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Making the Most of Your Home Decor

Over the years I have had friends and family ask questions and make comments about our constantly changing and evolving home.  "You guys always have a million and one projects going on over there!" and "What are you painting now?" and "I swear that chair was in the guest room the last time I visited...".   Their inquiries are completely understandable; I am always tweaking things here and making updates there... It is something I have been doing for as long as I can remember.  I have so many memories of me sitting on the floor with a pillow propped between my back and a dresser and my feet pushing on the wall while I slowly inched that dresser around my room.  One day I would have my walls plastered in posters and pictures and the next I would be clearing all of the current clutter only to start over with a new plan.  My mind is always racing and flooded with ideas and I loved having the freedom and a personal canvas to try things out and to experiment with the impact that my surroundings had on my day-to-day life.

Fast forward fifteen years and now I have an entire home to play with.  I know so many people who have rooms that look exactly like they did fifteen years ago (cough, mom, cough), and that is totally OK.  Some people finish a space, love it and stick with it for the long haul.  Others might work on a space and end up settling because they become discouraged and afraid to move forward with it.  And then there are people like me that are constantly inspired by their surroundings, magazines, television, store displays, nature, the interiors of fellow friends, family and Internet strangers.  Every time I read a magazine I get the urge to go change out the items on a shelf and every time I return from a good friend's home I have the urge to clean something or swap out some pillows.  I am guessing many of you have picked up on most of this if you have been reading for awhile.  While I have cabinets and shelves that haven't changed in years, I also have pieces that have lived in almost every room in our home.  I remember when I first found blogs and saw that so many others also found excitement in moving around chairs, rugs, pillows, lamps, accessories... I felt this giant sigh of relief.  I had finally found my people. 


But this constant love of a changing and evolving home, can quickly cause a string of clutter and waste.  I know just as well as anyone that it can be painful letting go of items I thought I loved and that I invested in, but I just don't have the space or heart for them any longer.  Today, I thought I would touch on a question that I was asked during my recent "Wait-No-More" challenge, and offer a few tips that I am trying to use to allow myself to remain excited about our home without the need to constantly invest and purge home decor items.




So, my first tip is to give yourself a place to shop from, but keep it limited and specific.  How much space you deem necessary is up to you; whether it be an entire storage room or a single drawer.  The goal is to designate an area in your home that is able to hold your absolute favorite home accessory and decor items during their "off-season".  The real challenge is keeping your storage limited to the amount of space you have available, and being very strict about maintaining a "one in" and "one out" rule once you have hit your maximum capacity.

• Down pillow inserts "fluff" to regain their shape, and last far longer than polyfilled options.  
• It takes up much less space to store a pillow cover than an actual pillow.
• Purchasing pillow covers, or sewing them yourself, is often times much less expensive than purchasing a fully finished and stuffed pillow (consider using spare fabrics, table cloths, shower curtains, blankets, sweaters, cloth napkins, etc... to whip up your own).
• Create a pillow formula you love and stick with it!  Not too long ago I gathered every throw pillow we owned and took the covers off of each one.  I then placed the pillow forms on each seating/bedding surface based on size and shape of the pillow, to create a formula that I am happy about.  I then wrote down the pillow sizes for each surface (bed, sofa, sectional, chairs...) and now have a guide when swapping out covers.  I had a few extra down inserts that I ended up vacuum sealing flat and tucking under our guest bedroom bed.  Any polyfill pillows were placed in the sell/donate piles.  Quick Tip: If you love the polyfill pillow fabric, remove the polyfill and add a zipper, velcro or button closure to then create a reusable pillow cover to use with an insert.
• Creating a consistent formula will help while sourcing/pillow shopping in the future.  Solid pillow covers are typically less expensive, so utilize those as the base in your formula first and then keep the patterned/colorful options for the smaller accent pillows.  I personally love Sarah's pillow pairing formulas here.
  
• Once again, only store what you have room to store.  I have a single drawer in our family room available to hold all of my pillow cover options.  

• Do I really love it?  Does it bring me happiness?  Does it represent the home I am working to create?
• Will I be able to give the item new life in another location of our home?  How versatile is the piece? 
• Does the item still serve a purpose?  Is it still functional?  What is the overall condition/quality of the piece?
• Do I have the necessary space to store this item?  It is important to be realistic about this and stick to those few storage areas you have designated.  I had a lamp shade that I moved around for two years because it was too big to store, so I grumbled and worked around it and tried to make excuses to keep it.  All that did is add annoyance and stress... it should have been let go of the moment I realized I didn't have the room to keep it.

Once I have made the decision to let go of something, then comes the next big question, what to do with it.

I typically try to sell anything that I think may have some sort of value (it has to be worth my time to manage the listing for the item I am selling as well).  Both Craigslist and eBay are a great place to sell home good items (especially Craigslist because it is free and doesn't require you to ship anything).  Because our renovation spurred an entire home purge and declutter session, we are going to try and hold a small thrift sale before the end of summer, paired with a giant listing of items on Craigslist simultaneously.  However, when it comes to everyday "one in" and "one out" and determining to do with the "one out", I set a date in my planner that it has to be sold by, and if it is not, I am forced to cut my losses by donating it.

With each item you decide to let go of, I would question the value of the item (if you don't know, a simple look on Craigslist, Google and eBay should help you out), and then decide if that value is worth the time and effort of selling it.  Sometimes it is just better to drop off a box at the Salvation Army and celebrate that instant relief of letting go.