Our home, full of toddlers and all their messes, has purposely white walls. As in, we painted them all white by choice and they weren’t this color when we moved in. Personally, I love our home’s walls and minimalist aesthetic, but I’ve also heard our home called sterile because of these choices.
For me, and hopefully everyone else who lives here with me, our house feels like a home. It’s not about the bright white colored walls, large amount of blank spaces, or lack of clutter for me. A home is not the superfluous things removed, but the important ones that remain and therefore get the spotlight.
It’s the seasonal handprint art in the dining room, the apron collection I’ve been slowly building since 2013, and the magic treehouse books scattered in every room. It’s having multiple places to snuggle and hang out with my favorite people. It’s walking down the hallway and seeing our adventure wall of memories and each of my babies’ birth announcements. Our home’s decor isn’t made of viral tik-tok target finds or matching southern celebrity dish sets. It’s made up of the things that are important to us or serve us well. The quilts on the very comfy, second-hand couch were all found used & hand repaired by me at some point or another; my favorite was a gift from a friend. There is a teeny-tiny car on top of my mug rack that my husband played with as a kid, and his high-school marching band picture in the hallway. Our dining table was a hand-me-down gift from a family friend, and the giant chalkboard behind it was originally from a lab I worked in during grad school. The wind chime in the corner belonged to my grandma and I think of her every time I see it. Ninety percent of our houseplants were propagated from friends or family, the other ten percent was a birthday gift from a cherished friend. Yes, I walked around the house and counted to do that math, it is accurate. I’ve previously written about the baby photos above my dryer, plus the hair bow wreath and hairstyle menu in the kids’ bath.
This has gotten more ramble-y than I intended, but the ever changing home decor trends have to stop. It’s August and there are shelves of Halloween home decor out for goodness sake. It’s 104 degrees out, who is buying a fleece blanket right now?! Are we that desperate for a dopamine hit these days? Buying a new set of ceramics to display, or yet another cheaply made seasonal throw blanket to change out isn’t going to make your house feel like a home. Loving the people in it, and showing that love in your decorations choices will.
Picture 1: A doodle of one of our cats in my coffee corner
Picture 2: Hand-me-down dining table, marketplace mix-and-match dining chairs, lab chalkboard, and adventure wall in the back left
Picture 3: Couch quilts, left to right, rescued & repaired from an estate sale, rescued & repaired from goodwill, rescued & repaired from goodwill, gifted from a friend (current fave!!!), rescued & repaired from last PMC Swap – transparency – I folded these for the photo
Disclaimer/Reality Check: I love that white, blank walls make dirt visible to be cleaned, reflect a lot of natural light despite our large covered porches, and allow me to change our home-made or second -hand seasonal decorations without clashes in color tones. It’s ok if you disagree with my reasoning, you don’t live here, and can hopefully paint your walls a color you like instead. This column will be about motherhood, parenting, and homemaking for the most part. Occasionally it’ll be succinct and to the point, more often than not I’ll struggle to stay on track and end up with paragraphs of well-meaning nonsense. Most importantly, I don’t ever want this column to make another mama think she’s not doing enough. If you’re reading this, I want you to know that you are, you’re doing great, keep it up. Sing it with me: no-one is doing it allllll!
