Some days. I wonder, what does it matter what color pillows are on the couch?
Who cares?
Seriously.
Who cares.
Sometimes when I clean the house, my husband will say, “No one is coming over. Who cares?”
I kind of care. It doesn’t matter to me that no one is coming over.
I’m here.
Home decor is not important. It’s not.
But.
Having a home that I feel comfortable in, is.
Having a home that I can relax in, is.
Having a home that doesn’t make me feel anxious, is.
When I day dream about a pair of green chairs for my living room, it’s not because then the room will be complete and I’ll be nominated for amateur decorator of the year.
It’s because when I find the right chairs and they are in my home, I feel something. I don’t know exactly how to even describe it.
I don’t know if this happens to anyone but me, but when I find something that I love, it belongs to me. I get this immediate sensation that it’s “mine”.
Not because I bought it. Not because I now own it, but because it is a reflection of me.
You know when people say, “That’s so you”. It’s kind of like that.
Like I found a little missing piece of this puzzle I’ve been putting together for years and years.
The more complete the puzzle is, the more at home I feel in my home.
Not too long ago I bought some lamps for my bedroom. I had searched high and low for lamps and I found some that I really liked but were above my price range.
So I compromised and bought a pair that were “ok” and fit in the budget.
I hate those lamps. They aren’t particularly ugly or offensive in any way, but they are not “me”. It’s not that I compromised for price, it’s that I compromised at all.
And now I want to replace them and I’m going to have to because they annoy me sitting there looking like they belong in someone else’s home and I spent my money on them.
For someone else’s lamps.
But then there’s my brilliantly loud rainbow floral wall paper mural in my dining room and my Highland Cow tapestry in the living room and when I see those, I know who I am. I know whose house I’m in.
I remember when I put that wallpaper up. I felt a little bit like I had lost my mind (it was before wallpaper murals were everywhere). I remember thinking, what will my mother-in-law think?
What will the neighbors think?
That’s when I feel like, Who cares?
That’s one way I know that I’ve picked the right thing. I can recognize that not everyone in the world will love it, but I do and I do not care if no one else likes it.
Sometimes I joke about how you should buy a particularly beautiful thing because the neighbors will be like, OH MY GOD I LOVE THAT! And then you’re like, “Thanks”.
It’s half a joke because I do really love that feeling. Not because I want the neighbors to be jealous or think I have a beautiful home or anything like that.
I like that feeling because I picked that thing and I love it and it’s nice to have that validated. It really actually doesn’t matter a lot to me if someone doesn’t like what I like, but I do like to know that someone sees my point of view.
The Highland Cow is not for everyone and lots of people have found a way to tell me that. But I’ve also had someone say, “I get it”. And that’s perfect.
You don’t have to like it, but you can at least get it.
When I put the Rainbow floral mural up, I remember clearly saying to myself, “Think about this every time you pick something out. Love every.single.thing this much”.
So that’s where I’m coming from. That’s why I write about how to make your home unique.
Because I want to look around my home and feel like I know who I am.