… love what you keep.
If I wasn’t a photographer, I would have loved to have been a professional organizer. I didn’t even know there was such a profession till a few years ago… but they thought of it makes me giddy. crazy crazy me.
My top tip and my pet peeve is one that most people don’t agree with : Everything in your home you must love or mean something. Which is why the World Market in Target annoys me to no end. Really, if you have not been to Thailand, you should not have a Thai-inspired Buddha head on your mantle. But you say ‘I love the thai culture, i love thai food, i love everything thai! My mom is Thai!’. Maybe so but it doesn’t really mean much unless you have a memory associated with… and that memory should not be ‘i went to Target one day and the Buddha head was on sale’. A book about Thailand.. that, in my very judgemental opinion, is okay. ;)
And then there is the other thing that peeves me : Sets. You know, bedroom sets, living room sets, kitchen sets. I am not sure why they bug me but just the idea that some other random person gets to decide how my bedroom should look irritates me. Matchy and Matchy is so overrated and frankly, it makes me nauseous. When I go into a room and I see textures, mixes of furniture and colours, it gives me a glimpse into the person who lives there! Don’t let someone else decide that for you!!! Get inspired by looking through catalogs and stores, but let them be just that, an inspiration, a starting point.
Third, your home can never be complete and isn’t a show home. Perhaps it is the procrastinator in me, but I would be very sad the day my home was ‘done’. I like adding things to it slowly, looking for the perfect thing (where are you my perfect nightstands!) takes a while. Enjoy the process and the progress! Save up for that fabulous piece of art. Wait till the kids get over their wall-colouring phase and then paint. That ceiling fixture you are looking for to replace the ugly brass one.. it exists.. you just have to be very patient and look.
And last, don’t be afraid to invite someone over to your home! Pots and pans in the sink don’t mean ‘hoarder’, they mean someone made breakfast/lunch/dinner! Beds unmade do not mean ‘unorganized wrecks!’, it might mean you didn’t get around to it because your child dumped an entire bottle of lotion on their heads and you had to give them a bath. It means LIFE came in between.
My dresser… i knew what i wanted in my head, and then saw it at Bungalow Furnishings in Del Ray one day. The clock was gifted to us by my husband’s brother on our first wedding anniversary. The red dictionary was a gift from my dad when we were little. The book, Parenting with Love and Logic, is the one I turn to when I am at my wits end. The little silver case above it was a wedding gift, from my French teacher’s son… my daughter is her namesake. And above that is a little doodad my sister brought back for me from Turkey. The cat-dog print is from etsy and represents us better than any photo would do. The reindeer needs to be put away and the chipmunk is a lovely addition by one of my kids. ha!
The point being, when I walk into my bedroom, I immediately feel at peace, surrounded by things that remind me of places and times and people that I love, of things that mean something to me… and hopefully represent me in some way (notice the absence of my hubby’s influence? he is just happy to get one side of the bed).
People usually assume that the walls in my home have a million photos of my kids. That isn’t the case. I have very few and the rest are in a box. Here is the (incomplete) wall on the landing on our bedroom floor..
I love my kids art.. and it looks even more lovely when it is matted and framed. The yellow piece in the middle is something that my mom embroidered for me. The frog is a piece that my cousin gave the kids a few years ago… and that is my fave photo of my nephew. I love that I can keep adding to this wall and love that every single time I come up the stairs, I see it and it brings a smile to my face.
Too much stuff makes you lose sight of what you really love. Simplify and let go. Keep what you love and love what you keep.
xoxo, Rashmi
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