Transitions

When Mr. Mammoth and I met, we were each living alone in one bedroom apartments. We eventually combined households to live in a 3 bedroom house with two other guys, and we took the smallest bedroom (which was literally a walk in closet with no storage) so that I could have the attic space to use as a studio. Many of our furniture pieces became damaged or worn out in the environment, and when we purchased our first home at 2,000 square feet with four bedrooms and a finished basement, we didn't have furnishings for an abode on that scale.

We needed things like a couch, dining room chairs, a guest bed, night stands, and porch furniture, and with a minuscule budget I ended up purchasing some items that I wasn't totally in love with so that we had something for us to sit on, or a place for our guests to sleep. At this point out house is jam packed with my sewing supplies and clothing, all of the vintage stuff I sell on Etsy, and a lot of severely disjointed decorating themes and ideas, and when I look around I mostly feel overwhelmed instead of in love with my home.

I've decided to gradually start overhauling the house one room at a time, starting with a massive garage sale next weekend to purge extraneous junk, and a re-do of the smaller of our downstairs bedrooms. If you follow me on Instagram, you probably saw this photo when we finished repainting a few days ago.

We chose a soft blue grey that matched some of the art that had already been in that room, with an accent color that's close to terra cotta. I got rid of anything in the room that we no longer needed, or wasn't useful or meaningful in some way, and then started moving the future furnishings back into the room. I came to a stand still when I tried to decide which pieces of art would hang on the walls, as this is what was previously in the room.

The painting in the back is something I purchased at an Estate sale almost 5 years ago for $10.00. I loved the colors, and at almost 3.5 feet tall, it was a lot of bang for my buck. Unfortunately, it hand't fit anywhere in our house previously, though it does look fabulous against the grey walls in this room. The abstract flowers were painted by a dear friend of mine, and given to me as a birthday gift when I was 24, my parents had it framed for me as a Christmas gift the following year. I collect vintage Marushka prints, and the coffee pot has a clock mounted into the canvas. I love the kitsch factor and the bold primary colors, and the little print at the bottom is from a favorite artist, Sally Harless. It's called 'travelling circus' and is a carnival travelling on the backs of whales.

The dilemma I was having at this point in the decorating process is that I read too many lifestyle and design blogs. I AM a designer, and an aspiring blogger, and I kept struggling to make myself choose which piece of art would define this room, and which would be gotten rid of. I was convinced that if I could create a beautiful space where everything matched, I would feel more at peace with my home, and more sucessful as a publicly creative person.