AngelaAndThenSome

Recently I’ve been hit by the “Spring Cleaning” Bug, or maybe the “End of Summer” Change up Sparrow, but in all seriousness I’ve finally decided to make my home look and feel how I would like it to. So, Home Decorating has been on my mind lately. Currently, I am trying to figure out my decorating style and how to get my home situated in a much more cohesive manner. We’ve lived in our home for about 4 years now, so I think it’s about time.

You may be asking, why has it taken you this long? Well, put simply, it wasn’t a priority. You may know or you may not know, but when we first moved into our home we had roommates and once they moved out we got married and immediately became pregnant so most “extra” income became preparation for our baby-the roommates eventually moved back in a year and a half later, in which yes, that was not the best decision (hyperlinked articles are linked above if you’d like to read about that). Now, once again it has been about 8 or 9 months with no roommates and our daughter is almost 2 now, so there has been room to breathe and now we can prioritize making our home feel like our home.

Currently, our home is a mish mash of my husband’s previous “bachelor pad” furniture, book shelves we’ve purchased, some newer items like desks and a dining room table, a couple of cheap couches, and misc. decor that we have placed in strategic spots in an attempt to have some cohesiveness (in which my husband keeps adding in more items that do not necessarily “fit”.

• 

• 

One of our main priorities throughout our “new” life together has always been our daughter. So, from the get go we sectioned areas of our house with her in mind- before the roommates moved back in while she was between 0-9 months we ended up deciding to make the dining room her play room/den. Our house is primarily tile so I chose places with carpet for her to spend the majority of her time in, particularly during her tummy time phase, learning to crawl, and learning to walk. Mind you, yes, she had her own room, but she had been sleeping in our bed for the first 6 months (that’s a whole ‘nother story, but there were actual reasons).

When the roommates moved in we moved her crib into our room (in which I had already progressed to her having her nap time and some nights in her crib) and we moved her “play room items” (misc. toys and our other tv) into her room- in short our bedroom became the family bedroom and her room became the den/play room. Not ideal, but we were willing to make sacrifices in an attempt to make everyone happy with the supposed to be temporary to moving in together somewhere else living arrangements. Once the roommates moved out for the second time, we set the dining room/den/her playroom back up and as you can see, it is the more decorated room in the house.

I am now in the process of moving some of her larger play items into her room, where she has been spending more of her time-her crib is still in our room, but I do plan on moving that into her room probably in about 6 months and within the year setting up her bedroom more properly and actually decorating, but right now my decorating priorities are:

1. Our Entry Way (I need to start small as to not get overwhelmed)
2. The Living Room (technically half the living room as it is kind a long rectangle shape and I’m really not sure what I’m going to do with the other “half” plus I’m not really going to buy a lot of new furniture, but move items around and more so add decor and accent pieces)
3. The Hallway (Our hallway is actually partially decorated already, but I may switch somethings out on the wall shown below and I need to add family pictures/wall decorations starting in the beginning of the hallway near the entry way)

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

The first step and the second step somewhat combined into one, I decided to start with moving some furniture around and taking in account what furniture pieces we may already have had elsewhere in the house or in our garage. I ended up moving the TV in front of the window (originally not an ideal spot as I really liked the window being unobstructed but over the years living here I realized I’m not comfortable fully opening the front shutters as they face the front of our house and yes, you can see directly in if they’re open and I’m just not about that life.)

The Second step as mentioned above ended up combining well with the first step- after taking inventory of what we had had and what I could immediately use I moved the TV (as stated earlier) and rearranged the couches a bit. Here is that slightly improved space:

I think it actually helped everything have a better flow as the window is still a primary center piece of the living room, but now it also seemingly services a purpose and seems more useful as the focal point-in discussing focal points now we also have the fireplace uncovered, in which I plan on eventually adding different decorative objects around it and help it seem more like a cohesive unit of the overall vibe/look of the living room that I’m going for. What look am I going for? Well, my friend that brings us to my third step-

I had to figure out what my style was, in so I started with what feelings and emotions I wanted to convey when spending time in my living room, in which I settled on calm, relaxing, and elegant. I also took into account some of my items already to see if there was an underlying theme that I had not paid attention to, in which there totally was! I also did a style quiz that can be found here, just to double check my findings. My home decor style ended up being Art Deco with a leaning into Bohemian.