Simply Me...

I love to decorate. I always have. When I was a child, I rearranged my room every couple of weeks, trying to find that perfect arrangement. I never found it, because I had several ways I liked my room.

As a young mommy, I still enjoyed decorating. It was more of a challenge then, because there wasn’t much money. Most of our furniture was handed down from our parents, when they got something new.

I made wall art with burlap and felt, composed of bright and cheery orange and yellow flowers. And pretty greeting cards were framed in garage sale frames, to hang alongside the pictures of my children.

This morning, I poured over my latest book, Simply French, that arrived in the mail this past week. I didn’t order it; but here it is. I belong to a book club and they know how to make money: send me the books that I forget to tell them I don’t want.

Well, this one is one that I want. It is full of pictures that please my decorating sensibilities. The homes pictured are centuries old, and some of the furnishings are too. And, by American standards, most everything needs to be updated. That term makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

Updated? Why? Because the Jones have a newer one? Or because it doesn’t work, at all? Or does it work just fine and it isn’t “good enough” for me? I wonder what happens to all those things that we Americans update….

I guess I like this new book because it is esthetically pleasing to my decorating eye. It has the basics that I require: everything has a purpose, everything is clean, and there is a little clutter to fascinate me.

I do love creating vignettes. Some of them are subtle, or so personal, that you would not notice. A gathering of special objects that have meaning to me and no one else. But, every time I look at them, I have to smile.

And I love breaking the rules, too. “No personal photographs in the formal living room” is one I have always broken. Actually, if you want to be technical, I am not breaking that rule: my home has no “formal” living room. Or formal anything, for that matter.

My home is a reflection of me and my tastes. It is full of red and bright and sunny. It is fairly clean, but messy enough to make you comfortable when you are here. There are always candles lit, except in the summer, when it’s too hot. And music is playing most of the time, too.

There is nothing rigid, or strict, or unbending about my decorating style. Sometimes, when my grandsons are over, they move things around and, when I look, I like the way they arranged them better than the way I had them. In fact, I left the pillows and quilts strewn around the family room for a couple of weeks after my grandsons were here last month….I had to smile every time I looked at the room. It felt like they were still here.

And I do have a secret ingredient in my decorating scheme: Love. My mother told me that many years ago. She was often quite critical of things I did, so when she said something very positive, it was significant and has stuck with me all these years.

She was visiting with me and she looked around, quite seriously, taking in everything about the rooms she could see. And then she told me: “your home is full of love….I can see it everywhere.”

Be it ever so humble….