Decorating (my) World

There's an exchange  in "Dirty Dancing" that goes something like this:

"Max, our Baby's gonna change the world."
"And what are you gonna do, Missy?"
"Oh, Lisa's gonna decorate it."

It comes at the beginning of the movie, the exposition if you will, and the intent is to contrast the brainy and idealistic "Baby" Houseman with her vain and ditsy older sister, Lisa.

Of course you're supposed to sympathize with Baby.  You're supposed to want to be Baby.  And in 1987, at 18-years-old, I did.  I envisioned myself growing up to do something big, something to change the world.

Um, so yeah, about that...

Now, don't get me wrong, I love what I do--staying home to raise my kids--and I believe it's very, very important.  If I didn't, I wouldn't be doing it.*  However I also acknowledge that I'm not exactly changing the world.  (Talk to me in 30 years when one of the girls is running for president ;)

And the truth is, Lisa's desire to "decorate the world," to make a sometimes difficult place a little nicer to dwell in?  Well, that doesn't seem quite as ludicrous to me anymore.

Decorating, designing, feathering the nest--whatever you want to call it--has become a hobby of sorts.  I've done a lot of work on this house.  It's the second we've owned, and the one that we hope will be our "forever house."  I waited until we had this one to invest in furniture and decor and I'm having a lot of fun doing it.  (So if you're looking for a blog about changing the world, you're in the wrong place.)

As time goes on I will be giving "tours" of the house.  A logical place for me to start is with the living room as it is more or less "done" compared to other areas of the house.

Here are some pics of the living room.  I should say right now that I am not a photographer nor do I use a fancy camera or photo editing software.  I do have an SLR camera, though, and learning to use it is up there on my New Year's resolution list right under start a blog and an Etsy store.  (One out of three ain't bad..)

I find it difficult to capture the room all in one shot but you get the drift.  

Now you may disagree, but I find it to be cozy and inviting, especially given the 20+ foot ceiling thing we've go going on.  And while I'd love to have all white (or gray) walls and mid-century modern furniture with fun pops of colors like pink and blue, that just didn't feel right for this space.  

So I'd like to spend some time dissecting the room and discussing what we did/bought and why.  I'll be doing that in the next few posts so stay tuned.  First up will be the coffee table, which could easily have been featured in Copy Cat Chic.  Should be a good time.

* author's note: Please do not think for a moment that the comments at the beginning of this post were in any way meant to disparage working moms.   I am personally of the belief that one should do what's right for one's self and her family.  Not all women were meant to be stay-at-home moms and I would not want to live in a world where that was the only choice we had.  Just wanted to put that out there...