My husband and I recently decided that after eight years of living in the same home, we probably should update the paint and the furnishings. After spending time poring over paint chips, decorating websites, and watching my share of HGTV, I finally chose colors and began buying some new things. I especially wanted to focus on the master bedroom and the living room. After all these years, I wanted them to be “picture perfect.”
Now, before I go any further, let me tell you what an undertaking this is for a girl who does not like to shop or decorate. I know. I know. Call me abnormal. Call me crazy. But when God wired me, He left out that girly-girl part of me. Thank goodness, He provided some close friends with whom He did wire with the color-coordinating, no-that-does-not-go-with-that gene. Thank you friends. You know who you are.
Now, after a few months finding new furniture, pillows, bed coverings, I was going to have my HGTV rooms. (After all, I even used their line of paint colors.) My hubby helped me hang art. I placed everything where it needed to go. It looked almost “picture perfect.”
Then I noticed the problem.
In my neutral colored bedroom setting, what do you do with a stuffed gray mouse and a green sea turtle given to me by my son to sleep with when I am scared? Where do you place the brightly colored yellow cross made out of legos by my other son? Or where do you place the purple paper heart that reads in my child’s own handwriting, “Love cannot be defeated?” Or in the living room, now that it is close to Christmas, where do I set the paper Christmas tree that my son placed on a chair today "where we used to put the tree?" The magazines don’t show these items.
Then I realized that in the magazines and on the websites, the pictures we peruse are taken before the family comes inside. While the designer rooms may include the family’s photos, the spaces do not include their personal, never matching touches. They do not show the love of the family members shared through tokens that never were meant to match décor but instead, simply to communicate love.
Today, I am rethinking my decorating. As I step away from the once sought after perfection of a well-created space, I instead am learning to embrace the imperfect love of my family. I am learning to appreciate what no magazine or internet picture can capture fully. After all, how often do you see a mom in a picture sleeping with a stuffed gray mouse and a bright green sea turtle? How often do you really see the love?
;)
Monday, January 9, 2012 at 2:01PM