"An Art", or two

The phrase "an art" is from McMansion Hell.

I made it to the Cozy Minimalism phase of putting art and things up on the walls. The method emphasizes using fewer, larger, more meaningful pieces, rather than a horde of smaller things with little individual presence.

So I grabbed a big framed Ikea print from the garage; my husband picked it up by the side of the road a while back, and he has a plan for re-using it. But for now, it can be on the wall; the pattern and colors actually fit in well with the rest of the room. It took three tries for me to figure out exactly where to put the nail in the wall, but small nail holes in drywall are easy to fill, with a little spackle.

In some lights it acts more like a mirror, but the reflections are not unwelcome. That wall has always been poorly-lit and overly dark.

For the other big empty space, over the fireplace, I did a Wary Meyers sort of visual brainstorming; you can read about the method here.  Turning the paper sideways works wonderfully for sketching little concept drawings by the dozen, and that was what I did.

Eventually I figured out that for something to be meaningful, there would have to be some sort of connection to our pasts or family history. From there, it was a short step to remember the kinds of doilies that my grandmother used to crochet. With some research, and some math, and some experimenting, I was able to come up with a scaled-up crochet pattern that I could crochet in cotton string for that wall space.

I'll go into much more detail in a future post, but as of now it is done and up on the wall, and it is quite striking.

I was careful to proportion it so that its width was not more than two-thirds of the width of the fireplace opening.

I also found that it was better to not exactly duplicate my grandmother's crochet pattern, but to do a somewhat modernized interpretation of it...so that it could evoke the past without looking like one of her doilies resurrected itself, somehow found its way into my house, and then climbed up onto my wall when I wasn't looking. The things you learn, when you actually go and do things.

Too many pillows

I noticed, as we've been using the couch in its new position, that it tends to get buried under pillows and blankets, and that it was a pain to move them out of the way every time. So I've limited the number of pillows to four, and I've set an extra pillow aside in a closet--in case the children use up all the pillows making a fort or something.  It's easier to be cozy when things are kept simple.

Walls and curtains, not now

The next step in "cozy minimalism" would normally be doing the wall treatments (painting or whatever) and hanging drapes, but as a renter, there is little I can do with the former, and nothing that I want to do with the latter; I'm ignoring the wall and leaving the vintage blinds up. Curtains don't make sense either for this particular room, or for my stage in life--where I need to maintain a high level of "monkey-proofing".

Next step: placing the rugs

As I continued in my living room, having arranged the main pieces of furniture, the next step was to place the rugs.  According to "Cozy Minimalism", it's a common mistake to have rugs that are too small, but our main rug is plenty big for the furniture and the room, and it seems like it was made to be there--in the Eighties!

I had to layer rugs a bit, where some edges are getting worn, and I had to do a few small repairs to the lacing of the braided rug that is in front of the door to the back yard.  Not surprising, since that rug spent most of last winter hanging outdoors, while I tried to figure out how to get Cheerio Vomit Glue off it.  Wool really is rot-resistant; that's why the sheep aren't naked until they are sheared.

Anyway, repairing a braided rug is MUCH less laborious and tedious than making one is, so it is almost always worth doing.  With occasional maintenance, they can last a very long time.

The rugs also needed some spot-cleaning, which only took a few minutes.

Another thing I did was to get over to the Habitat to Humanity ReStore.  After two or three searches, I finally found a piece of crown molding to replace the bit that was missing in my living room; different color, but same profile (shape).  There's a lamp right under that spot that lights it right up, and it has been a definite eyesore ever since we moved in.

While I was there, I looked over their furniture section, to see which pieces had "presence"; most of them didn't, and the few that did were chairs that didn't look sturdy enough for my household.

When I got home, I was able to get the crown molding cut and put up, with some work. The problem was in measuring it accurately enough, with a bendy tape measure and a somewhat uneven wall surface. Cutting accurately was no problem; a few months ago the heirs of some old guy were happy to unload his very nice miter box and saw on us, for only $20.  But even a simple miter box would do.  You do have to account for the width of the cut that the saw makes.

With the molding piece up, it looks much better now. I might faux paint it later on, to match the rest of the crown molding, but I don't have all the paint colors that I would need for that yet.

A good start

I'm gone back to the practice of writing three pages by hand each morning--the "morning pages" from The Artist's Way, by Julia Cameron. It is a very helpful practice, on a number of levels:

Emptying my brain of thoughts that it just wants a chance to say

Capturing the tasks that need to be done, and getting them on my to-do list

Stopping other activities long enough to get the perspective to determine which of those tasks I should actually do, and which I need not do, or really shouldn't

Processing incomplete thinking, and harvesting and recording the conclusions

Loving myself by actually listening to myself; which is a prerequisite to loving others

Connecting to the Spirit of God, and listening to what He has to say



With those things done, it is then easier to focus my efforts on getting things done, both practically and creatively.
   

Furniture re-arranging

The next step in my living room was to get the main pieces of furniture arranged. The largest is our couch, and it does have a certain amount of presence or style to it--which is important in the Cozy Minimalist method.

We've always had the couch against the longest wall, but it is the darkest place in the room, and that placement doesn't work well for either everyday life or for parties. One of my goals was to have a more focused seating area for conversation, so I moved the couch away from the wall and toward the main focal point in the room, the fireplace, and toward the brightest lamp in the room.

With the addition of two armchairs, voila, a place to read or converse!

Right away, I started using both the couch and the chairs a lot more. I discovered that having the couch away from the wall means that I can get the toys out from under it by just shoving them through...which is wonderfully easy compared to how it was before.

I left the computer table where it was, but neatened it a bit.

We still have our Christmas tree up, so I have been working around it, but it is a thing that we have every year, so I need to include it in my planning for this room.

For the smaller furniture, mostly bookshelves, I experimented with putting them in different locations, but they ended up where they were before.

Our little stump table went by one of the armchairs.

The coffee table is behind the couch now.  It is too big and too rectangular to go in the conversation area, so I am planning on making a sort of round ottoman to go in that spot. The couch being out in the middle of the room acts as almost a room divider, creating two distinct areas; the room is long--and almost twice the size of our previous house's living room.

Six approaches for dealing with Too Much Beige

The Cozy Minimalist method gave me the assignment of going to Pinterest to collect inspiration. I have some issues with Pinterest, but I did it, and I found some repeating themes in the rooms I liked.

Those themes, though, didn't readily transfer to the room that I have to work with, so I went back a second time, and searched for specific solutions to its specific decorating problems:  way too much beige, and way too much 1980s.

Possible solutions for the beige:

1.  Bury it under paint or Stuff.

2.  Use white for almost everything else in the room.

3.  Use neutrals for the rest of the room, and use a variety of textures and patterns to add interest.

4.  Treat the beige as a pastel, and use a lot of other pastels in the room.

5.  Think of the beige as some kind of coffee or chocolate flavor, and use other food-related browns for the rest of the room.

6.  Treat the beige as a neutral background, for "pops" of color, or art, or high-quality furniture to stand out against.


These can for the most part be combined; in my living room, I am burying most of the beige carpet under rugs, and treating the dark beige walls as a backdrop for art, furniture, and colorful textiles.

I can't do the second option; far too much unpainted woodwork and wood furniture. Number 5 would give me a depressingly brown room.

As for the heavy 1980s vibe, including the black-and-brass fireplace front, I am just living with it, but I'm trying to incorporate a few newer and more modern things into the room.

Cozifying

I've been working through some of the Creating a Cozy Life printables from Sallie Borrink. The worksheets are especially helpful. She has written them so that you can quickly get to the heart of your challenges, and then start generating creative solutions. She also has calendars and pages of household reminders, in pretty designs. She's a very encouraging person, and she is always finding interesting ideas.

I've also been working through Myquillyn Smith's new book, Cozy Minimalist Home:  More Style, Less Stuff, in our living room. The book is good, although I am wondering about a couple of the editorial decisions. Anyway, she has a whole method to it, starting with "quieting" the room by taking out all but the most basic furniture, and then living with it for a few days, to let the room "speak" to you.

In our previous house, I would not have been able to do this; there simply wasn't any spare space. Everything necessary was there, but nothing extra. In this house, though, we have a lot of "swap space".

What my living room said was that it needed a lot of little repairs--which I have mostly completed now. The other thing that came out of it for me was a feeling of despair--this is the BEIGE-EST ROOM EVER, in a long series of rentals, and for me, it's the color of never yet being able to buy a house, and to paint the rooms with actual, real colors of my own choosing.

But God has provided this rental house for us to live in, so I'll do the best I can here.

I have some strategies for dealing with excessive beige that I'll share later this week.

Burnout need not be permanent

My response to this article on Millennial burnout:

Try taking a regular Sabbath. And think about taking some sort of sabbatical; a working sabbatical if need be. (I have a book on that.)

What they'll give you is a chance to step back, gain perspective, and rest, which will at least help you to make better choices with your time, and to be more efficient in the things that you do choose to do. But even better, they can give you a chance to become acquainted and connected with your Creator. These things are especially important for those who have little margin for error in their lives.

I should take my own advice today, and take a break from working on my living room.

Books, books, books

Most of my Christmas money this year has gone to books; books are still one of the very best micro-investments, if chosen carefully.

What I look for in a book that is to be an investment, rather than merely entertainment, is whether it can do one of the following:

1.  Help me learn to do something useful, or...

2.  Help me avoid making an expensive mistake.

A book that can help me in one of those ways can yield returns far beyond the initial cost. In some cases, the real value of a book exceeds the value of its weight in gold.

I've been reading the Bible aloud to one of my children, and I've noticed how the vocabulary, history, psychology, and ideas in it are an education all in themselves. The world is becoming not only post-Biblical, but post-biblical, but some things are getting lost in the transition.

Ready for a change

Now that the holiday gauntlet has been run, I am ready to get back to more intentionally working on my home.

I did an analysis of our dining room, and its table.  The table is rectangular, homemade, and narrow--the top was originally a homemade door, not made by me. It seats ten at the very most.

The space we have for it is eight feet by nine feet, off the end of our kitchen. If our children were out of their spilling years, I would consider moving our main eating area to the front living room, which is much larger.

When we have company for dinner, we have an extra table of the same height and width, that we can place against one end, out into our living room. It adds two or three more seats to the table.

The first thing I looked at, in thinking about how the table works, was to look up the dimensions of tables that were a bit bigger, and compare both area and perimeter.  Area determines how many things you can put on the table; perimeter determines how many people can sit at it.

We can't really have a longer table in the space we have there. I looked at wider tables, but I realized that the additional perimeter would not be enough to actually provide us with any additional seating; we're better off just bringing out the auxiliary table when we need it.

I also thought a bit about a circular table, but our family would fill it, and there would not be a way to easily accomodate guests.

So I ended up right where I started, keeping our current table.

Later I experimented with turning it the other way in the room. The problem there is that a major traffic path runs through the room. I discovered that the table and chairs took up exactly the same width of the room either way, but the perception of width was greater when the table was squeezing the traffic lane, rather than the baby's high chair. And although moving the table would give better long views to those sitting at the table, it wasn't really worth it.

I am also working heavily on our living room now, and it seemed best to limit the areas of discombobulation for the time being.  As much as possible, anyway; making changes always seems to have a ripple effect and provoke further changes.