Have you ever thought of your house as a metaphor for your life? In your house are all your experiences and your memories. Maybe 6 months ago, I looked around my own home and realized I wasn’t as comfortable and didn’t feel as peaceful as I imagine I should feel in my home. So I set about to change it.
I read a bunch of books and enlisted my sister-in-law’s a designer’s (ahem) help with adding color and pattern. She is awesome and I really appreciated her time and expert eye! After all the work, I feel much more peaceful at home and I definitely think it’s more a reflection of who lives here. It’s upbeat. It’s modern. It’s positive. It’s open to fresh experiences. It’s evolving. It’s comfortable.
I have 4 separate topics/posts to share with you: 1) the dining room 2) the living room 3) the kitchen and 4) windows. I’ll try to share links to each new item so you can locate them yourself. Maybe you will get some fresh ideas to incorporate into your own home to make it more of a reflection of you. 🙂
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THEN, I’d like to embark upon a journey with you. I hope to create a home that is as free of clutter as possible, full of peaceful and natural elements, and a true reflection of me and my family. I’ve been reading a few books with this in mind and I’d like to share them with you. I’m thinking we could work on the transformation together.
Beginning in January, we will focus on one “home”ish theme a month. One month will probably be clutter/visual space; another will be bringing in or rearranging photographs, artwork, and objects that reflect you; perhaps another will have to do with focusing on our senses to enjoy our rooms more. You get the idea. I think if we are conscious about it, we’ll start to relax more into our spaces.
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So the dining room… the first room you see when you enter our home. Step 1 was to find some fun accent chairs for the living room and the dining room. I tried this pair of side chairs in the living room, but they clashed with something I eventually did with that console table (ha! a teaser for you to come back for the living room post!), so I moved them to the dining room as host chairs.
Here’s the “before” photo of the room. While I liked the light fixture, it was too small for the space. I’ll tell you all about the window coverings in a separate post.
Another key project: recovering the “blah” chairs (bought 12 years ago from Crate & Barrel). First I tried this wild fabric but Mr. B was definitely not crazy about it. Too pink.
This fabric is much better! I saw it in a store, liked the texture, and just bought it because I was tired of having all of our chair seats unscrewed! It took maybe an hour to staple the fabric on and screw the seats back into the chairs. 
I like how the host chairs look with the other chairs.
Our handyman installed the light fixture. I’ll tell you all about the shutters and drapes in an upcoming window coverings post.
Ta Da! It’s still not as peaceful as I’d like, but we’re getting there. 🙂
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