It All Starts with One Thing…

I thought I knew my personal design style when I moved out of my parents house and into my first apartment with my newly minted husband. Boy, was I so wrong. If you saw that apartment you would see brown, brown, brown, as far as the eye could see. When I asked my husband what he wanted in our new home he said “I want it to feel comfortable.” Foolishly, I thought this meant brown.

After decking the whole place out in so much brown and beige I quickly realized my mistake. I tried to rectify it with color in pillows and a large mismatched gallery wall. No dice. It wasn’t until I started with one thing I knew I loved that things started to look and feel right.

My favorite color is green, except for a brief stint in Kindergarten, it has always been green. I took the beige carpet out of our living room and swapped it into our bedroom and put a green rug in the living room. It was after this that the room and I started to breathe a little bit better. It was also when I realized I wasn’t going to love my home if I didn’t love the things in it.

Before long we moved into a new condo. This new place presented me with a new problem. Gray. Everything was gray, the floors were gray, the walls were gray, even the ceiling fans were gray. I quickly resolved to distract from the gray. How did I do this? I went out and bought two 70s, brown, laminate bookcases from Goodwill. And then I bought paint. And a tarp, and brushes and acquired my dads orbital hand sander. I spent the next two weeks sanding, prepping and painting those bookcases, you guessed it, green.

After that the rest of my house came together easily. I bought another new rug because toddlers! This one was machine washable and had an accent color of orange. Perfect! So I found orange pillowcases for the large pillows in the living room. I made sure to find some with texture so they added depth to the room. Then I started collecting and displaying vintage kelly green glass in my bookcases. I added beautiful books and brass ornaments to go with my collection of green. I loved my home and the best part? My husband loved it too.

I still prioritized what my husband loved through this process, comfort. I kept the brown leather couches that are the epitome of squish and support and simplified the wall down from the large mismatched gallery wall to one large family portrait.

So that’s my advice to you, start with one thing you love. It can be a favorite color or a favorite couch. Whatever it is have it be something you have always loved! Don’t pick something trendy or from the latest viral tiktok. Think back to the homes you loved as a child. Everyone had something different about their house, because it was theirs. It all starts with one thing…something you love!