Change is Good

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“When you’re finished changing, you’re finished”
~Benjamin Franklin

A home is what we make of the space in which we dwell, be it a dorm room, a loft, a small house or a castle. It is where we tend to spend a primary portion of our lives making memories, our refuge, and most times our home shares our personality. If you live at the same place long enough, your home will start to develop a personality of it’s own. As time goes on, most people adjust along with the times, our beliefs, our sense of fashion and even our mindset. So why wouldn’t we want to modify the decor of our residence to reflect the adjustments that occur in life? I welcome change every so often. Although I love the comfort of consistency, there’s a fine line between consistency and complacency. Sometimes we get stuck in a rut in our lives and it shows in the home, the outdated paint color, the old framed pictures, the cozy yet warn sofa- SWITCH IT UP ALREADY!!! Try a simple rearranging of furniture, hang new up to date photographs or artwork, add a throw to your worn sofa, be adventurous and paint an accent wall and feel a new surge of energy move through your home.
I felt the energy level in my home at a plateau. I’ve been here for almost 9 years and I never changed the furniture, wall art or paint color. I did make minor adjustments that added a little flare to our living space, such as adding an area rug and removing it, rearranging furniture, adding a portable fireplace then swapping it for a tv. My life and my children’s lives had gone through a metamorphosis, I needed a bold modification to my living space to reflect that. With limited space, and a tight budget, I opted for DIY painting. I decided to go for accent walls for my dining and living rooms, using just 1 gallon of paint. Upon research, I found that a focal wall would not only add personality to my social rooms, but the color selection can also set the mood. I went for Behr’s interior flat “vintage blue”, which paired well with the current the Behr “stable hay” tinted walls. Blue has a calming effect, and can even lower blood pressure. The warmth of the color invites people to feel relaxed and at home. I hung a large framed mirror that I revamped with Ralph Lauren metallic silver paint on the blue wall, and that gave the room an illusion of being larger. I had a chest of drawers in the dining room where on top was a wine glass collection, and inside were my swimsuits and cover ups (with small homes you get creative with storage); I used the silver metallic paint to add zebra stripes on the black chest, and found an amazing metallic zebra canvas wall art at Target which I mounted above the chest on the adjacent wall. The project took just a couple of hours for 2 days out of the week and the outcome was “like a picture out of a magazine” says my 16 year old, and that goes far. With just one gallon of blue paint and a quart of metallic glaze, I brought my home up to speed with how my life had evolved over the last 9 years. Succumb to change; change is good! My home once again feels like my refuge, and is in accord with who we are today.