Category: Random Musings

Wow. The week sped by. As usual. I’m surprised >>not really<< that I didn’t manage a blog post this week! I puttered around from room to room on Monday, spring weather making me feel the need for change, trying to figure out where to start, knowing I had to straighten up first and basically doing nothing. Tuesday and Wednesday, we worked on the next estate sale, and I don’t have a clue I did the rest of the week!

(The picture above is my attempt at a no color room.)

I touched on the subject of all white/neutral decorating last week. How I think I’d like to do that, but can’t seem to stick to a no-color color scheme. Well, this week I took the time  to cruise through some bloggers’ spring home tours. (Hey! That’s what I did Thursday!)

The houses were beautiful. No argument from me there. They were carefully planned, perfectly coiffed, and oh, so pretty. My house doesn’t even come close to measuring up to those standards. These homeowners have put time and thought into their decor and did an excellent job. Plus, they cleaned them up, took professional looking pictures for us to enjoy and get inspired! So please know I’m not criticizing here, especially not any single home. But house after house after house was white, white, white, gray, white, gray, white and gray – Oh! There’s some black! — white, white, white…. Seeing them one after the other like that…. Well, I think I’m over wanting that look. Seeing one at a time would have been much easier on the eyes – my Pinterest feed has a lot of all white decor – but seeing them all together, I thought I’d go blind. 🙁 No one’s house stood out. Nothing seemed different. Okay. Each home was different. It just didn’t feel that way. Until home with color slipped in there. 

Ahh… I had to stop and take a closer look. Color drew me in, making me want to see more and deeper into the room. What’s on that table? What do I see peeking out of that corner? Wonder what’s in the next room? Where did they find that fabulous sofa? There was substance to focus on. Focus might be the keyword here. With the white, my eyes just skimmed the rooms, not focusing on any one thing.

I wonder how much longer all white/neutral will be the in thing to do? Will those of us, and I undeservedly flatter myself by using the word “us”, who break away from the mold and use full blown color be the next trend setters? Will our houses be the ones people love to look at? Or will white/neutral be here for a few more years before people start craving color? Does lack of color give a sense of peace in a chaotic world? White/neutral is classic and it’s easy to use pops of color. It’s easier to color up white than to de-color color. Huh? Did that make any sense? I don’t know. But I did come to the conclusion that we should do our own thing. Especially bloggers. We shouldn’t try to make our homes what we think people want to see. We should be true to ourselves. If we love all white, then make it great. Make it different. If we love color, then do it. There will be other people out there who love what we do. The hardest thing about that, for me at least, is figuring out what we love the most and to stick with it.  

Having said all that, I do think I want to use a more neutral wall color when I repaint — if that happens in my lifetime. Ha! As it is now, we have three totally different greens in our house. If something looks good in one of the green rooms, it doesn’t look good in another. I would love to be able to move accessories from room to room or totally change the color scheme without the need to repaint. 

So, what about you? Are you a white/neutral decor lover or do you prefer color? Do you see yourself changing over time? Do you love color or do you lack confidence when it comes to color? 

Side note: I published this, then opened my email to find the newsletter from Cedar Hill Farmhouse and she’s talking about decorating trends! She says it all so much better than I did. See here post here > Which Design Trends To Avoid. No, she’s not telling you to avoid white or colors. She’s saying to be true to yourself, just in a more eloquent way with prettier pictures. 🙂

Follow Wanda @ Just Vintage’s board Pretty Home Decor & Vignettes on Pinterest.

Hi! How are you? How was your week? How was Easter? Gorgeous or not so much? Did you spend it in worship? Were you with family or friends? Did you eat too much? What’s new with you?

I’ve been thinking how much I miss the days of being off on weekends, visiting parents and grandparents or friends or other relatives on Sunday afternoons. Sitting on the porch in the spring and fall and often in the summer if they didn’t have air conditioning. I long for those days again. But it’s not our life at the moment. We work all the time. Our life is “don’t work, don’t eat.” That kinda happens when you’re depending on the money from your own tiny business to pay the bills. At least one that doesn’t have employees to take up some of the slack. We think if we could ever get ahead and stay ahead, we could more easily take some time off, but every time we think that’s about to happen, life throws us a sucker punch. 

Anyway, chatting here seemed like a nice idea. I don’t know if anyone is reading or interested, but if you are, let me know you’re there!

What’s new with me? Pretty much same ol’, same ol’. Still in a mess at the house, but it’s slowly and gradually getting better. I keep hammering away at Etsy, but with all their new changes, I fear they’ll eventually go the way eBay did and be not as seller friendly. So I’m amping up the blog shop here as well. Always have a Plan B. And, well, with my independent streak, I’d rather sell on my own than through a third party.

Our son and granddaughter Sophie visited for a couple of days during their spring break. A couple of days is never enough. I so wish they lived a whole lot closer than 700 miles! Granddaughter Dani, who is only 75 miles away, came up and stayed while they were here, too. Dani and Sophie are a tad over two months apart in age. Dani just turned 3 years old. Sophie’s birthday is the first part of June. Such a fun age. They had a blast playing together. My heart bursts watching them. It was sad to see them all go back home. 

Have I mentioned we’ve rented my old shop building again? It really made me want to reopen the shop, but I keep reminding myself that as much as I loved the shop, I don’t like being tied down. Ricky will use it to expand his woodworking shop, get the mess he’d bring home to work on away from here – YAY! – and the front room of the shop will be his showroom, so I’ll still get to play around in it a little. 

Getting the shop meant we could empty out another storage unit. We only have one left and plan to have it emptied this month. Wait. There are only 4 days left to do that?! Ack! But we are planning a yard sale for the second weekend in April. Hoping to get rid of a another mess o’ stuff.

Oh! Check out my interview over on Vintage Etsy Society’s blog! I feel like such a grown-up, giving an interview. 😀

Tell me, do you love the all white and neutral rooms? Those rooms grab me on Pinterest every time. The over exposed pictures of a white sofa against a white wall with a tin bucket filled with lavender on a chippy white table…. That kind of room. I think I want that. But I don’t think I can. It’s really hard to stick to white or off white, or no color! I’ve tried to do a small, all white room, but before I knew it, color has sneaked its way in. Still, having white-ish walls would be nice. That way I could move accessories around from room to room easier. We haven’t painted in 10 years. I’m really tired of the wall colors in the house. (They don’t photograph well, either.) Spring gives me the change-up fever, but there’s that time thing again. It’s probably not gonna happen again this year. So I guess I’ll just continue to live vicariously through Pinterest and blogs and friends. And maybe putter around with a bit of rearranging as time permits. I do have a couple of small projects waiting to happen, hopefully in the next few days.

So tell me what you’ve been up to!

Good to see ya! Glad you stopped by! Til the next visit,

Love ya,

Wanda