A few months back, I got the opportunity to work with Home Reserve on styling some of their furniture in my home. Our partnership has grown, and now I get to play in their studio every month staging their furniture in all different ways, with all different styles. It's got me exploring interior design and decorating a lot lately, specifically on Instagram and Pinterest.
I think because of this I've been asked a couple times recently if I want to become a decorator, or at the very least, create a decor-focused Instagram account. With all the styling work I've been doing, and our move to the new house just days away, I really thought about it. I'd have plenty of material. It sounds like fun. It sounds scary. It's new and exciting. I know it would stretch and challenge me.
But, I've decided no.
The more I've immersed myself in the decor-inspiration current online, the more I realize decorating is not synonymous with homemaking. I've always considered making the home beautiful to be part of housekeeping, but I'm realizing there's this whole world of making things beautiful, that doesn't even really involve the housekeeping side of things. While there's nothing wrong with this whatsoever, I don't really want to separate the two.
Being a decorator solely doesn't feel like me. In fact, Mitch and I have been talking about projects and ideas for our new house, mostly figuring out how to UNDECORATE it. We want to strip it down, take it back to a pretty raw state. I'm all about a place under a roof where we can make our food, bathe, rest, and sleep. We want cozy corners to read to each other, and soft rugs where we can have tickle fights, and areas to make and clean up messes. I want to be able to look around in that place and see comfort and coziness everywhere. And sometimes that's more than decor. Sometimes that's just fresh air, and amazing smells, and furniture and rugs that have wear, and plants that have had to fight a bit 'cause they haven't been spoiled (ok, honestly they've probably been neglected).
The designer in me wants to make it beautiful too. But, if we go into this focused only on getting pretty pictures out of it, while we keep ordering takeout and the laundry piles up, we're not going to get the home we're both dreaming of.
I'm realizing my real intention is to be a HOMEMAKER. I love design. I love projects. I love a big transformation, and a magazine-worthy product. But not to the neglect of the magically mundane stuff: the laundry, the gathering, the cooking, the puttering, the nesting. It's sacred work to me. It's what's been in my heart since my girlhood—a haven of my own to pour my heart, sweat, tears, and laughter into. A setting for our life's stories.
So... I want to share all of that: posts for hashtag parties with my new decorator friends, who are hilariously awesome people with beautiful homes AND I want to share food, forts, Fridays, and feelings. You know, all of it. I'm still a newbie homemaker. There's lots to do and learn in the midst of decorating. The pretty rooms will be there, just hopefully right along with everything else that can be a little harder to photograph.
