Finding Inspiration

I love the Life is Good motto, “Do what you love, Love what you do.”

I believe the same thing applies to decorating. I believe the worst thing you can do when decorating is to fill a room full of stuff that you think is right, to fill a room with stuff you think is trendy, to fill a room with stuff that means nothing to you. You gotta love love love the pieces, colors, patterns and textures in your home.

I don’t get tweed. I think it looks scratchy. I think it looks kinda linty. Linty, like when you forget to clean out the lint trap in the dryer, linty. Even if I lived in the upper east side of NYC or in the White House where tweed seems to be the fabric of choice, I would not wear and I would not decorate with it. Not even a little throw pillow. I just don’t like it.

Where you live or the shops that are available shouldn’t dictate your decor either. I live in Minnesota. The land of 10,000 lakes. Because I live in Minnesota the decorating trend tends to lean toward rustic and comfortable. I do not decorate in evergreen plaid prints, have log cabin furniture or sculptures of bears and trout. Besides the fact I have a slight fish phobia, I do not think hanging a stuffed walleye on wall exudes the look I want.

So, you say, what do you like? To that I reply, I don’t know. Honestly. I just don’t know. There must be something you like, you cry in frustration because this post seems to be going nowhere. And there is, believe me, there is. Just check my credit card statement! I like a lot of stuff.

How do I pick and choose what stuff to buy then? How do I choose colors, textures, patterns and pieces?

With all that snotty higher than thou decorating talk, one would think I have a “style.” I don’t. I can’t say that I am modern, though I like clean lines and bold patterns. I wouldn’t say I am country, despite the fact I plan on painting my kitchen cabinets white. I do not like anything from the Victorian era, except for maybe leather chairs with furniture tacks.

There isn’t just one catalog or specialty store I shop from. I love what I like and like what I love. And that is hard to find, especially when I am in Home Depot standing in front of the thousands of color choices.

I look for inspiration. Simple as that. Simple, right? Not really. Sometimes, I don’t even know when I have found my inspiration. Case in point. When I was designing my website, I started with pink. Pink pink. I knew all the colors that went well with pink. What I originally ended up with looked good but it didn’t work. I started being pulled toward an orange that was suppose to be a compliment to my pinks. And then it happened. I changed the pink to red, added a yellow and that was it. That worked. See, I told you, it works!

I didn’t know it at the time, but when I walked out my front door the next day, I saw it. My inspiration and I didn’t even know it.

The flowers that I spent forever picking out at the nursery. They were my inspiration. Red. Orange. Yellow. Bold. Clean. Simple.

The inspiration is out there, you just gotta find and recognize it.

Someday I will tell you about how a watermelon led me to painting my adjoining dining room and sitting room in two bright, bold, beautiful and complimenting colors of green!

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