Recently (okay, last year….) those weekly trips came to an end and I found myself spending a lot more of my downtime here in Atlanta. Backstory – I moved to Atlanta in 2009 after spending 4 years living in Munich, Germany. Atlanta is where I’m from, my family is here, but I never thought that 4 years later I’d still be here. It was originally a stop off, but then I started a business, that business became successful and here I am. The past 4 years have brought a lot of changes into my life, the least of which was the adjustment of living without all of my stuff which was 1) still in storage in Munich and then 2) in an apartment in NY which never really felt like home because of all the traveling. But that’s another blog post. Recently I accepted the fact that for the moment, I actually live in Atlanta as opposed to just working here and decided to give my home the attention it deserves.
You see, I am a furniture and design junkie. I didn’t want to buy anything new because I loved all my OLD stuff which was still in NY. So I bought the bare minimum (sofa, bed, lamp), gave up entertaining at home (which I actually LOVE to do) and focused all my creative energy on my business since that’s where I spend the majority of my time. I renovated, opened a nail bar 6 months ago (yay!) and have basically put all of my time and money into my workspace.
But this year, as Spring began to approach, I began to feel unsettled and decided to go back to my roots. My styling roots that is. One of my favorite things to do at this time of the year is to change my home over for the season. Yes, your home should change with the seasons much like your wardrobe. And for me, it’s much more fun to restyle my house for Spring than it is to restyle myself. I love to constantly rework spaces and cycle things in and out using what I already have.
This year this task was even more fun since I had a whole new slew of stuff to work with. I moved a bunch of stuff from NY to Atlanta and have been going about the task of making this loft feel more like home.
In order to get my home in order for Spring and beyond I did the following:
- Got rid of any unnecessary household clutter. This was easy since I didn’t have a lot of stuff.
- I walked through each room and made a list of all the “problem areas”, things I want to change and/or things that are in need of repair or replacement.
- Went through the list and picked 3 projects from each room to complete this year. These should be things that will have the most impact and bring you the most joy. If you’ve always hated the dark color of your mirror – paint it. That’s actually one of the things on my bedroom list so stay tuned to see how that turns out…
My first project was my entryway. It was boring and dull, a place to drop my keys/bag/shoes on my way to the kitchen for a glass of wine. It depressed the hell out of me and every time I walked in the house was only a reminder of all that needed to be done.
So I got to work and within 2 hours, it became this:
Total cost $305. And that was for the mirror. Everything else I already had and just brought it into the space. Is it finished? No way. Will it be finished by the end of this year? For sure. I’ll make sure to post updates along the way so you can join me in this journey. In the meantime, I’m keeping focused on making my house a home.
