Shaunna’s Big Fiddle

Karen’s fur covered chair

Jules’ Chesterfield Sofa

Gabrielle’s painted piano

Lauren’s Hanging Driftwood

Ashley’s Nest Painting

Nicole’s Rug

Marian’s Drapes

Angela’s nekkid lady

Emily’s Book Page Wall

My Sailfish {come on, you know I had to include myself}

Edie’s…EVERYTHING

Every room could use a statement or signature piece.  Could your space benefit from an eye-catching main attraction?

Meaningful, fun and FUNctional {I am funny, no?} have you seen the new Urban Soul Travel Mugs ?

home, it’s beautifully imperfect

Thank you for stopping by today, I’d love to have you join me in embracing your everyday and celebrating the imperfect in our lives and in our homes.

For example, our laundry room.  I bought the shelves {laying against the wall} and the light back in October.  They’ve been in my way ever since.  Finally the room is painted and the light is hung but whoops….

Two ugly holes were hidden behind the fluorescent light that used to be there.  And that dang Ikea light didn’t come with the right sized hardware for our weird house so my husband had to rig it up all crooked.  Now there’s a gap and I’m trying to avoid painting the ceiling like it’s parrallel parking and the only ceiling medallion large enough to cover those holes is $50–the same price I paid for the light.  No thank you.  I guess that ceiling’s going to have to be patched and painted.  It’s always 3 steps forward, 49 steps back.  Things never go perfectly smoothly, do they?  I can choose to see work or I can choose to see progress.  It’s much more fun to choose progress.

Am I the only woman who hates to get rid of the Valentine’s flowers?  But they were so pretty!

So now it’s time for you to link up to something imperfect. Celebrate what is.  You can link to a blog post or if you take a picture on instagram you can go here and link to your photo {be sure to tag it #idhtbptbb} and I bet you could even link up a pinterest pin {but only if it’s your photo because if not? weird}.  Wondering what this imperfection stuff is all about?  Read more here and here.

PS, I reserve the right to delete anything I feel like is inappropriate, advertising, not imperfect enough.  Kidding on that last one. Kind of.

But today is not the day to post a link to your fabulous project, even if you mention the word imperfect.  Today is an encouragement to each other to show something imperfect in our lives. 

Only ONE link per blog please–but feel free to link to other posts within the post you link to! xo

Meaningful, fun and FUNctional {I am funny, no?} have you seen the new Urban Soul Travel Mugs ?

This post is part of a little series that you can read in any order, Part 1  and Part 2

We’ll I’ve figured it out.

I’ve said it a majillion times.  I truly believe that the imperfections in our home have the ability to help put people at ease.  There’s something about walking in a house and being greeted by a kind person who lives beautifully within her imperfect home, without apology that makes me want to be friends with her and tell her all my secrets.  Why would I want to try to pretend that my home is perfect when imperfection can be so powerful?  When I walk into a home, I find myself scanning for something asking myself–is this house too perfect? too put together? too unapproachable?–because if it is, I’m not nearly as comfortable.

Funny, the secret to taking  friendship from surface to deep is the same.  We already know it, we just wish there was another way.  It’s simple and nearly impossible all at the same time.  We have to show our junk, share the crud, let others know about our imperfections before we can move deeper into friendship.

We’ve got to show our ugly because everyone has carried a pee cup.

It’s the only way.

And just like any risk, the best way is to start small.  Take a baby step and share a little something personal and see how your friend reacts.  Do they listen?  Do they encourage?  Do they accept you?  If so, you are laying the groundwork for a stronger friendship and most of the time, the other person will start sharing their less than perfects too.  And you build from there.  It’s risky.  All good things are. But friends are worth it.

Maybe you have some friends that you are wishing you were closer with.  Dare to be an imperfectionist.  Maybe you are new in town or an introvert or have a new baby or an empty nest and things have just changed and you wish you had that circle of friends.  Well, (in)courage wants to provide a place for you to get to know other women, in your town who are just like you and me, imperfect and lovely and ready to be a friend.

Have you heard about the (in)Real Life Conference?  Here’s a little two-minute video if you want to find out more.

Still don’t believe me about the imperfections? Last year I asked on facebook if anyone wanted to send me a photo of their messy house. I had so many photos I couldn’t even include them in this video–there is something about imperfections that just connect us and we all long to be connected. It’s beautiful and when I watch this video I instantly know I could be friends with the messer of all of these rooms.

Don’t forget, Monday is our #idhtbptbb party!

Meaningful, fun and FUNctional {I am funny, no?} have you seen the new Urban Soul Travel Mugs ?

Jonathan Adler Toilet Paper roll cover from Cottonelle

Let’s discuss in the comments…

Meaningful, fun and FUNctional {I am funny, no?} have you seen the new Urban Soul Travel Mugs ?

My copper twins are in major need of a fresh coat of paint. I’d like to do glossy white but I keep forgetting to buy the paint so they sit. And the reality is I’d rather make a batch of bread today than paint chairs.   They do their job and they still look 90% as good as they will once I repaint them.  One of these days.    But the fact that they are getting worn makes me secretly happy.  Because if they looked like they did the day I took a risk and bought them that would probably mean that we aren’t really using them.  And the only thing worse than a used up piece of furniture is an unused piece of furniture.  So I am glad they work well for our family.  And the chipped paint kind of gives them character.

I have to remind myself to do that.  To welcome the imperfect at times.  To not apologize for the undone and the mistakes and for those forgotten threads at the bottom of the slipcover.

There is a time and place for perfect.  Heart surgery, taxes, flying a plane, wiring a chandelier, brushing your teeth all should be done with perfection in mind.  The hard part is knowing when to draw the line on perfection and roll your eyes at her persnickety self and tell her enough already.

It’s time we had a It Doesn’t Have to be Perfect to be Beautiful Celebration.  It’s so easy to make assumptions when we see a pretty room. We assume everything came together as planned. We assume the creator of the room had no problems, no setbacks, no gnashing of teeth trying to figure out Plan C.  And like we talked about for an entire month back in October, sometimes it’s those setbacks and imperfections and limitations that make something all the more spectacular.

Join me Monday, February 20th and link up to something, anything imperfect that you are ready to embrace.  It can be a link to a blog post, a photo, a tweet, an instagram picture–feel free to use the hashtag #idhtbptbb

It Doesn’t Have to be Perfect to be Beautiful

Meaningful, fun and FUNctional {I am funny, no?} have you seen the new Urban Soul Travel Mugs ?

In her book A Perfectly Kept House is the Sign of a Misspent Life Mary Randolph Carter says

“Music is the salt and pepper of an evening”

I couldn’t agree more. Although I would take it one step further, Music is the Salt and Pepper of a Home.  When I’m in a melancholy mood I’ll turn on some George Winston, December. When I want to feel young I listen to The Cars or Leigh Nash when I want to feel happy I’ll turn on some folk music.  It’s physically impossible to feel sad when you hear a banjo playing.

This weekend while my boys met with their tutor, I had an hour to go into Barnes and Noble and grab a coffee and a stack of books and shelter magazines.  The cafe was slammed.  I could hear way too many conversations–do people realize how loud they are talking?   The young girl with the older professor talking about iPhone apps, the study group meeting three tables over, the long line of coffee thirsty people with only two baristas {baristi?}to serve them.  My hour of blissful reading was grossly interrupted.

Until.

Until I remembered I had my earphones.  I popped them in and turned on Pandora and my old lady channel of solo piano and Philip Wesley’s Soul’s Lament played and suddenly the crowded scene changed from annoying to meaningful. As I looked around, it was if I were in the midst of a story, it was a beautiful, moving sight.   Music had the power to change the tone of the entire place even if it was just in my head.

Philip Wesley – Soul’s Lament

The same can happen in our homes.  We can use music to our advantage.  Just like the color we so carefully choose for our walls, music can easily set the tone for an evening, even something as simple as fixing instant potatoes becomes a worthy task when I’m listening to the right music.

So after I work in my office all day, I always look forward to coming home from carpool, turning on my Wailin’ Jennys or Alison Krauss or The Civil Wars channel and enjoying a lighthearted music.  It’s the banjos. And the fiddles.

 
The Civil Wars I’ve Got This Friend

Required reading from my sister: a beautiful post about Music Inspiring Writing {but you can apply it to anything, even decorating and living}.  And also this post, about following your crazy ideas springboarding from the Grammys.

I’d love to hear from you, what music is part of the soundtrack of your life?

ps: yippie!

Meaningful, fun and FUNctional {I am funny, no?} have you seen the new Urban Soul Travel Mugs ?

Cooking with Cast Iron @ A Country Farmhouse. I’ve been collecting different sizes of cast iron and I think I’m ready to throw away my last nonstick pan.

DIY Bookends ....

from these…and…

DIY Brass Figurines both from Hi Sugarplum

Angela was done with this table so it ended up at Ally’s place. Such a fun idea to pass on something to a friend–and a great way to change up the look of your space, maybe you have something in your home you could trade for something else from a friend for a while.

And for V-day, make these sweet little origami hearts with a video via Origami Spirit

Lastly, the Nesting Place sale at Joss & Main ends at 11am EST today–they have already emailed to let me know it was a huge success and I’m thrilled and the best part is, I think many of you were able to score some beautiful, useful items for your home without going into debt.  I purchased this and this…did you buy something and want to share? 

Meaningful, fun and FUNctional {I am funny, no?} have you seen the new Urban Soul Travel Mugs ?

anthro

I’ve been meaning to get around to changing up our laundry room.  And clearly that has everything to do with this chalkboard bedroom.

Ahhh, our laundry room.  I think the door has been closed twice since we moved in two and a half years ago.  It’s just easier to keep it open.  But, when someone is standing on our porch with the front door open, you can practically see straight into this room and it’s so boring and non-UMPHy.  Even though we are renting there are times it’s worth it to put a little money into the house.  The selves were serving no one well–there’s not enough clearance to hang something from them and wire shelves aren’t very pretty.  And really I don’t need that storage, as you can see the top shelf is empty.

We even have a pretty little window that lets in a flood of light.

Which is good because this micro fluorescent leaves a lot to be desired.

Naturally, I made a little laundry room pinboard at Pinterest.  I kept pinning chalkboard walls so that told me something.

So I decided to do the back wall in chalkboard paint. And the other three walls got a fresh coat of white.  Funny, if this were my house I’d just stop the paint all crazy like in the photo.  But then I remembered that the owners would see it when we move out and I want them to feel good about it, so even though you and I both know that anyone who lives here will always have a washer and dryer covering up the bottom of this wall–I wanted it to look better for showings if the house were empty one day.  So, today I’m going to go back and paint a crisp line and even paint the bottom half in white.

Actually, now that I look at it, I might just paint it all chalkboard.  I thought I would need to save the paint for a second coat but it looks like one coat is enough–anyone have experience with this?  Should I paint a second coat to be safe?

I can’t wait to prime the wall with chalk, Janell always makes it look so fun.

I wish I had a pretty finished photo to show but this will have to do.  There’s the light I’m planning on putting in the laundry room–the one I told you had been sitting on the floor around the house since October.  And you can see the two shelves that will go on the chalkboard wall right there leaning against the hutch.    The light and shelves are from Ikea although I think the light has been discontinued.

So far I’ve spent::

• $15 Chalk paint
• $60 Lack Wall shelves {they were $30 each when I bought them but now they are on sale for $20!}
• $50 for the basket light–I’ll probably take it with us when we move unless I’m tired of it or too lazy to take it down

The owners of this home have been so kind to us.  And it’s been fun to do a few little makeovers that we hope will add value to their home and also really increase our enjoyment of their home while we live here.  Would I pay to put down all new wood floors in a house I’m renting?  Nope. But spending a hundred dollars for a major wow factor that also makes the house look a little more updated?  Sure!

Meaningful, fun and FUNctional {I am funny, no?} have you seen the new Urban Soul Travel Mugs ?

**Reminder Click HERE to Join Joss & Main so you can shop the sale**

already registered and don’t want to read my long drawn out post because you are in the mood to shop? 

Click here to shop

 Time for us to get to shopping together!  I’ve hand-picked items for the Nesting Place sale at Joss & Main and I hope there is something that you can use or that can inspire you for your Beautifully Imperfect home.  In my 17 years of home making, I’ve learned that it’s fun to start with a neutral base  to ground the room, like that stuff in the photo above and then…

And then add pops of color and interest and QUIRK like this stuff:

• pops of color
• bread board for your Bread in 5 Minutes a Day
• painted furniture if you don’t want to have to paint it yourself
• lockers because I want them so bad it hurts kind of, not really but you get the idea
• lighting: I’d bet my favorite pair of lamps that you don’t have enough lamps in your house
• velvet
• things that are tufted
• mirrors because of my aversion to mass-produced wall art
• a stump table because I just had to add it, in case you don’t want to mess with cutting up a tree that fell in your back yard
• dog beds because believe it or not, ours is one of the most asked about items in our house
• the Amy Butler rug from my office {another often asked about item}
• the chair from our bedroom, such a great deal
• Mrs. Meyer’s because I love her cleaning supplies
• Wall Candy removable chalkboard wall decals–what I used on our fireplace surround
• Chalk markers–what I used to draw the bricks
• a bust planter because mine is one of my favorite things
• quirkiness because I don’t want to take myself too seriously

find out how here

I love an unmade bed

I have two more things to say.

1. For the Risk Avoiders

You know that thing you see that makes your heart beat faster and you think, oh I LOVE that and I wish I could pull that off in my house but only other people can use things like that in their house and my Mother In Law will think that I’m ridiculous if I put that in my house so I will play it safe and surround myself with the semi-beautiful, average, unremarkable and uninspiring? Yeah, that?  Stop doing that.  Here are step by step directions on how to pull something off if you need them. Whether that things that makes your heart pitter patter is in this sale, in a garage sale, something you can make, it’s time to stop thinking you can’t be who you are and embrace what you love.  I know women whose husbands are telling them to please, feel free to spend a little money and make this house a home already and fear is gripping them as if choosing a lamp is a life or death decision.  Life is too short and decorating is supposed to be fun.  Enjoy it. Take a risk.  Buy the lamp.

 2. For the Cashless

There have been times in our marriage that I’ve had more time than money. Times that I needed to DIY my way to pretty.  And if you are in a season of that right now, I hope that you don’t see this sale as something you cannot be a part of but as fun inspiration for your next project.  And Joss & Main may read this and delete my sale right now but I have to say this, none of these items, as beautiful and charming and lovely as they might be, are worth putting on a credit card if you can’t pay it off immediately.  As much as I want you to love your home and as much as I don’t want Joss & Main to think my sale failed, I don’t want anyone to feel any pressure to spend money you don’t have.  It’s a process, beauty takes time. Enjoy the process.

Now let’s go shopping together!

 Sale ends in 72 hours

Joss & Main offers a $15 referral credit for anyone {you too!} who refers someone to their site when that someone makes their first purchase.  They also compensate all of their curators with a small percentage of the sales.

Meaningful, fun and FUNctional {I am funny, no?} have you seen the new Urban Soul Travel Mugs ?

pom poms, just because they make me happy

Last week’s craft day involved yarn, fruit and six of us crafters {somehow Greta and I didn’t make it into the pictures–we were too busy moving around and chatting but we were there, promise}.

Like I’ve mentioned before, we rely heavily on Pinterest for craft day.  The three of us in charge, Reeve, Angela and I, all have access to the Crafty Day pin board and any time we see an idea that could possibly be a fit we pin it.  It’s a way to brainstorm without having to email each other a hundred times a month.  I highly recommend starting a group pinboard for any type of project that you are working on that remotely involves anything visual.

I even made the food based on something I saw on Pinterest

So we made pom poms, something mindless and simple, beautiful and relatively useless, which to me is part of the allure of poms squared.

We also colored what I like to call “adult coloring sheets”, Angela was sure we were going to be coloring something scandalous, she was very relieved to find out it was simply intricate designs that mere children would find boring.

Here are a few resources we found helpful::

How to make pom poms using just your hands

Use a fork to make a pom pom {the more yarn we used, the more apt they were to fall apart beware}

Using pom pom makers {my favorite way} they have pom pom makers at Michael’s, probably Hobby Lobby, Amazon and I bought mine from Ebay I think.  Don’t forget, if you shop at Michael’s use their iPhone app to use their weekly coupon, you can also bring up the Hobby Lobby coupon in your iPhone browser for Hobby Lobby and they’ll accept that if you don’t have one printed out.

If you are one of those people who must have a purpose for everything in life, there are some fun ideas we found and pinned to the Crafty Day board like making a pom pom rug, pom pom wreath, you can glue one to a gift as a bow, sew one to the top of your boring hat,  or do what we did and just hot glue them to sticks.

The point of craft day for me isn’t as much about creating a masterpiece or learning a new skill, it’s a natural way to get to know women who I’ve wanted to get to know better for years. So I trick them into coming by telling them we’ll do a craft and eat something when really, I just want to be friends with them. So far my plan is working brilliantly and they are all clueless that craft day is really an automatic bench {insert evil laugh and rubbing together of hot glue burned hands}.

Don’t forget, TUESDAY is the Nesting Place sale at Joss & Main {I think it starts at night so I’ll be staying up and tweeting you to death, don’t worry or worry if you want because that sounds kind of annoying} if you haven’t already, be sure to create an account with Joss & Main so you can at least view the sale, you don’t have to buy anything but they are letting NP readers bypass the waiting list so here’s your special exclusive and other words that make you feel important invitation to join Joss & Main.  See you tomorrow?

Meaningful, fun and FUNctional {I am funny, no?} have you seen the new Urban Soul Travel Mugs ?