One room, two years.
A mini house tour.
Hi friends. I had a Desk Tour planned for this week, but some things got moved around and I ended up with a gap in my editorial calendar. I’ve had some version of a house tour post planned since we moved in, but I’ve always pushed it off, waiting for some general feeling of “doneness” to arrive. But today I thought: Why not?
Owning an old home and slowly renovating it has taught me patience, but it’s also forced me to reckon with my own impossible standards. If what I see in my head or on Pinterest doesn’t translate perfectly to reality, it often makes me feel itchy and off-balance. I get frustrated. I stupidly delay things like hosting events, or sharing photos of rooms that display more than just my favorite corners. When we moved in, I imagined a million before-and-after montages of all the rooms we would renovate and decorate. Now, I know that before-and-after really doesn’t hold much appeal if I never allow anything to feel like an ‘after.’ I mean, there’s a reason why I haven’t shared my own Desk Tour quite yet (it’s coming soon, I promise).
Thankfully, more and more, I do find myself leaning into the in-progress parts of everything. I appreciate that each room has been through dozens of iterations, all with many more to come, I’m sure. I remember all the times Jake and I stood in the middle of rooms and walked in circles, hands on our hips, dreaming of ways to make something better. It took longer than I expected for this house to finally feel like home, and I think that is at least partially because I was constantly fighting that itchy, off-balance feeling, hoping for a level of perfection that can’t possibly exist. I’ve (mostly) let that go now, and I’m happier.
As I write this I am slightly hungover, having just hosted my very first dinner party in our house (well, one where I cooked). We used mismatched chairs. We pushed together cheap tables. I threw a “linen” tablecloth from TJ Maxx over the top. I made a beef stew and a cheese plate and lit candles and spilled wine on the rug. Our dishwasher has been broken for months and it will likely take us 24 hours to finish cleaning everything, but that’s fine. None if it was perfect and all of it was lovely. This is how I want my life (and my home) to feel all the time.
Today, I thought I’d take you through the journey of one room in our house, from start to… well, now. Not finished, maybe, but lived-in. Ours. We’ll start with our family room, or TV room.