When The Beard and I moved into our new house, we didn’t exactly have a lot of moolah left over to dedicate to decor. Our apartment was of course nothing like the house, and I’m big into decorating to suit a space. I could have just settled and saved–to some extent I still am–but who wants to live in an uncomfortable habitat? Not me, that’s for sure.

I feel good and work well in spaces that have a nice homey quality to them. Had I just moved each room of the apartment to the corresponding room of the house, I would have gone crazy. Maybe it’s just an obsessive compulsivity that drives me to want everything to be in its rightful place, but I knew that I needed to make my house into my home as quickly as possible.

With all the money in the world at my disposal, the whole process would have been simple. If you have the cash to say, “Out with the old, in with the new,” every time your living situation changes, more power to you. Being that money was an issue for me and The Beard, I “shopped my home” instead of shopping at a store when it came time to sketch out the look of my new house.

Shopping your home is a lot like shopping at consignment shops or antique stores. It’s all about the browse, baby. You can’t just do a circuit around your pad and hope something catches your eye just like you can’t exactly rush through an antique store and score the find of the decade. You have to examine your possessions from a fresh perspective.

Before you move, think about the space you’re about to inhabit, and consider how you might like to decorate it. When you have a solid idea of what you want your home to look and feel like, start shopping. Fix your attention on one object at a time, and imagine how it might fit into the decor scheme that you fancy.

This works even when you’re not moving, but it’s a tad harder to envision the redesigned space because it’s still the same old space. Closing your eyes and putting together a mental picture of your perfect bedroom, living room, kitchen, or bathroom can help you focus on the potential of each room.

Re-purposing possessions you’ve had for some time isn’t always easy, but it’s wonderfully satisfying to realize that the old knickknacks that seem so dated in one context are kitschy and cool in another.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 9th, 2007 at 7:58 pm by Christa Terry and is filed under Decorating, DIY, How tos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.