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.