To Decorate or Not to Decorate
Those discussions a few weeks ago were so enlightening. I thought Josh and I were on the very cold end of the house heat spectrum, and we’re definitely not. I had a feeling the world contained sock-wearers and sock-endurers just because I knew that if I loved socks, chances were that there were people out there who couldn’t stand them. But who knew the breakdown? The specifics?
So I have more curiosity for you raised by these discussions of what is going on in our individual worlds. Once again, this one comes from our home renovations. Our next task is to redo the kitchen. We were given the advice by more than one person to take our time with the decisions. Go visit other people’s kitchens and take notes. Clip out pictures from magazines. Get a lot of estimates. Spend time in various kitchen cabinetry stores. What did we want in our dream kitchen?
We did not take said advice. Mostly because I realized that we didn’t have a dream kitchen. My dream kitchen is simply one with functioning appliances and nothing slowing me down or thwarting me. I’d like some counter space. I’d like a very good air filtering system. I want people to hang out in the room. Other than that, I don’t have strong feelings on anything.
We feel that way about most rooms in our house. We don’t have a dream house in mind, unless you count the dream apartments that are all chosen due to location. We have no strong desire to change our house around to make it our “dream house.” We like things to be comfortable. Pretty much nothing matches. The decorations are almost exclusively provided by the kids. I’m more concerned about things being neat and clean than being pretty. (A friend commented recently that my kitchen was awfully white and bleachy.)
We don’t decorate for holidays. As much as we look at other people’s spaces and think they look great, we’d never hire an interior designer to provide some… design… to our space. Everything is about function and comfort. And while the two are not mutually exclusive — you can have function that is also very pretty and put-together — we’ve opted to only focus on the function. So our house is very functional and comfortable. But it isn’t stylish.
Part of me would like a house that looks put together, but I know that I wouldn’t really want it for myself but instead to appear stylish to other people. I wouldn’t really be fooling anyone. Plus I really hate the idea of wasting furniture or leaving it in storage. If we own it, I want to use it, even if it doesn’t go together well. And, again, there is that comfort thing. I wanted a sofa that people could plop down on.
There is obviously a wide range of non-decorating to decorating, but if “one” is mismatched furniture and no art on the walls and “ten” is used an interior designer (or you are one yourself), where do you fall on the decorating/not decorating scale? How much do you try to make things look put together and stylish? And do you change the decorations to reflect the seasons/holidays?
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Okay, we do have mismatched furniture, but we have art on the walls. And, we decorate for Christmas, but not the other holidays. So, I guess that would put us around a 5 or 6 on your scale. My decorating taste is not designer, but it is things that we care about and have meaning and also look good in the space. Our living room has bright gold walls with cranberry curtains and we have lots of blue and green things that we use to decorate (art, photos, throw blankets, chairs). It is cozy and lived-in, but it is not fancy. And, we try to keep it clean, but we have an 80 lb dog so that is a never-ending battle.
I am not a fan of the colors in my kitchen, but the layout and appliances work, so I’m not changing it. The counters and backsplash are all shades of tan/brown and the appliances are white. While it is clean, it is not neat and we have mail and girl scout cookie boxes on the counters and other things that could be put away, but are left out instead. Good luck with your kitchen design. I’d suggest at least picking a color (other than white) that would work in your kitchen and that you like.
five. mis-matchy with art on the walls.
the flaw in our kitchen is that there isn’t any place to sit down. but it’s okay otherwise. my husband desperately wants to replace the white corian counters with something darker and more stain resistant, but we haven’t yet. the roof is more important! (and it’s up next.)
My aunt was a painter. My BIL is a photographer (landscapes and sports stuff). We have art on every wall, pretty much. Our furniture…coordinates, I suppose. I only like dark wood, so that’s what we have. Well, I suppose there are a couple lighter cherry pieces, but only a couple. However, there is no “design.” I don’t like clutter or knick-knacks or dusting. So, there are very few candle things or vases or nicely stacked books or whatever. My daughter likes holiday/seasonal decorations, but unless it’s Christmas, decorations consist of window clings.
My husband would like some design. I keep telling him he’ll have to do it. We do need a new couch – the one we have is now 12 years old, and it’s starting to show some age. 12 years is a pretty good run for a light colored couch, though.
I think I may have blogged about what happened when we were painting our house – it’s a good illustration of why I should never be in charge of design. I’ll have to look it up…
However, kitchen design is important. Appearance, sure, but mostly – can you have the appliances you want? Is there enough counter space? Is there enough storage space? Do you need to eat in there and is there a place for that? That’s the type of design I can do.
We moved 8 times in as many years. I don’t give a crap what the house looks like. We have been here four years and this place looks…unfinished. The only reason I decorate for Christmas is because we have children now. I LOVED not decorating. We did not have a tree for years. it was great. Our kitchen is super crappy, as is most of our home because we needed a home we could afford while paying for IF. I HAVE ONE KITCHEN DRAWER. ONE. My children don’t nap so when I finally get time alone I don’t use it to make my house beautiful, I use it to sit the eff down. ahaha. ugh. The only thing worse than our house is our yard. Sweet mercy, all it needs is a crack head wandering though( we live in a Philly suburb).
I think we’re an 8. The furniture is not matchy matchy but carefully selected to make sense both comfort and style wise. We’re slowly weeding out the last of the non sturdy Ikea (keeping all the bookcases though). I love original art and photography and have lots on the walls which I do style to look good together and get most pieces professionally framed and matter. I’m not a designer or in a creative field but I like good flow to the rooms and to see things that make me happy. There’s still clutter in a lot of places since we live there and use things, but that’s easily cleared up for company. I do also have art in the kitchen and try to get hand towels that are both absorbent and pretty as well as arranging dishes behind glass door cabinets so they’re pretty (but not at the expense of being easy to use). Noone says you have to be a particular kind of stylish, less clutter goes a long way even if some furniture doesn’t “match” something else.
We do not decorate for the holidays except the tree and setting up a space on the buffet for all the holiday cards in the winter. I get away with having seasonal flowers on the dining room table when I feel I need more pretty.
These are all very good questions. I’m an artist and an art historian, so I like the IDEA of having a certain look…colors that coordinate, for example, but reality is a whole other issue. Right now we live in a Federal Colonial house that has a blue oval National Historic Register plaque on the door. But we have kids, and pets, and not a crap load of money and we like to live comfortably, so the house and are life style are at odds a little bit 🙂 I have found that my husband and I like certain colors and a certain feel, so as time goes on, what we purchase tends to work together naturally. For example, we bought a sage green, cream, russet colored ‘oriental’ rug over 10 years ago, and the colors work perfectly in our living room. Our friend had really nice sage green drapes she wasn’t using, and they work too. When our couches finally got too nasty for us to use anymore, I bought a couch for function more than style because the room is awkward, but it looks good. The room looks more ‘decorated’ than it deserves to be. Our kitchen came already done, the only thing left for us to do is to keep it relatively clean and to purchase things like dish towels and things for the walls that don’t look out of place.
If I had an unlimited budget I would probably buy really nice reproduction period lighting or wallpaper, and maybe a couch or wing back chairs for the parlor. Right now I am just trying to keep the feel of being in an old house without feeling like we live in a museum on a limited budget.
PS And I enjoy decorating for the holidays. I posted some of my holiday decorating on my blog a while back. And I hang patriotic looking buntings outside from Memorial day through the 4th of July. they came with the house and they look nice.
Ah, yes, here it is:
” I had chosen what I thought was a soft oatmeal color – neutral and light/bright – for most of the house. For the bathrooms, I chose a dark sage type color. For the dining room, I wanted a dark red.
What I got in the house, instead of a neutral tone with a dark red accent, was a carnival funhouse. The oatmeal color turned out to be a pale yellow – pleasant, but not exactly right for the whole house. The painter had only applied two coats of the red (one of which was mixed with primer), so it was a lovely hot pink. The greenish color in the bathrooms was OK on it’s own, but combined with the other colors…it just wasn’t pretty. My husband freaked out. I cried.”
Apparently, I’m on a commenting spree here. But in relation to design, I find this site hilarious:
http://catalogliving.net/
You’re hilarious! I seriously cannot understand people who don’t care about the appearance/look of their living space. I guess maybe it’s because I’m a “visual” person, but I’m so emotionally affected by what colours are around me, whether I’m surrounded by clutter or organized minimalism, and there’s something I really love about walking into a home that feels as though it’s owner has put real effort into ensuring it reflects his/her personality. I also feel like when you see a place with no art on the walls and a futon in one corner, it just screams “university student” and that immediately brings on my anxiety. I don’t really care about mess so much, but I will go totally batshit crazy if I walk into a home and there is fluorescent lighting in the kitchen — I don’t care how much energy you’re saving, those lights make your kitchen feel like a bloody jail cell and make everyone look sickly and the food look washed-out. UGH!
So I guess you could say I’m like a 9? 🙂
I’d put us at a 4 or 5. Our furniture is somewhat match-y and we have a few pieces of art on the walls. My husband forces me to decorate for Christmas.
We don’t entertain a lot, so I’m not overly concerned with having a show home to impress people. I’m more about comfort and function. Still, it is nice to start to move away from the hodge-podge of hand-me-downs that I’d been living with for so long and choose items for the house that I actually like looking at.
We’re probably a 2. I do like having things on the walls, but most of them don’t match or go together. I’ve taken a lot down just because I don’t want to clean it. Color schemes don’t really exist, although I’ve tried (sort of). I can’t do white or white walls though (throw back from my apartment days- just don’t like it). None of our furniture matches, and all of it is used/refurbished. I used to like clutter and things everywhere- my new motto is, “The less I own, the less I have to clean.” So I’ve been progressively scaling down and getting rid of crap over the years. I have no time or need for it anymore.
The only holiday I decorate for is Yule/Christmas. I love putting the tree up, and the garlands, the greenery, anything to bring a little cheer into the winter. I hate winter. I hate the snow, the colorlessness, the cold- I need Yule to warm it up for me, and decorating helps. We celebrate other holidays, but I don’t bother decorating. I’m too lazy, to be honest.
6-7? I’ve never used a designer but I have reams of tear-outs from decorating/home magazines of things I like. With our most recent move (and getting closer to my 15th college reunion) I’ve tried to be more mindful of how things go together, and coordinate colors to be more visually welcoming to friends and family, in addition to being comfortable for us.
One of the most interesting things I’ve heard is to decorate with colors you would pick and wear in clothing or accessories. So I’ve tried to keep that in mind when adding new pieces or redoing old ones so that all of our furniture pretty much goes together even if it’s not matchy matchy.
What I can’t understand is people who can just get rid of a room full of furniture and accessories and start over without any attachment to the pieces. And people who have exclusively white upholstered furniture. Does not compute.
My husband and I are a 4 or 5. We have matching furniture and a few pieces of art and framed photographs on the walls, but our house is decorated mostly in shades of tan and white. We love the *idea* of a beautifully decorated home–like the ones we see on shows on HGTV–but neither of us is at all creative or adept at putting something like that together.
We rarely have anyone over but our closest friends and family, and even them not often, so we are much more about comfort and function than looks for sure, even before we had our twin sons. Now, with two toddlers in the house, our goal most of the time is primarily to have the house clean, with a minimum of clutter, and looking as little as possible like a kids’ consignment store. 😉
I’d say I’m a 3-4. I only upgraded myself to a 4 because when we moved into our home in December, it came with my idea of a dream kitchen. I moved into my childhood home and when I first moved out 6 or so years ago, my mom gutted the kitchen and had the perfect kitchen put together for my baking needs. So when they decided to build, we moved into my childhood home and I got the perfect kitchen. Lots of counter space for my non-professional constant baking needs. My husband jokes that its his house and my kitchen because that’s where I can always be found.
But otherwise, our house is filled with mismatched furniture, our idea of “art” speaks of our loves, gaming and crafting, with gaming and non gaming themed crafts on the walls. The only “art” is our engagement picture, a massive picture, on our living room wall with the border signed by everyone at our wedding. Framed pictures of family and some of our favorite wedding shots can be found in frames around the house, but that’s the extent of our “art”.
I’m aiming for our house to look lived in and comfortable. We decorate for Halloween and Christmas but that’s the extent of it and even then I try to be minimal.
Since I am a SAHM, having a beautiful yet comfortable space is important to me. I like things to be clean and in order. I am not OCD about it (trust me, I have friends who really are), but believe that things belong in their place, and one should pick up after themselves.
When we moved from our traditional home to a mid-century modern one, many of my antique pieces no longer ‘went’ with the genre of the home. But, we didn’t have the funds to start replacing expensive furniture with expensive furniture. I lucked out in that a mom friend of mine was dipping her toe into home decorating to see if she could make a business out of it. So, I collaborated with her on the color palette and used her eye to help me incorporate many of my existing pieces with some new pieces.
I love our new space. It is filled with lots of natural light and has a lovely flow. But, more important that all that is that this is a happy home filled with love, laughter, and memories. And THAT is what’s most important.
I am Not-Martha. (Oh, wait, someone already writes that blog.)
Things sort of match in our house, but that’s because it’s mostly in hues of brown. We do have art, but it’s my husband’s great-grandfather’s watercolors. We didn’t even paint the walls when we moved in, except for the room which is now my daughter’s, which was (I kid you not) rainjacket yellow. (Yes, that’s a good, restful color for a kid’s room. Not.)
I also don’t really decorate for the holidays. But a week or so ago I went downtown to a new antiques store, and found myself wishing I were a little more creative that way. Like “oooh, look at these glass jars. If I were Martha, I’d put pebbles in them, and paperwhites. Or something.”
We like our house cozy and comfortable, and somehow decor is one thing I can’t put energy into perfecting.
Three continents, four countries, eight different houses/apartments in six years? Eh, I’m happy I can find clean knickers for one and all. The rest is gravy.
I’ll give my self a 4 or 5 on your rating scale… We painted the kitchen, bath and living rooms before moving in to our current apartment and that’s about it, mostly blank walls etc… We do have a nice couch and entertainment unit with a small matching desk in the living room. I do like for things to look nice but that usually just means I have to hide my piles of clutter before anyone comes over. My husband LOVES decorating for holidays (particularly haloween and christmas). He even puts up lights for other non-light-putting-up holidays. Does anyone else put up pastel lights for easter?
Mostly our issue is living in a New York City apartment… We have very limited space (and waaaaaay too much stuff) and we can’t make any real changes to the place. I have lots of wishes for my dream house (thank you Pinterest)… including appliances like a dish washer and clothes washer and dryer. Oh how happy space to put those things would make me…
If I had the talent and the money, my house would look like it just stepped out of architectural digest, all of the toys neatly placed out of sight in beautiful yet functional (and perfectly matching) bins. I LOVE interior design and have a deep appreciation for beautiful spaces and will spend money on my house at the neglect of looking half-way decent myself. I have always had a constant need to improve and make pretty the spaces around me, hence my addiction to Pinterest. And to really drive this point home, I must mention exhibit C: HGTV is my favorite channel.
Now, this is not to say that my house looks anywhere near what you see in architectural digest (or Pinterest for that matter). Nope, my home is a mismatch of competing colors and misplaced trinkets (and the toys are not in beautifully coordinated bins but rather, tupperware). As I mentioned, I fully lack the talent to know what looks good where and so often that leaves me throwing up my hands. I can tell you that once my quest for family building is no longer taking up my extra pennies, my big splurge will be on an interior designer (and landscape architect). And very little of this is for anyone’s benefit but my own. Pretty (and clean) space=happy me.
Oh, consider me a 9 at heart, but functioning at a 5. 🙂
Probably about a 5, maybe 4 if I’m being realistic. ; ) I might pore over decorating mags and sigh over kitchen photos, but realistically, those kitchens would not work in my little house. My house is a 30 year old 1300 square foot suburban tract home — it is what it is. I think the house & decor is nice, but you certainly won’t see it in House & Home anytime soon. The walls are mostly various shades of beige, as is the carpet (which needs to be replaced). The kitchen is cosy with darkish wood cupboards & wainscotting, kind of a country flavour, which I know is totally out of vogue right now, but I don’t care. Most of our furniture & artwork is from when we first got married or moved into our house (late 80s/early 90s). Comfort is definitely a priority over style. There are some certain new pieces I’d like to get — a new kitchen table & chairs/dining room set, for example (we are still using the $250 laminated set we got when we first got married) — but (a) I am very picky, (b) I have trouble making decisions, (c) I don’t drive, so I can’t get easily get to stores myself, (d) just getting dh to a store is like pulling teeth, & he inevitably wants to grab the first thing he sees & run & (e) he is not particularly handy, and he doesn’t like strange workmen in the house, which makes any kind of renovation project, even the relatively simple ones, difficult to pull off. I have mulled over hiring a decorator to help me get things looking a little more polished, especially in the downstairs rooms. I actually had a colour consultant come from Benjamin Moore the last time we painted. I told her we weren’t very adventurous in terms of colour, & she didn’t push, but she did make some great suggestions that I never would have thought of myself.
Re: decorating, we do some, but we don’t go whole-hog as some of the neighbours do. At Christmastime, we put up a tree & a few decorations around the house, & a door wreath, but I haven’t been able to persuade dh to put up lights for years. At Halloween, we set out a pumpkin & I put up cutouts in the windows. I have a couple of other wreaths/door hangings for other holidays during the year.
Sometimes I think we’d make more of an effort if we had kids. And sometimes I’m glad we don’t have kids because I just don’t feel like making the effort, lol.
4-5. Mismatchy furniture (I’m all about the comfort and usefulness) but I do have some stuff on the walls. My daughter’s room is really lovely because we wanted it to be special for her. I don’t decorate for holidays, except for a Christmas tree (which I don’t think counts since I feel the majority of people who celebrate Christmas put up a tree). My MIL is a 27 on your scale of 1-10 and I drive her crazy with my lack of perceived holiday festiveness. And this secretly drives me to be even less decoration-y and more mismatchy. 🙂
2, maybe a 3. For example, we have a bedroom set that matches and a dining set that matches, but they don’t match each other. And the paint is from the same color family, but each room is a different shade. I decorate for Christmas, but that’s it- and even then the decorations are haphazard. I would be happier with pure white walls and plain hardwoods everywhere, but there’s another adult with a vote in the
… process. (Thanks smartphone for “helping” me comment!)
We’re 1s, I’m sure of it. We never outgrew the college student phase of decor, for some reason – moving around a lot, and being really really cheap. Pretty much all our furniture we got because it was free… we do have some nice art but it’s been in storage since two moves ago (and all of it was bought from friends who are artists, to help them out, more than because it “went” with anything). I finally got my husband to get rid of the monstrous orange couch we had for several years. One of our friends was launching her own home-decorating business and we had her over for an estimate, but the process made me so extremely anxious that we never went through with her suggestions… and then we moved again… and we’re not even that good at cleaning. It doesn’t feel like “real” grown-ups live here. I don’t even know how long we’re going to live in this apartment we’re in right now… the lease is up in June. I love the location but it doesn’t get much sun during our equatorial “winter”… so who knows.
I’m definitely a 4-5. Our furniture matches…. Mostly…. But our house is almost always cluttered with the stuff of everyday living- bills on the kitchen counter, boots at the front door, baskets of clean laundry waiting to he folded. And the toys!!! They’re EVERYWHERE! We moved to a new house last September, and we have yet to paint or personalize it in any way, but we figure there’s no rush- we’re not going anywhere. I love our slightly chaotic house, and find myself feeling just a little uncomfortable when visiting homes that look like they belong in Better Homes and Gardens. A well-loved home is one that looks lived-in, in my opinion.
oh a 4 or 5. Houses with matchy matchy furniture, where the colours are coordinated and everything is in its place give me hives. Which is not to say I approve of the nothing at all philosophy either. We rent, and move on a regular basis, so the ability to chose wall, floor andkitchen options is lost. So we do have nicish furniture (with a lot of ikea backup) and nicely designed things- our kettle and toaster and coffee machine are nice designs visually (and coordinate but are not the same colour).
We have more art than wall space, and a lot of collected momentoes (displayed in repurposed ikea dvd towers), and i like decorated pieces, but the idea of a completely coodinated house- scary.
And don’t get me started on the fully coordinated nursery fit outs that are advertised- all you really need is somewhere for them to sleep and a rocking chair- the rest is gravy
We’re a 2. We have art on the walls that was made for either me or my husband. Furniture doesn’t match in the slightest – it was chosen for comfort, then value, then whether it was easy to clean.
We don’t decorate for the holidays / birthdays / whatever. Too much mess and effort. That and we celebrate very few holidays.
Highly decorated homes actually make me uncomfortable. I’m something of a klutz so I’m always afraid of breaking something or spilling something!
We are probably around a 5. We had some nice coordinated stuff before the kids, but now we definitely look at the more practical side of things. Most of the decorations are made by the kids now.
We decorate for Halloween, Christmas and Birthdays, but other then that it’s really a hodgepodge now.
If I could quit moving, and could acquire furniture that doesn’t have to be put together with allen keys, I would say I’m more functional than decorative. Financially something else usually takes precedence over coordinating and planning our “look”. And repainting a rented house would cost hundreds of dollars. Right now everything is designed to withstand blonde dog hair and a sticky handed toddler. I do decorate for Christmas and a little bit for Hallowe’en but that’s about it.
I would put myself at a 7 because I enjoy putting in the effort of coordinating my home. I am not matchy-matchy, but look for how things can “go” together–more like an organized, cozy chaos that is also clean, neat and inviting. I love color and enjoy mixing a palate that is complimentary as a whole. I also love natural light and take that into consideration for colors and setting the mood for the room. I could write an entire post on how the direction of the light that comes from the windows impacts the color you use in a room. For example, a room that faces North will have natural light with bluer hues. So, if you decorate the room with blue as the main color, it can have a cool, cold or chilled effect–usually not in a good way. It is better to off set that light with warmer colors. I consider size, shape and texture of the things in the space. It is about how the eye moves around the room. I hang pictures of people who are special to me and if I hang art, it is something that I have found that strikes a fancy–not because a wall “needed” it. I like to leave room for the space to evolve, change and grow.
As for decorating for holidays, I tend to put in the minimal effort and usually just for Christmas. I like cozy, but I also value function. The extra fluff is nice, but I’d rather spend my time with people celebrating holidays. But, I always display cards that people mail to me, so that kind of helps with the decorating and they serve as reminders of the people who love me.
If I had to put a number on it, I’d say I’m a 5… maybe a 6. I like designing my rooms and trying to help the decor of the house flow through the layout. I love color on the walls and art. That being said, I don’t purchase new decor often and don’t follow trends. I find what I like and make it work. The only holiday I decorate for is Christmas.
I’d give myself an 8. I jokingly say I have “a touch of the OCD” and really like everything to be pretty and in it’s place. I would be a 10 if I had more $$!!! I have the vision to execute gorgeousness, but not the bank account to make it happen quickly. 9 years after moving into our current house, we are FINALLY replacing our ugly white ceramic tile in the kitchen with hardwood floors. I can’t WAIT until it’s done.
Hmmm. probably around an average 5–maybe a 6-7 on “color/art” but more like a 2-3 on “furnishings”. We have bright colored walls (that we painted ourselves) & our Artwork is all photos/mixed media that my husband did himself. Furniture…early 21st century swedish (i.e. Ikea’s finest) accented with Fisher Price accessories. We have gorgeous hardwood floors in our house which was a big selling point. We also have nice countertops…just happened to come with the house, I wouldn’t pay a lot of money for those.
As for holidays, I trot out the same old wreath I made with a glue gun, ribbon, and disco balls 15 years ago every christmas, and the fake 4-foot tree. I make the tiniest effort, I never go “all out” nor can I imagine ever doing so. I DO NOT decorate for any other holiday, unless you count keeping the small pumpkin we got at a party on the dining table from Sept-Jan “seasonal decorating”
I love how fun this post is. We love our cozy place and we put a lot of thought into it to make sure it does not look decorated! We love art, and when we first got married, we bought a really cool, pretty-good sized egg tempura from an art gallery in PEI. Since then, we’ve decided, no crappy anniversary gifts… but we always pick out a painting (or two or three, if we’ve been celebrating and make rash decisions!). We do have too much stuff, especially Jack who, now at just 17 days shy of nine, still won’t give up stuffies or hot wheels or other crazy junk (wires, bottle caps, random stickers or lost keys, and bolts and screws, or bits of wood or other paraphernalia to build/design with).
So yeah, the kitchen… I designed it, but it’s not stuffy designed, it’s party designed! We have slate on the countertops, which is awesome because we can put hot pans and pots atop them without worry, and a long butcher block that is covered in homework and computers and mitts and scarves and other things for living… usually covering up the 14 big candy jars lined up along the wall with dry goods like shredded coconut and ice cream cones, and quinoa and popping corn and dog treats.
Good luck with the kitchen, Mel… if you are still in the good luck stage! Is this too long? I can’t tell in this tiny window…
Oh yeah, Christmas… good! And little bit o’ Hallowe’en!
We’re probably an 8…and would be a 9 if we had more money. I can’t ever really envision hiring an interior designer, but I spend a fair amount of time looking at blogs and magazines for decorating ideas. All our walls are painted some coordinated color, our furniture matches, and my husband and I are both pretty picky about it. One thing I wanted to mention, though, is that we aren’t doing it for other people at all, but for ourselves. It makes me feel happy and calm to be surrounded with spaces that are visually appealing to me, and it sort of stresses me out when rooms in our house feel unfinished.
We do decorate for Christmas, and a little bit for Halloween, but we don’t go all out for either.
We are probably around a 4. We decorate for the holidays, but most of the stuff is just things the kids have made.
id rate at a 7…before i had kids i was known for my clean and beautiful house. now…ha! anyway, w each pregnancy im just as excited about decorating the nursery as i am about the new baby.(now if only i had the motivation to clean!!!)