Melissa recently wrote: Your home looks amazing and I love that you decorate according to your own style and what you love! I especially love all the bright colors it makes it look so inviting. Did you do one room at a time until you were done or what was your process?
Admittedly, her question was so good, I didn’t really answer until I could turn it into a full fledged post because you guys always inspire me. ;} I do that sometimes for your reading pleasure because you are the brilliant people when it comes to topics. (Hate me.)
And then Jennifer wrote: I’m never sure where to begin. Where do I start? I love your home and it inspires me. I’m motivated but have no idea where to begin with it all. Any advice?
I thought these were great questions. What exactly is the process of making a house your own? What do you do first? How does it all work, and where on earth do I start?
I don’t know about you guys, but I’m always looking for real advice. It’s easy to get bogged down in the world of glossy mags, and pretty books with underwhelming recommendations towards 10k side chairs and to-the-trade-only wallpaper. And I guess when it comes down to it, I think a lot of you guys are like us. You’re looking to create a haven for your family. A realistically attainable, on-a-budget, haven of a place where you feel safe and loved and love being together. Our home is our sanctuary. It’s a place where life happens {See: real life clutter and laundry and explosive bodily functions from the dog & kids} and where we celebrate life: Birthdays, potty training, stellar scores on spelling tests and completion of the laundry. It’s the little things, y’all.
I think you’re either the nesting type, or you’re not. You either love messing around with the wall hangings and rug positionings, or it bores you to tears. Then there’s always that gray area: You’re interested, but don’t know where to start because it’s overwhelming. And the endless approaches to it all: You can spend three weekends building shelving for a space, or go out and buy some. Or you can alter something you bought and rock it to make it yours. When it comes down to it, the only thing that matters is that you love it. That it reflects and feels like you.
So today, I thought I would share a little of how our home evolved over time. You’ve seen the before and afters, but I thought I would cover a few of my fave points when it comes to taking something a little bit cookie cutter, and infusing a whole lot of you.
Because at the end of the day, we’re all just looking for a place to put up our feet, and rest.
Pick a word.
Start with a vision for your home. For your family. I’m a big believer in goals, whether you write them down or keep them in your head, discuss them with the others who dwell in those spaces. Ours, personally, is simple. And I use it a lot: Fun.
If we’re not having fun in our home, then what’s the point? Our home is full of multifunctional, multi purpose spaces. It protect us from the elements, shelters us, and provides many things. But what else do you want it to be? Fun was that, for us. I’m sure some of our friends probably think we’re crazy, but I think we all view our homes differently, and that’s okay. We’re just enjoying our lives and this is how we express ourselves. Plain and simple: My home is my canvas and I want it to be… Fun.
Fun doesn’t mean that we have a trapeze swing hanging from the ceiling of every room, or even bold colors that overwhelm you. But we want to walk into the space, every space, and love it. We want it to feel welcoming and happy and tell the story of who we are. We’re creatives to the core, and we’ve often said that we use our kids as the main inspiration behind everything we do. And we want it to feel fun. It’s that simple.
You don’t have to know exactly what you’re doing with each space, because it will be a process. But let it express what you’re trying to convey in each project you do, with the end goal in mind.
Which leads me to…
Start where you feel inspired.
When Emerson was born, I was all about frilly antiques and pink. Then we dropped the pink, and went all white for a while…
And here’s her room now.
With us, it started with our children’s spaces. I did small things before I was a mom, but I was more restricted with my choices. In the process of creating their nurseries before they were born, I realized that I could do more with their rooms. It was freeing, really. And when they were completed, I realized their spaces had a whole different feel. And you know what? That was because I had fun. I started where I thought we needed it the most, and in that process learned a ton about myself.
Embrace your inner rebel
I realized that all this time I’d been following “the rules”. Stressing over what my sister-in-law’s mother’s sister would think. Stressing over future home owners not liking our color choices on the wall. Letting the “norm” hold me back while I tried to figure out what my taste actually was. There’s something glorious about turning thirty… (and I’m sure beyond.) At first, I reluctantly let go of my twenties (and the perks) but with that comes even greater benefits: you start to figure out who you actually are, and our home was a part of that journey.
So embrace your inner rebel and do what you love. Ignore the color of the year, the word “trends” if the idea of something “temporary” freaks you out. Play with what appeals to you. You’ll love yourself, and your home, all the more.
Color is a good place to start.
I think that a lot of things happened in succinct order where we began to change our philosophy of things. It was this little timeline of inspiring implosions in our lives. The first was the birth of our son and then our daughter and then our third little surprise (and the challenges for our spaces and letting go of silly expectations) that came with working with what we had. The second began with real changes in other areas of our home… in our kitchen. I would stare at the island and think: I can just paint the island. The island needs some major work, and if I just do that, it will be enough until we move. But guess what? We didn’t move.
And when you give a mouse a cookie…
Duh. That island was like a domino effect of embracing what we loved.
It was the second major transformation that changed the way we were thinking. The first point of major rule breaking for us. I mean, could we paint perfectly good cabinets? And then I got over myself and realized these cabinets weren’t real wood anyway, and we practically overpaid for particle board. So what was I holding on to? Wood purists everywhere could squelch their angry mob torches. It was absolutely freeing, and we wondered why we waited so long to do what we wanted?
Then, we got crazy wild and decided to add more square footage by adding a wall to our outdoor porch. From there it was like a domino effect. Or train wreck. Whichever.
Exercise your ADD.
I always say I have ADD when I clean. I will jump from dusting in one room to picking up in another, to starting a load of laundry, to making the bed. This would drive some people crazy, and I probably waste a lot of energy hopping from space to space. I view it as the Jazzercise of cleaning: I burn a lot more calories that way, and if it’s how I’m motivated, then so be it.
Don’t feel like you have to finish one space, just as it is. I think as writers here, we {personally} tend to show a big room reveal and then move on, but the truth of the matter is, we started where we started, moved on, and then we come back. Again. And Again. And again. Because the best spaces are created over time, tweaked and finessed.
When we first moved into our home, we painted all the walls different colors. Then we decided that was a mistake, and went back in refining each space, one by one. So after the cabinets were finito {and with that, the kitchen walls} we decided we loved those colors so much, that we began to carry them throughout the home. I changed the dining room color. I painted a dresser. I moved the boys in together. It was a process of changing and tweaking until we could finally start to see some of our vision for our home and what we truly loved.
You can see a little more on how we view color in our home, here… but it was a major key element in creating a unified space over time. I kept that key word in mind, with my main vision… and applied it to each space. And we’re still changing as we go.
I think that’s what makes everyone’s process of creating a home so exciting. It never ends.
We’re even in the process of refining this space – things look different now, but this is a good before and after for now.
Because it’s never finished… right? Life is organic… so your home should be also. Which leads me to…
Once we changed the kitchen, our builder’s beige nightmare of a laundry room certainly wasn’t staying…
Your family’s needs can steer the ship.
This space started out as Malone’s Nursery… No, actually it started out as Emmy and Aiden’s “playroom” and then surprise, here comes babe no. 3…. Malone. So with his arrival, the fam was shuffled around once again.
And a shared space for both boys…
eventually created a good place for them to have a ‘playroom’…
Confession: We don’t really do rooms for blog fodder. It’s fun to write about, but we do it only if we want to. We actually consider ourselves more of a lifestyle blog than a home blog, but happen to have a home that we share. {I don’t know what other people consider us… maybe you guys just show up to read the train wreck and download some free printables. Cool.} When you pop over here, you’re never quite know what you’re going to find. We don’t, either.
You can see in these photos, how our style has evolved. I think we’ve become more fearless over time with having fun.
My point? As our children grew, and we started home schooling, we knew that it was time to up the anté in meeting their needs. I feel like a total rebel in the world of all things southern entertaining and dining rooms, but we actually ditched ours to have a space for the kids and all their learning materials. Plus a refined play space for the same thing. {That wasn’t in our plans at the time… but it kinda worked out nicely, anyway.}
So just like you start with what inspires you, work with what your family needs. Rooms evolve over time, just like your home does. Most of the spaces in our home, have completely different functions now than when we first moved in. We moved in with a one year old, and now have three… our oldest is eight.
Just as our family has grown, so have our needs. And so has our home.
Read all about our homeschool space, here.
We saved our outdoor space for so long, it was another element we wish we’d done sooner. A great retreat when things get kinda crazy on the inside…
Our house has changed. It has evolved with our family and our needs. I adore the fact that this home was on the market over two years ago, and we decided to stay. And we were able to work with challenges and mold it into something we truly love. It’s my favorite part about this house.
We’ve made it work for us. We’ve learned so much in this learning process, grown with it, and created a place to celebrate.
What’s your favorite element about creating a home and making it yours?
Anna @ A Good Home says
Love, as usual. Between you and the Nester, I’ve been much bolder with personalizing my rental. We may be staying here next year (we were almost certainly moving until things shifted in the last few days), and I’m thinking of doing a board and batten treatment in the hall bathroom. The challenge? I can’t paint and the walls are currently a very buttery yellow, complemented by hideous 70s gold tile. Whoa. To achieve the white board and batten that I love so much I’m thinking of using, wait for it, white contact paper on the walls between the boards! Wish me luck đ
ashley @ the handmade home says
I LOVE this. Can’t wait to see! You go girl!
Jeanne says
Ashley, this post was a breath of fresh air for me. We’ve had a hard, long, cold winter up here in New England, but the end is finally in sight. Little tiny shoots of green are peaking up from beneath the soil. Buds are opening. Spring is coming. Slowly. And with it, for me anyway, is coming this renewed sense that I need to make my house into my HOME. We have been in our house for 10 years. We will not be moving. It was my husband’s grandparents home and is next door to his parents. Great for the littles to be so close to their grandparents, sometimes awkward for their momma, but hey, I digress. Anyway, I have to get over the whole “this house is not working for me” thing and MAKE IT WORK. The house was built in the 1890s. We have 1 bathroom (and 3 girls under 7). The 2 older girls (almost 7 and almost 4) are together in bunks in one small bedroom and the 9 mos old has her own little room next door. We have a tiny kitchen and my husband loves to cook. When you enter our bathroom, immediately to the left is our pantry (which I HATE) and then on the right is a larger closet, which used to be the ONE closet for the whole house). We added a master bedroom with 2 closets, one for clothes and one for our laundry, in that bedroom when we built an addition 4 years ago before our middle daughter arrived). I love your recently renovated closet and would like to do something like that in our house, for the closet off the bathroom. My husband is pretty handy and has built a lot of the furniture in our house. I want to repaint the living and dining room, from light green to crisp white. I want to add art to the walls. I struggle with where to start as well, while juggling a full time job out of the house and 3 little kids and never having enough time, can I clone myself? wait, what?! Anyway, to end a long and rambling comment, thanks for this post Ashley. I mean really, what am I waiting for? I just need to MAKE time, somehow.
ashley @ the handmade home says
Hey girl! What an adventure! I can only imagine living right next to my inlaws… love them but I’m sure it’s an adjustment! That is so great, though, that you guys are doing this. The memories you are creating are priceless. I am so excited for you… but also must say… be patient with yourself. ;} I get it about making time but I also know its easier for me to do it over here because it’s my ‘job’ and you have a full time job, as well as being mama to three littles! So be gracious with yourself. Not that you’re not… but I just know working full time is tough. You will get there!
Jeanne says
Thank you Ashley. Being the mother of 3 has it’s good days and bad days. đ I am constantly reminding myself that I cannot do it all (what, I’m NOT Superwoman?!) but it’s soooo hard to ask for help sometimes. I keep thinking people can read my mind. The weather is improving and pretty soon I can spray paint some furniture and paint some walls on the weekends. I just have to make it fun, like you said. Our home is small and we are all on top of one another but that’s ok. It means we are all experiencing each other and we’re not holed up in separate spaces living separate lives, like ships passing in the night (random Barry Manilow reference there…) And before I know it, that small house will just have 2 people in it. Thanks again Ashley. I have to say, I appreciate the way you and your husband share the real stories that make up your lives, dirty dishes, been there, laundry piles, been there. Life isn’t perfect, if it was, it’d be mighty b.o.r.i.n.g.
ANN W says
WOW – love your post! I always used to design my house according to what the house “needed” or the style of the house – OH the house has a farmhouse look to it – ok let’s go farmhouse, OH – the house is more modern – ok let’s modern! HOW FREEING it was to make the house FIT US!!! Not us fit the house!
I love your advice! Finally with this house – and yes being older has a lot to do with it – you really figure out what YOUR style is – and chuckle at the style you had in your 20’s – although you loved it then – it doesn’t fit you now – so that means getting rid of some things and being totally OK with it! They were you at the time and that was awesome – and they are not you know – that is totally ok!
LOVE your advice on color! I decided to embrace my favorite color – aqua and my husbands – orange! I was like WHAT!?!?!?! Then a bright spring green appealed to me- and spoke to my soul – so I added it to the mix of colors I wanted to splash around the house -then I couldn’t get away from a soft butter-yellow – so I added it to the mix as well. I think those are the 4 colors we are going to blend and repeat around the house – unless, of course. I find one more color that “speaks” to my soul!
I love the inspiration you give – let yourself come alive in your house – make it work for you – so what. everyone says you need a formal dinning room – do what fits your family best and EMBRACE IT!!! So what that you love aqua and your husband decides his favorite color is ORANGE – EMBRACE IT!! So what “accent walls” are out – if you like them – DO THEM! So what it is a “crime” to paint wood – if you want painted cabinets – EMBRACE IT!!! I think the main thing is that we feel ALIVE and that our soul feels nourished and awakened by our homes! EMBRACE IT!
I just love your posts and your practical thoughts and “being true to who you are” view of a home! Forget what the neighbors are doing or what the “latest color is” (unless it happens to be YOUR color – then do a happy dance!!)! THANK YOU for your inspiration – seeing your house makes the rest of us go – LET’S DO THIS!!!!
ashley @ the handmade home says
YAY Ann! Amen, friend! AMEN! ;} Thank you so much!!!
Brenda says
I <3 you and all you do! You've inspired to go work on our vinyl appreciation room (most would call it a mud room) today. Rock on!
angie says
I absolutely LOVE this blog post and adore your home.. truly inspiring! My husband and I completely renovated our home seven years ago, and the evolution since then has come a long way. We are always changing, rearranging and freshening a new room.. a new space to share as a family. I recently found your blog and am excited to follow your journey đ
Jessica says
Great post! Sometimes you almost feel as though you need someone’s permission to ditch the rules. My favorite thing about transforming our house into our home has been gaining confidence. We’re learning so much while we are finding our style. That confidence is carrying over into my out side the home personality (I’m so very introverted sometime) and it’s just plain fun!
emna @ {from my little pink couch} says
I did the same thing with our dining room! We never used it & now that it’s a sitting/hang out/homework room … we use it all of the time! So glad that square footage isn’t wasted anymore!
barbi says
very nicely put……
Toodles, Barbi
shawna [of styleberryBLOG] says
I love this article so much! I feel like I could have written it myself. Love your home & beautiful/functional transformations!!
Inness says
Love this post! Can you tell me where you got that black and white Southwestern-inspired rug?
ashley @ the handmade home says
Hey Inness – You can read all about our rug sources here! ;} Thanks so much!
Barcy says
Thank you so much for this post! We are closing on our new house in about two weeks and I’m in the midst of major brainstorming about how I want to decorate. I have a small notebook that I keep with me constantly so I can jot down notes whenever I am inspired. I have been kind of surprised that I am filling it up more with how I want the place to “feel” rather than how I want the place to “look”.
Cindy says
Ashley, you might possibly have the coolest home I have ever seen in my life. I’d like to come visit, please and thank you. đ xo