Red, blue, green

One of my unfortunate diversions is visiting design porn sites like Apartment Therapy and Design Sponge, sites that show beautiful photos of rooms and make you want to buy stuff. Or renovate, as they are big on DIY and share some inspiring techniques.

But lately I've realized that beautiful rooms are more about carefully selected and well arranged items. So I looked around my house and starting thinking not about what I could buy, but what I could do with what I had.

I started with the guest room—my favorite room. It’s sort of “my” room, my de-facto crafty project area, my place to nap and curl up with the cats (Husband has his “man-nook” in the basement). But it’s also our most eclectic room, with lots of random, free furniture and multiple purposes.

A critical eye found much to criticize: a slapdash of colors (I know that blue pillow doesn’t go, but I’ve stubbornly refused to care); dead plants (I’m no feng shui expert, but even I can tell that dead things send a bad vibe), and things that I want to use but don’t have a place for.

Red, green, blue, in a room with pale yellow walls. Yuck! The blue has to go!

I collected the offending items and removed them from the room (and took the dying plant to rehab, aka my office, where they are free from the snapping jaws of cats).

Then, I made a collection of things that I had sitting around unused that I could add to play up the palette, and gave the room a thorough clean.

While it’s no radical transformation, it’s definitely more harmonious (my before-and-after photos didn't turn out, so you'll have to use your imagination). It also made clear what the room does need: a new bedside table, which also would allow us to rearrange the room to better suit the space.

But for now, the room gives me a wonderful sense of peace and harmony.