Friday, January 28, 2011

I Resolve...

I know, I know…it has been forever since I last posted.  I run around in my day-to-day life with oodles of post ideas running through my head.  And when I have a moment to stop and write, instead of writing I crash.  Or veg and stare at the TV pretending to watch the awful nothingness that is daytime TV.  Or, most often, I read everyone else's blogs without contributing to my own.  So…long overdue…here is my resolution for my home for the New Year.

I want a more functional space to live in.

My home is a bit deceiving.  We have only lived in this house for a little over a year and a half, so we have not yet exceeded our storage.  This means that when I have all my lovely friends over, I can easily pick up the clutter and stash it somewhere.  However, since we have moved in I have never taken the time to organize our space so that we can get the most use out of it.  When we moved in we were concerned with painting over the sand-colored walls and ceilings, choosing new light fixtures, and generally making this house our own.  When it came to unpacking we used the divide and conquer method.  This means that neither one of use knows where 100% of our things are.  And this means that I have a pair of lime green pajama bottoms from Victoria's Secret that I have not seen since April 2009.

Here is how all this translates.


I have a pretty kitchen.  I'm not gonna lie...when we were house hunting this was the 87,000th house we looked at (well it felt that way) and there were only 4 pictures of the house on the MLS listing.  One of the front door, one of the backyard, one of the previous owner's sideboard table in the dining room, and one of the kitchen...taken from about this same spot.  The first three I yawned through (ugly green front door, backyard and furniture pictures when I wanted to see house pictures).  It was this 4th photo that made me tell the hubster that we needed to see this house. 

But what looks pretty on the outside isn't very pretty or functional on the inside.






I'm five feet tall and 1/2 of an inch.  I cannot reach these cookbooks unless I'm on my tippy toes.  And when I was massively pregnant, I couldn't get close enough to the counter to reach them at all.  I need a better place for these since I love to cook and use these books all. the. time.


My spice cabinet.  Again, I can't reach the top shelf, and truth be told, I can barely reach the middle shelf.  The cabinet goes all the way back in the corner, and while we have those two little lazy susans, we need a better solution.  That is, unless my hubby wants to spend the rest of his life coming to see if he can see/reach such-and-such spice which has gotten pushed to the back of the dark abyss.





Last but not least, we have one of these.  You know what this is.  This is the drawer you go to when you are pulling your hair out because you can't find what you need.  Surely it got thrown in here.  Only you open the drawer and want to cry because no matter how much you ransack the drawer, you aren't going to find what you're looking for...even if it really is in there.  I hate these kind of drawers.  My hubby loves these kind of drawers.  These kind of drawers get created when he cleans the house.  We have a conflict of ideology.  If I could convert him I would be in heaven.

All this is just one room.  The same story can be told in just about every room in my house.  But it would be too daunting to re-organize all the rooms at the same time.  So I have chosen the kitchen as a place to get the organizational ball rolling.

Let's face it.  Organizing rooms so they work for you is not the most thrilling part of creating a home.  The paint, floors, furniture, and decor are really the fun part.  But focusing only on how a space looks without considering how that space functions is a shallow approach to design.  It's not satisfying to do the day to day mundane tasks in rooms that don't function well.  It's even frustrating at times and keeps you from wanting to do the tasks you need to do to make your house run.  Hopefully, upping the functionality factor in our house will give me a home that I love to live in, not just a home I love to look at.

2 comments:

  1. Hey Judith! I didn't know you had a blog!! I am so excited to see all the updates and pictures. What an adorable family you have. :o)

    ReplyDelete