Partly Paper

By early Sunday afternoon, the snowfall finally came to a halt, and we were able to dig ourselves and my parents out from somewhere between 10 - 12" of snow. It is really difficult to tell on our property with all the blowing and drifting snow and drifts. But, thanks to snow shovels, a good strong back, a snowblower, and a little help from our friends with snowplows, all is well in our little world. Today's weather was certain quite a mixture. Snowfall, with no real accumulation, in the morning, changing over to clearing skies, and sunshine by early afternoon which is assisting greatly in melting and removing the snow. It's certainly a slow, yet steady process, and most of our county is in good shape. The slow thawing also assists with preventing flooding, a major concern for some parts of our county.


The last several days, while being snowed in and under Level 2 and 3 Snow Emergencies, I found a lot of time to give more consideration to completing our home's decor. Feeling a bit stuck, frustrated, and overwhelmed, a chat with an online friend helped me put into perspective some of the jumbled thoughts and ideas that I had bouncing around inside my pretty little head.


After chatting with Kate, I was able to put the beginning of my plan into action by creating a "Home Sweet Home" book using a lightweight 8"x8" SEI album. Since the album was bound by utilizing file folder clips, I was able to take it apart to customize it by adding several hand made dividers for each room of our home and assist in creating it what I desired it to be.


My thoughts are to go around my home, taking photographs of everything, and figure out what it is in each room that is bothering me. Is it the space itself? The lack of architectural detail? The fact that there’s no defined boundaries for determining anything? The traffic pattern, paint colors? Unfinished projects or touch up that need to be done, ect. Whatever the "it" is in each of these rooms, will be taken into consideration, one at a time and thoughts and ideas brainstormed, so that options can be explored and possible solutions can be reach.

Next, I fully intend to measure everything - the room size, windows, doors, and furnishings and document those onto graph paper. These will be added to my book in each defined section. As I'm out shopping, running errands, I can begin to pick up paint colors, fabric samples and textures, to assist me with creating a decorating inspiration board. Of course, I'll have to focus my attention to one room at a time when I get to that stage of my plan.

I've decided to begin in our living room since that is the room I'm the most familiar with and its still a work in progress. I'm also desiring to add photographs to my book to assist me when choosing necessary items and accessories for each room, so hopefully I can see and get an idea of what will and won't work in our space. Those meausurement will also come in handy here!

So as not to get lost while shopping, as far as achieving the appearance that I'm attempting to create and maintain, I was thrilled when I saw another wonderful post by Rhoda @ http://southernhospitality-rhoda.blogspot.com/ {its the Feb. 27, 2008 entry} where she mentioned Lynette Jenning's No Compromise Decorating book. I love the "Love It; So-So: and Leave It" concept so I thought by accessing my photographs, I can figure those things out within our home and write notes on them so I won't forget them later. I also want to make notes on anything repairs that need to be made or works in progress that we've never gotten completely finished. This will help us so much... ensuring we are finishing, maintaining, and loving our home! As well as enabling us to stay focused on what and where we're at with our progress. I'm certain that once a few pieces are changed and added to I'll take update photographs to track our progress. It's a place to start anyways.