks, an extensive collection of books, many wall hangings, ...i could go on and on. and even though we down sized [we sold our kayaks--insert sad face], when we got to arizona, there just wasn't anywhere to store anything.

now, there are myriad reasons why i didn't get a storage unit [we were too poor; if i had more money, we'd have a bigger apt instead of a storage unit; if i can't access it easily, i forget i have it; we could live without it]. and since all our stuff fit in the apartment, it was more a matter of finding clever ways to make our rental look less like the inside of a moving truck, and more like a home.

here's the inside of a moving truck in case you haven't seen one in awhile. this was just a few short months ago when we moved from tucson to baltimore. [you can read about it here, here, and here.]

in our apartment in tucson, my biggest wish was that i had more closet space. so after surfing blogs, i got the brilliant idea to look for lockers [this was before i was pinterest savvy.] it took me awhile to find some [i got mine at a local auction for a community college--found out about it via craig & his list].

and it took me awhile to make them home worthy [most were locked, and the leg was bent and messed up, and i didn't like the color].

but in the end, i got my storage. and it cost me MUCH less than a storage unit or a bigger apartment.

and to be honest, i get a lot more gratification out of having my lockers, because i dealt with a problem in my home in a creative way that makes my home uniquely me. anyone can go out and pay money for a storage unit. anyone can spend extra money on a bedroom to just throw their extra stuff in. not everyone has lockers in their home. :)

what do you think?? would you put lockers in your home if you were seriously lacking in closet space?? is your rental also lacking in storage space?? how are you managing it??




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to see the previous 31 days' posts, check out day 1, where i've got a running list. :)

31 days to make your rental a home// customize-able.

if i'm going to be honest here, i'm a bit of a control freak. you may think that i'm over stating this, but i'm fond of saying that i'm "woody allen grade neurotic." and in some ways, renting brings out the worst of my control freak nature. the fact that i'm not allowed to paint in my current home without getting permission to try a specific color drives me batty. never mind that i wouldn't paint any way--it's the principal of the thing. and to top it off, if i do paint, i'm responsible for repainting it when i leave, to restore it to its bland condition. [uh, if i'm too lazy to paint it once, i'm certainly too lazy to paint it twice.]

[source.]

and i'm not gonna lie--that particular brand of autocratic authoritarian landlord-ness makes me grit my teeth and clench my jaw. in fact, i'm doing it right now as i type.

{breath in, breathe out. breathe in, breathe out.}

ok, i'm better now. so what's a control freak like me to do when i feel a loss of control over the very place where i should have the most control?? for me, it's making my home uniquely customized. it means that in stead of buying a lampshade for our lamp, i'm going to recover one, so that it's not just "nice," but it's "perfect." and by perfect i mean strangely fits my style and my space. perfect for me.

it means in stead of just hanging our old paper lantern, i'm going to try my hand at making something that is completely my own. that specifically meets my needs for the space, and makes me feel like my home screams my name whenever i come in to it. [stay tuned for an actual play-by-play on this lamp-making project that is currently going on behind the scenes.]

it means making my own window treatments. and it means slipcovering my couch and slipcovering my rubbermaid plastic bin to look like an ottoman.

the great thing about this for me, as a control freak, is that in a situation where i can often feel powerless, i find the things that i can exert my control over, and i capitalize on that. so then it's not as big of a deal if the apartment has no storage--i'm going to find a creative and clever work-around. but more on that on a later day :)

are you a control freak like me?? does it drive you nuts that there are some things your landlord or your rental itself just will not allow you to do?? have you been able to channel your controlling side to come up with projects and work arounds??




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to see the previous 31 days' posts, check out day 1, where i've got a running list. :)

31 days to make your rental a home// dealing with the elephant.

have you ever had an elephant in your apartment?? you know what i mean, a unbelievable obstacle that you try to ignore, but when you really sit down and think about it, it makes you want to cry??

i had one of those. it was a washer and dryer that sat in my living room.

you read that right ... in my living room. [i may be getting a little misty-eyed thinking back not-so-fondly.] the short version is that we have a brand new stackable w/d pair that are "apartment" sized, but they're front-loaders, and apparently the "newer" apartment size because even though i spent weeks finding a small apt in tucson that had w/d hookups, when we unloaded them as we moved in, it became abundantly clear that the little closet nook just simply was not large enough to hold our new w/d.

call me stubborn. call me hard headed, but i'd done the laundry mat thing for years when i was single, and i'd done it for a year and a half when we were married. i was not going back. and i was not selling my beautiful, shiny w/d on craigslist. so, we hooked them up just outside the doorframe of the closet, and they sat in our livingroom, against one wall.

here's a floorplan sketch to give you an idea of our apt, and the w/d situation...

[this was rental #4, and only 450 sq ft of living space. the proportions are probably off, but you get the gist.]

so anyone who walked into our apartment saw our washer and dryer, right there, in the middle of our living room. [don't even get me started on how it partially blocked the way to the bathroom & bedroom.]

and after sitting on my couch, looking at it for a year, and feeling like i lived in some crappy first apartment or college dorm, i finally got an idea for how to deal with it. fabric had always been the tool i thought it'd use, but the draping was the part i was nervous about.

the simple answer was 3M hooks. i placed them on the top of the dryer and sewed a light weight plastic ring to the fabric. i hooked it over the hook, and voila...

matching fabric in the doorway of the hook-up cubby and a stand-alone mirror in between, and i had some decent camouflage.

now, was this fix going to get me on the front cover of elle decor?? nope. but did it make me grin like i was on drugs for months afterwards?? you bet your bottom dollar. it made me feel like i had slayed my dragon. er, elephant. ok, maybe slaying elephants isn't where i wanted to go with this metaphor...

it took me a year, and a constant willingness to live with an elephant in my living room, and an unwillingness to give up on creatively thinking of a solution. and it paid off.

what about you, kind reader?? [that's my austenian address right there.] are you currently living with an elephant?? how might you slay your elephant??



PLEASE NOTE:: no actual elephants were harmed in the writing or preparing of this blog post. i neither have slayed any actual elephants, nor do i condone the slaying of elephants. thank you.

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to see the previous 31 days' posts, check out day 1, where i've got a running list. :)

31 days to make your rental a home// common threads.

i've already talked about how important it is to have versatility both in your objects, and in your approach to your home decorating, so that you can easily move them from one spot to another.

but i also find it really helpful to have a common theme throughout your home. having a common theme helps to facilitate versatility. after all, it might be great that your media cabinet could double as bedside table, but if the color schemes are off, it's not really going to work.

but before i talk more about what i mean by a common theme, i'd like to first tell you what i don't mean...

i don't mean matchy matchy matchy house, where every room looks like any of the following...

[source.]

[source.]

[source.]

[source.]

but what i do mean by a common thread is that throughout your home, you utilize a commonality that simultaneously ties your home together, and frees you up to move your versatile pieces from room to room without disrupting your overall decor.

this can be as simple as having common neutrals (white & tan, or navy & grey), it can be as complex as a complete color palette determined by a pattern or an inspiration piece.

in my home, i have a running color scheme that includes white, green, navy, and grey. there are additional pops of color in different rooms, but it allows me to swap the big things around without breaking up the whole look and feel. and it simultaneously makes my home feel cohesive without feeling matchy.

and if you're looking for an expert blogger example, i point you to john and sherry at young house love. they have a whole house that they're decorating around a cloth napkin. and their house is the exact opposite of matchy matchy. :)

what about you?? do you have an inspiration focal point that you draw from when coordinating your home?? do you have a common theme that you didn't even realize you had??

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to see the previous 31 days' posts, check out day 1, where i've got a running list of posts. :)

31 days to make your rental a home// have someone over.

if you're one of those self-motivated people who can wake themselves at 5a on a saturday morning and run 6 miles, this post is probably not for you. feel free to skim, or maybe just to come back tomorrow.

for the rest of us [ahem, me], who may lack motivation within ourselves, sometimes having someone over to our home can really be the kick in the pants that we [er, i] need.

[source.]

steve and i always joke that we clean the best and most thoroughly when we know we're having people over. and having someone over is not only a great incentive to clean up and de-clutter, it's also an excellent incentive to wrap up those lingering projects. because i don't know about you, but i always have like 8 half-finished projects laying around.

last december, i had a few big plans for rental #4 (which was a tiny 1 bedroom apt with only 450 sq ft of space). and even in midst of the holiday season, i was able to accomplish a number of HUGE home decor projects. and do you know why i was able to do this?? it was because my mother in law was coming to visit us in early january. and this was going to be her first time coming to us since we'd been married.

talk about motivation. :)

so i made myself a list / wishlist of projects that i'd like to see tackled. it was 10 items long. i finished 5 of the 10 projects, and got 3 of them well underway.

for your consideration, here are two of my personal favorites...

the window mistreatment.

[before, after.]

the great washer / dryer camouflage.

and it's not just that having someone over gets you to finish things, it can also be really rewarding. having a person walk into my home and ooh and ahh over the updates or projects i've been working on makes me swell with pride :)


when was the last time you had someone over, even if all the projects weren't done??

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to see the previous 31 days' posts, check out day 1, where i've got a running list. :)

31 days to make your rental a home// find inspiration.

almost nothing that i've done in my rentals to make them more homey is my own idea. most often there are things i see on other blogs, pinterest, etc, that i see and i think "wow, i *love* the way that looks. i want that in my home."

and since you're already here, i have a hunch that you, too, are good at finding inspiration online to help you mold your home. today i'm going to share with you the top places i get inspiration:

#1. blogs.

one of the best things i ever did was set up google reader so that i didn't forget cool blogs i'd visited, and could go to one place to see everything. i literally have a folder entitled "inspiration blogs." i started with a few big name blogs, and then added from there. a few of my suggestions--the nester, apartment therapy, miss mustard seed, inspired by charm, hammers and high heels

#2. magazines

when i'm at the library, dr's office, in a grocery store, or treating myself at the airport, i like to buy decor magazines. i've even subscribed to a few with some delta frequent flier miles that were never going to add up to a flight. a nice decor mag also makes a great birthday or christmas present. some of my favorites: martha stewart living, elle decor, DIY. [martha's probably my favorite, because it's less high-brow and her DIY ideas are so wonderful, like this one i did last year.]

#3. pinterest

it helps me to find new ideas, new blogs, and be inspired to make my own idea that may or may not be exactly what's there. it's also a wonderful tool for when you're looking for something specific, like wreath ideas. and if i really like a pin, sometimes i'll go and poke around the board of the person who pinned it to see if maybe i want to follow them on a regular basis. and even though it can be a bit addicting, it saves me TONS of time because instead of following 300 design and decor blogs like i used to, i only follow my favorites now. and instead of googling "lockers" i can plug it in to pinterest and get more of what i'm really looking for :)


there are lots of other places to find ideas--some people like to look at film and tv sets (aka fake houses set up by serious designers), other people like HGTV. what didn't i list that you use as a go-to for ideas??

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to see the previous 31 days' posts, check out day 1, where i've got a running list of posts. :)

31 days to make your rental a home// wreaths.

i don't know about you, but it's my experience that a lot of rentals feel like cookie-cutter living. even now, we're in a rowhouse in baltimore that's probably 100+ yrs old, but it sits on a block where all the houses are the same.

sometimes that makes me feel less like i live in a home and more like i live in a hotel. of course it doesn't help that i travel a lot for work and hotel rooms are definitely a cookie-cutter situation. when i come home, i want it to feel like the exact opposite end of the spectrum. special. unique. custom for me. and a small way that i achieve that is by slapping a wreath on our front door.

maybe it's an animal instinct, to mark my territory or something like that. and it's definitely not the kind of wreath you'd find pre-fab at michael's, which is what makes me happy about it. it is different and spunky and reflective of the life that goes on behind this door. it's a small way that i can demonstrate that while our floorplans may be the same, my home is mine.

and wreaths are so easy to whip up. within the past year, i've made 3 other ones...

yarn wreath, white fabric wreath, christmas wreath.

having a few different wreaths gives me options to change things up if i want, too. a little front-door versatility, if you will :)


what do you think?? are you a wreath fan?? do you have a favorite type of wreath you've made that really expresses you??

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to see the previous 31 days' posts, check out day 1, where i've got a running list. :)

31 days to make your rental a home// white walls.

yesterday i asked the question: "to paint, or not to paint?" [and all the students of english literature groaned and poor willy shakes rolled over in his grave.] today i want to win you over to my [non-painting] side by sharing with you a few inspiration photos from my pinterest board called "white walls."

as a non-painting renter, i'm always on the lookout for fabulous decor that is not dependent upon the wall color to make it look lovely. and you really don't have to go far to find gorgeous rooms with white walls. we can thank the recent trend of minimalism and clean, fresh decor for that :)

and i will agree, that in many of the photos below, the white on the walls is a lovely shade of white, and your walls may not be quite as lovely a shade of white, but the principle is still there--we don't need to rely on the wall color to carry the look and feel of a space.

the above photo was the first image that really spoke to me [more like shouted], and said, "hey!! look at me!! i have white walls, and i'm still soooo chic!!" and even though the colors are turned up to eleven, the white balances their volume. i love. love. love. this image :)

this image is so classic. and the wall color looks so close to a builder beige, and yet the bright color of the sofa along with its lovely lines and details make you forget that this family probably hates painting too.

the reclaimed wood in this space is the real star. the colors and texture draw your eye, and anything but a white wall would just be competition.i also love that there are a pops of color, but that this (in contrast with the first photo) is a very subdued, calming space.

this one is incredible to me. i love that it's just white and yellow, but that they decided to frame in the fabric (? or is it wall paper??), and not just as a mid-sized, or large wall-hanging, but a GIGUNDO wall hanging that has the same effect as wall paper, [but without any of the glue or mess]. i bet this wasn't too expensive to pull off either--some lovely fabric or paper, and a few molding pieces painted and fit as a border. so lovely.

and this one makes me catch my breath. white on white. all the texture, but not a single photo in sight. incredible. and probably pretty cheap too ... the cost of a bunch of "throw-away" frames and a couple cans of high-gloss white paint.

did you notice a theme or trend?? i did ... in every single of these photos, there's something interesting on the wall, and in front of the wall. something that takes your attention off the wall and to it.

and in the end, the wall is just a backdrop. the empty space behind the gorgeous thing that we're all mooning over.

and those gorgeous things we're all mooning over?? you can pack them up and take them with you. that's the beauty of being a non-painting renter ;-) the defense rests.

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to see the previous 31 days' posts, check out day 1, where i've got a running list. :)

31 days to make your rental a home// to paint or not to paint.

if you've read many diy blogs, you've probably noticed that diy'ers in general are big fans of painting a room to get a big change for not a lot of cash-ola.

me?? i hate painting. it's shameful, really, because the diy bloggers are right--for $25 you can really change the whole look and feel of a room, quickly customizing it to your particular tastes and style. maybe it's because i'm only 5 ft tall and can't reach well?? maybe it's because i'm just lazy?? but the most likely reason is because i like to invest our home improvement dollars in things that can come with me when we move out. paint can't do that.

of our 5 rentals, i've only painted in one of them. the rest have either had builder beige walls or a nice neutral. also, the longest i've ever been in a rental is 2 years. so maybe that's part of my aversion to painting, because it feels like i barely have time to let the paint dry before we're packing up and heading out again.

and at this point, i have no intention of painting our current rental. for your consideration, i took a few photos this morning to let you see the wall color in natural light. [yay for sunny windows & soft natural light!!] in the first photo below, i propped up my recent crayon art so that you could see the wall color against the bright white canvas, and also to compare it to the spectrum of bright colors in the art.

i also liked this photo because the window is on my right as i took the photo, and the way the wall is, you can see what the color does in bright sunlight, and what it does in  a softer, cooler light. other points of reference for the color are the white couch and the white ceiling. [and you may also notice my walls are still a bit bare--hoping to get a few things up this 3 day weekend!]

here's another shot of the living room--this time i included two couch pillows with some of the bright colors that are representative of much of my living room decor from our previous living room set-up.

and last but not least, my current favorite lampshade :) it's probably the brightest color/pattern i had in the living room before, so it's a good litmus test to see if it will jive well with the neutral walls.

all the walls in our home are this color. and while it wouldn't be my first pick, i works surprising well with out stuff. if given the choice, i probably would have gone with a neutral that is cooler, like a soft misty grey version of white. but when i see my bright fabrics and my cool grey-blue lockers against the warmer neutral, i'm actually pretty happy with how well they balance one another.

granted, if we owned this place, i would probably begin painting and changing things up ... but to live with for a year or two?? i can totally do that.

what do you think?? do you completely disagree with my aversion to painting my rentals?? does looking at the above photos make you want to dash out to lowe's to look at paint chips?? or do you concur??

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to see the previous 31 days' posts, check out day 1, where i've got a running list. :)

31 days to make your rental a home// appreciate the positives.

yesterday i talked about giving yourself permission to be honest about your rental--honest about the aspects of it that drive you nuts. i think there's a lot of freedom in doing that :)

and today i want to talk about the flip side, which is appreciating the positives. [and i love you all, because if you look at yesterday's comments, you all couldn't help yourselves ... you would state your negatives, but then end it with, "but i'm really thankful overall" or "but i really like this important thing." love you all for that :) ]

here is a non-exhaustive list of positives about our current rental...

• we have a backyard [and maybe grass soon too!!]
• all of our furniture fits inside. :)
• the kitchen cabinets are pretty new and a light colored wood [huge improvement over dark ones in last rental]
• the kitchen appliances are all pretty new.
• the dishwasher. [i'm always grateful to have one!!]
• kitchen has lotsa counter space.
• washer dryer hook-ups. :)
• within walking distance: grocery store, CVS, hippetty-hopkins, a pub, coffee shop, hair stylist, parks, etc.
• the walls & carpets are all soft neutrals.
• the windows are all new [will be especially thankful for this in a few weeks when we start to turn the heat on].
• tub in the bathroom [rentals #2 and #3 either did not have a tub or had a non-functional tub].
• the street is pretty quiet and not too busy.
• flooring is pretty new.
• the doors are all nice 6 paneled doors.
• the rooms have baseboard trim. [our last rental didn't.]
• the walls are normal painted sheetrock. [last rental was stucco--not my favorite.]
• tree in backyard provides nice shade to back rooms.
• we have 7 windows [an increase of 350% over our last rental].
• we have a basement for storage.
• we're on the east coast and only about 6 hours from some of our favorite people in the world :) [huge improvement over 41 hour drive from tucson!!]
• we have a 2nd bedroom for me to use as an office / work cave. 
• we can afford to live here and still save money / pay off debt.

many of these positive are a great foundation for me to build on as i work to make this space home for us. in fact, if i could rank these positive, at the very top would be the wall color, the flooring, the pretty cabs in the kitchen, and the windows that provide us with lots of natural light :)

and those are some pretty great starting points for me to work from. for example--those bright sunny windows?? i'm suddenly motivated to find a pretty way to frame them with color and pattern, so they're the stars of my home!!

did you see what i did there?? i let myself get the things i can't change out of the way yesterday. and today, i'm focusing on what i like. and i'm not going to just recognize the positives, i'm going to build on them. ants?? what ants?? i've forgotten all about them already :)

and here's a short video just for laughs. because i feel like every time this commercial comes on, i'm reminded of how the lines between positives and negatives are so subjective and contextual...



stay tuned, because tomorrow i'll be moving us out of the land of philosophically thinking and pondering home decor and straight into practical decisions with a post about whether or not to paint your rental!! :)

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to see the previous 31 days' posts, check out day 1, where i've got a running list. :)

31 days to make your rental a home// giving yourself permisison.

i don't know about you, but renting would not be my first choice. while it has its benefits, in some ways i'm biding my time until steve and i are in the right place [geographically, financially, personally] to buy a home. and sometimes i feel like until we're able to buy our own home and have some of the freedoms that come with that ownership, i'm at the mercy of whatever rentals are available. 

can i tell you a secret about our current rental?? not my dream home. it's not where i want to raise kids (if we have any), it's not where i want to be in 5 years. (heck, it's not where i want to be in one year.) and it has about a million things wrong with it.

• there are ants with more re-occurring lives than a stray cat.
  
  
   
• the floorplan is wonky and poorly distributes space. [i'll share more on that when we talk about floorplans.]
 

• the backyard's overgrowth is frighteningly reminiscent of the little shop of horrors.
  

• the old staircase is so narrow that i can't get a full-sized bookshelf up to my office. as a result, my office does not have a good sized bookshelf, and instead my livingroom has a huge bookshelf in it.
  
  

• the neighborhood we're in is a little rougher than i want to be in long-term.

i could probably go on for awhile if you let me :) and while i may have embellished a bit above for dramatic effect [who, me?? never.], these are all legitimate obstacles to my ability to make this current rental our home. the inability to get the bookcase [or lockers, for that matter], up the stairs to the office means that my office isn't as well-equipped to be an office as i'd planned. and that's a real bummer.

so often, home decor is all about accentuating the positives that sometimes, i think it's good for us to have permission to acknowledge the negatives. 

and for me, in these moments of permission, i sometimes get ideas. it's a kind of a serenity prayer mindset ... acknowledge the negative you can't change so that you don't waste time, emotion, money, etc on those problem. and instead, you will be free to invest time, emotion, money, creativity, etc in the things you can change.

of my above list, things i can't change: neighborhood, staircase, floorplan.

things i can change: ants, backyard.

what about you?? what are the negatives aspects of your current rental that you can't change?? what are the ones you can??


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to see the previous 31 days' posts, check out day 1, where i've got a running list. :)

31 days to make your rental a home// defining *home*.

we're really rolling with the 31 days theme!! yesterday, we talked about what i consider to be the fundamental theorem of decorating a rental: versatility. today we're going to stay on the philosophic side of things. i would like to start off today by having us ask ourselves a question...

i'm an analytic person. i like to solve problems and to think about systems. and it's definitely worth it for us as renters to analyze what it actually is that makes our home a home.


i can't answer this question for you, i can only answer it for me, because what makes home home is so deeply personal.

• i like my home to be comfortable and lived-in. this means that there aren't any rooms that are off-limits, and we eat dinner on the couch regularly :) 
• i don't mind if "lived-in" means that my home is less tidy than some other homes, but it should still be clean.
• i like the colors in my home to be soothing and energizing. 
• i also like having less little accessories around because i'm not one of those women who loves to dust on a saturday morning :) 
• i like my home to feel fresh and inviting--not heavy or stiff.
• i like my home to be calm, with a little bit of cheerfulness [which might be a reflection of the better parts of my personality]
• i like my home to have unique elements--art or fabrics--that are specifically what i like.
• i like my home to be functional and to give steve and me spaces to comfortably do the things we do at home.

boy, i guess i used a lot of personal pronouns!! [i, me, my, etc.] the list also has a lot of subjective items.

what i find soothing and energizing might be the white, green, and navy of my livingroom. you might prefer tiffany's blue and a nice murky tan.

and of course having all my things there is what makes me feel at home when i'm at our place. :) but home is more than just having all our stuff in a place. right after we moved, all my stuff was technically in our home, but it didn't yet feel like home. so home has got to also be that my stuff is organized / arranged / placed in a way that it achieves as many of the bullets above as humanly possible.

what do you think?? what makes home home for you?? are there certain colors or textures?? do you have a particular piece of furniture or arrangement that signifies relaxation and home??


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to see the previous 31 days' posts, check out day 1, where i've got a running list of posts. :)

31 days to make your rental a home// versatility.

welcome back!! i'm glad to know that seeing me in my going-to-bed look didn't scare you away from coming back for day #2!! :)


from my perspective, the most important lesson of living in a rental is both a) being versatile yourself, and b) owning things that can be versatile. this is because the reality of renting is that you may not be in that specific home as long as you would if you owned it (sad but true). and when you want to change things up, you've got to work with the things you own (unless you have a really flexible lease that allows you to do crazy things like tear down walls).

to me, versatility = freedom!! the freedom to change things around. the freedom to decide that the media table that's currently in the livingroom is now going to live in my office. (that wouldn't work if i had some gigundo home entertainment set up.) the freedom to decide that the curtains that were in the livingroom in the old place do not necessarily need to go in the livingroom in this place.

for example, when buying a sofa, i will probably not purchase a sectional until i've bought my "we're gonna be here awhile" home.

[left, right.]

this is not because i don't like sectionals [i actually love that you can get an extra-long couch, and i love the corner nook], but my reality is that in our current home, there's barely room for a standard sized couch. if i had invested my money in a sectional, i would have had to sell it when we moved here. [and i *hate* selling things that i bough new. drives. me. crazy.] and even if i did have room, it's likely that there would only be one set-up for it. unless i wanted to pay money to store the corner piece.

take a look at the two media options below...

[left, right.]

both are lovely. in fact, for me, the one on the right caught my eye right away because my husband and i have more books than we know what to do with--so at first glance, it seems like a really great option for us. but the reality is this--in order to use the media center set-up, i would need like 8 feet of wall. and even if i had it (i don't), i'd be locked in to that set-up. now, to be fair, the bookshelves come off, so then i'd only need like 4 feet of wall. but the point is, i don't have the flexibility to put my tv in the corner, if that's what needed to happen.

and if i haven't convinced you yet, consider this--the media table on the left?? if i ever got tired of using it as a media table, i could use it as a hall table. or a cabinet in my office. it's like a chameleon--it can change when the venue changes. the media center?? not so much.

vesatility means that the item can be used in different rooms in my home, for different purposes, and can be easily tweaked when the home needs it, or when my tastes change. :)

owning versatile items allows me to be versatile when i decorate. if i can easily move a piece of furniture to another room, then i've just gained more decorating options. if everything in the livingroom always has to be in the livingroom, then if i move and my livingroom dimensions are different, i'm screwed.

so for me, versatility is the underlying principle for everything i buy / refashion for our home. because i know that if i can't use it in 3 different ways, it's going to end up being more of a hassle than it's worth.

what about you?? have you thought about versatile pieces in your home?? do you have a favorite piece of furniture that's shown up in more than one room??

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to see the previous 31 days' posts, check out day 1, where i've got a running list of posts. :)