It can be anything and everything from "Catching Up on Laundry Day" to "Tackling Unfinished Projects Day" to "Cleaning the House and Paying the Bills Day" to "FINALLY Getting All of That Pesky Infernal Paperwork Filed Away Day". Today is looking to be a medley of all of those tasks--though so far, I will admit, I have only gotten to the cleaning the house and paying the bills bit. Still, the day is young!
Today is the date that marks my and Charming's fourth month of being married, and subsequently it's been a little less than four months since I moved into our apartment and started figuring out how to run and maintain my own home. I always thought that my decorating style and tastes would run identical to those of my mother. The home that she shares with my father, my two youngest sisters, and the two dogs is very fine home-and-garden store meets country chic. It's full of rich, warm colors and opulent textures that are juxtaposed with character-imbued antiques and folk art. I don't think there's a room in the house--apart from the laundry room, perhaps--that she and my father haven't completely made over since they moved into it several years ago. It's a gorgeous house, and my words don't do it justice. I always believed that I would follow in Mum's decorating footsteps, carbon-copy.
Truthfully, I have maintained several similarities to her in my own home. We share a love of dark-stained wooden furniture, lots and lots of baskets, and color-coordinated picture frames for tabletops and shelves. But the longer that I live in my home, the more I notice Mum's words to me coming true. She told me that I would find that my own particular style would emerge once I had my own home--and she was right. (She also told me that she believed that I would meet my One True Love someday, and that she thought that I wouldn't at all expect it, and that he would be the last person that I would suspect. And, again, she was right!)
(One corner of the living room.)
As I look around my fledgling apartment, I see wood furniture of several different textures and shades, some baskets and vases, color-coordinated picture frames, a floor rug that daydreams that it really is a real Persian floor rug, a few throw pillows, and several of my paintings. It's a beginning of a home, and I trust--just as so many other just-starting-out wives have--that it will continue to grow to reflect my and my husband's personalities. I'm more of a French Country style girl these days, I've found...and developing ways of showing that in an apartment where Charming and I can't paint the walls, put up wallpaper, change the carpet, or put nails in the walls has been a delightful challenge!
(One corner of the kitchen.)
One thing to which I would like to draw your attention.
If you haven't discovered it yet, I would like to introduce you to a wonderful item called chalkboard paint. Mum introduced it to me--surprise surprise, right? Hahah!--and it has provided me with one of my favorite bits of decor in the apartment, the faux scroll chalkboard in the photo above. It is really no more than a piece of plywood board that was originally supposed to be used as a sign outside the reception venue at the wedding: a project that fell by the wayside during wedding preparations. I sketched the outline for it and Dad cut out the shape, and then he and Mum kept it in the garage at their house. Then, when Charming and I went on our honeymoon, we ate dinner at a fabulous French bistro that had the most enthralling menu board written out on a huge mirror on the wall. I decided--why not use the chalkboard paint and make a menu-and-message board for my own home?
All that this project took was Charming with a drill, some red grosgrain ribbon, a couple of those adhesive wall fixtures (the kind that can hold heavier amounts of weight), and three coats of chalkboard paint. After I painted the chalkboard paint onto the plywood, we threaded the ribbon through the holes that Charming had drilled at the top of the board, placed the adhesive fixtures onto the wall, and hung up the board. I've really loved having it there in the dining area--it gives me a touch of that lovely French bistro look that I so adore, it's very convenient for writing out either the menu for dinner with friends or the grocery list, and it doesn't require any nails, staples, or glue! Projects like this that work out okay make me so happy.
Until Thursday, à bientôt!
--Cait
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