You understand the value of investing your time and energy into creating a home. I know you do, otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this right now!

But you probably have some hang ups, right? A mental list of reasons why you aren’t prioritizing these projects right now.

A lot of clients tell me they are just saving up ideas for “someday” because they are “just” renting, or they are planning to move soon.

You may think that you should wait until you get that bigger apartment or finally buy your own home to start focusing on improving your living environment. But you couldn’t be more wrong!

The journey to creating a home for yourself is a path that directly parallels the road to personal growth and self-discovery. The more you become conscious of your likes and dislikes, emotional needs, and goals for how you want to live your life, the better your home will become.

Why? When you know yourself well you can actively use that knowledge to build an environment that supports your growth and well-being.

Every home journey is different (no two are the same!).

In this post, I’m going to share some reflections on my own path. I’ll share some thoughts on personal growth, creativity, and the evolution of the living spaces that have sheltered me both physically and spiritually over the years.

I love getting a glimpse inside people’s lives – whether it’s touring an open house or watching a video about someone’s morning routine… it’s fun to hear people’s stories! So I thought maybe someone out there would enjoy hearing my story.

While your path might be very different, there’s a good chance you will recognize some pieces of yourself in my story and I hope that hearing my experiences will help you begin to think about how the places you live will shape the person you become.

Creating a Home-wherever i Go

This roadmap illustrates key milestones, in case you want to take a peek at where we’re going.

Room To Experiment

Most children don’t have a lot of space to call their own. A room (or a corner of a room) is their domain- and I was no exception. I shared a room with my little sister until third grade, when we moved into a new house and I got my very own room- in the basement!

We didn’t get new furniture often, so I will never forget how special it felt when I got to pick out a shiny new daybed and a pastel floral quilt with a lace ruffle. It took me awhile to adjust to sleeping alone, but once I did… there was no looking back. I LOVED having my own space away from it all to read, arrange my collections, and simply retreat from the world at will (shoutout to my fellow Enneagram 5 friends!).

A few years later my parents opened Pandora’s box by allowing me to move to an even BIGGER room and decorate it however I wanted.

It was the 90’s (and I was in 7th grade)… so what I wanted was something BOLD. I opted for a tri-color sponge painting technique (which I tackled myself at age 13, thank you very much!).

The design featured a different color on each wall- cerulean, magenta, purple, and teal. I had white wicker furniture (still obsessed) and a dining table that moonlighted as a large desk/tv stand. Glow-in-the-dark stars hung from the ceiling and I drew little designs with luminescent paint so it felt like I was looking at the night sky when I crawled in bed each night.

I like to remember these years to remind myself that creating a home doesn’t require an actual home at all- a “home” can be made anywhere! Also… design can be FUN when you treat it with childlike playfulness and don’t worry too much about the “rules”.

Thanks mom +Dad!

Looking back I am in awe of how my parents supported me in creating these spaces that I loved.

Certainly, my design concepts did not go with anything else in our house. I’m sure they weren’t thrilled about unleashing a kid with several pints of dark paint or about paying the painter to cover it up with several coats of primer a few years later when I inevitably tired of it and begged them to let me redecorate again.

But they did it. And I am so grateful for the freedom they gave me to explore.

Certainly, in having this laboratory and license to experiment within it, I discovered the joy I found in creating spaces.

• I learned how to place furniture, often experimenting with different layouts and ways to repurpose furnishings for different functionality.
• I willingly spent Saturday nights organizing my drawers and vacuuming my floors because I took pride in this space that was mine and reflected my goals, dreams, and desires. New school year? I was preparing my desk area with new pens, paperclips, and erasers. In a poetry phase? I was stacking Whitman and Ginsberg on my nightstand along with my journal and a pen.

Most importantly, I learned how good it feels to have a space that welcomed me home. A safe place to pull me in after a hard day, and a quiet place where I could dream.

I had control over everything in this space from the colors to the scent of the candles I burned- and although the time eventually came for me to move out and move on- these lessons I learned in my childhood bedroom will stay with me forever.

Temporary Quarters

After all the stability and comfort of my childhood, the constant changes I experienced in college were an entirely different experience.

From age 18- 24 I moved SIX times. Each year brought a new living environment, which allowed me to express my style and adaptability as I was creating a home in smaller spaces.

• Primary-colored dorm room featuring a cherry-motif and a black and white Audrey Hepburn poster (so classy).
• Urban-Outfitters inspired apartment that, looking back, slightly resembled a prison cell. Had a tapestry as a bedspread and some nightstands I stole from my parents’ house.
• Slightly nicer shared apartment featuring a futon I also stole from my parents’ house as a sofa- and my first major furniture purchase- a glass-topped metal and rattan dining table from Pier 1 with 4 matching chairs. I’d still use it if I had it TBH.
• Ground-level one-bedroom apartment that was truly MINE. Started frequenting World Market for decor and collecting Williams-Sonoma cooking instruments that were way too nice for my actual cooking skills. This was how I spent my leftover money on payday. I loved creating a little home for myself and my puppy!
• Temporarily moved into a house on our family farm that was 3 bedrooms and way too big for how much furniture I owned. It felt kind of scary living in there alone, so I opted to not use the back half of the house at all and set up my bedroom in the office at the front of the house instead. See, learning to make my space work FOR me! I won a totally unexpected cash award for my high GPA at CU (who says having good grades doesn’t pay off?)… and splashed out on a couch and chair set from American Furniture Warehouse. No more futon!
• Finally came full-circle and moved back in with my parents while I attended grad school. All my stuff went into storage and I slept in their guest bedroom while I attended classes and completed my student teaching. This was probably the last time I abstained from decorating for a whole year- but I didn’t mind because I was so grateful to have a free place to stay while I finished up school.

Newlyweds!

After college, I moved out of my parents’ house and rented a cute yellow townhouse that was close to my new teaching job and, interestingly, right next to the school where my husband and I met. After we got married, we set up our first home together here. Since we were so young we didn’t have to “blend our styles” too much- we simply made things work with the hand-me downs our families gave us and the affordable pieces we’d collected during college.

When we got married, we acquired more housewares as gifts, and most of them are items we still use and love today. Lamps, entertaining items, even my favorite salt and pepper shakers!

Since we were renting, I couldn’t make any major cosmetic changes. But this was the place where I learned to take care of a home – cooking for two, cleaning, and organizing. The small size and minimal yard work made it a perfect place to start!

I will always have fond memories of our short time creating a home in that little rental. While I do remember feeling like I was in a hurry to buy a house, I felt cozy and happy with the space we had in the short time we were there.

Becoming A Homeowner

This next significant step came quickly, when we purchased our first home.

It was a saltbox style home in our favorite color (blue!) and was tucked on a great corner lot across the street from a park. The neighborhood was great for walking our dog and the house was the perfect blank slate.

I (finally!) got to break out the paintbrush and add some color to the walls – greens and blues of course! – and our little back patio was perfect for learning to grow a few potted plants each summer. I got to bring more of my creativity into creating a home here and my design style was heavily influenced by the Pottery Barn catalogues and Cottage Living issues I poured over each month.

The house was a significant investment for us at the time, so making major updates wasn’t really on my radar. I felt blessed to come home to this space each day! Enjoyment came from styling, finding new arrangements for the furnishings we already owned, and simply enjoying the sunlight filled space.

Looking back, this was a house where I felt very content. I enjoyed everything about the years we spent here. I think the simplicity of this space and time was what I cherish most about the time we lived here. To this day, this is still one of the things I value most in a home.

A Fixer Upper

Although we were perfectly happy with our living situation, sometimes life has other plans. And that was the case for our family.

I was six months pregnant. We were sitting on the couch one lazy Spring afternoon when we got a call, “There’s a house for sale and you need to go check it out.”

The house in question was a house on a lake- which was on our long-term dream house plan. And not just any lake; the property was right next door to the lakehouse my husband had grown up enjoying as a kid.

When we walked through I immediately saw the potential- it was an architect- designed custom house with tons of amazing features:

• Metal spiral staircases
• Sunroom off the bedroom (which included the master bedroom- the ceiling over the tub and shower was entirely made of glass!)
• Sunken living room with a wall of windows facing the mountains
• Enormous moss-rock fireplace
• A large, separate laundry room
• Cool brick floors
• A cedar shingle roof

There were also some features I wasn’t crazy about:

• A dated brown kitchen
• Orange shag carpet
• Heavy brown paneling
• All bathrooms in need of an overhaul

Long story short, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to move into a lake house. I spent the later months of my pregnancy cleaning and prepping the house, and we moved in just before we welcomed our first baby.

You could say I had HGTV dreams, but a limited renovation budget.

So we did the bare minimum. First we updated the electrical (not fun, but necessary). We removed a few upper cabinets and upper cabinet doors to open up the kitchen. We also hired a painter to paint the wall paneling and cabinets white (we left the dark trim alone), and we replaced the carpet and kitchen backsplash.

As time went on I did a lot of further improvements myself- lots of painting, adding window treatments, even a diy-countertop resurfacing (lesson learned, would NOT recommend). I worked so hard at creating a home for our young family during that time.

The house, the view, and the neighbors were wonderful; over the 7 years we lived there, I learned so much about myself and what I wanted and needed from a home.

But if I’m going to be totally honest, I struggled to be happy in this house. It was an older home and on top of learning the ropes of parenthood, we were also learning the ins and outs of home maintenance.

Our previous house hadn’t required much more than basic cleaning and yardwork. Here, there was always a broken sprinkler head to fix on the large lawn. More than a few bats took up residence in the eaves. The beautiful Austrian Pines in the front driveway deposited TONS of heavy, prickly needles that needed to be raked each Fall, and the steep driveway was absolutely treacherous to navigate on icy days when it was time to roll the bin up to the curb for trash collection.

The simplicity and ease I felt in our previous home was gone- I often felt frustrated by the never ending chores and my inability to make the cosmetic changes I wanted to make.

Looking back I wonder whether this dissatisfaction was really about the house or if it was more of a reflection of my poor mental health. Making the transition from working to stay-at-home mom and fighting post-partum depression was a hard chapter for me personally and I think sometimes I blamed the house to make myself feel better.

Sometimes I’m ashamed at my lack of gratitude in that season. Why did I focus so much on the things I couldn’t change? I got to live in a lakehouse with a view of the mountains, for goodness sake! It was a wonderful place for our kids to live and we made so many great memories living there! But it’s how I felt…and as I get older I realize it’s important to be honest about these things. Someone else might be feeling this way too and if so I want them to understand that it’s ok. And it will eventually pass.

From a growth perspective, that house taught me a lot about design elements that I loved (casement windows and t&g porch ceilings and walls of bookshelves!)- and it also helped me clarify things I did not want (namely, a high-maintenance home). I’m so grateful for the lessons I learned during this period of my life and wouldn’t trade it even though it was sometimes hard.

A Big Disappointment

When the opportunity to sell and build a house from scratch presented itself- I JUMPED at the chance.

We sold the lake house and moved into a small, temporary rental.

I threw myself into creating a home for our future. What would a dream home look like? I started paying attention to small design details and checking out architecture books from the library. I learned to read floorplans and discovered a book called The Not So Big House that really changed the way I thought about the way a home should feel and function.

Next, we found a builder and an architect and began the process of drawing up plans. I researched and looked at floor plans for months. I tweaked things with the architect until I felt like we had created a perfect plan. Unfortunately, it was a plan that would never be built.

I didn’t know what I didn’t know. And I learned a lot of important lessons the hard way.

• I assumed that because the builder referred me to the architect that hiring an architect to create a completely custom floorplan was the best way to go (it wasn’t in our situation).
• Because the builder and architect had a relationship, I assumed that they would be in communication about whether the plans we were developing would be feasible for our budget. Wrong again.
• I had no clue that certain architectural features I loved – like raised decks, for example- have a much higher cost than, say, a ground level patio. No one ever told me that I should scale back or reconsider certain features- they just did what I asked without much comment.
• Naively, I didn’t think to ask how much the architect was charging me hourly. He never mentioned it in the months we worked together and I was so unsophisticated, I truly had no idea what to expect. At the very least, I should have asked him to bill me monthly. Instead, I got a bill that truly shocked me after he delivered the final plans. It literally felt like a punch in the gut when I got that bill; I cried. It was a painful lesson and one I hope no one else ever has to experience.

In the end, after all that excitement and dreaming- we had to throw in the towel. It was clear that this just wasn’t meant to be for us at this time and we needed to come up with another option.

I was heartbroken and totally embarrassed at my failure in leading the project. I felt like I’d let my family down. But I definitely learned a lot even in this failure (the hallmark of a growth mindset!). Moving forward, I prioritized communication about finances and budgets (for myself and my future clients). I learned to ask what the implications of certain ideas might be and most importantly I learned that in future projects, I needed to take an active role rather than assuming others had everything covered.

It was awful, but it was time to let it go and move forward.

DIY RENO

I never thought I’d say yes to an older home again after the lake house, but we went to look at houses and found ourselves purchasing a 1970’s split level ranch.

This time was different than the last one in two main respects:

1. It was a much smaller property and house (i.e. less maintanence).
2. We had some money left over after the purchase to invest in a light cosmetic remodel.

Having a network of friends who work in the trades, I felt comfortable managing the remodel and subcontracting out most of the work myself. As a stay-at-home mom I had the time – and I found out I actually really enjoyed the process!

We replaced the flooring, updated the bathroom surfaces and fixtures, completely replaced the kitchen cabinets/counters, added an island, and replaced the windows. We also painted the exterior and replaced the front door.

I made all the selections myself and even did some of the demo. I painted old cabinets, arranged the installs, and created a whole new concept for how we could make this small space a home for our family of four.

The experience was empowering. I got my hands dirty and worked within the space and budget we had- and succeeded at creating a home that felt like us.

This house was small and simple. There were plenty of things that weren’t perfect. But I gained back the simplicity and contentment I had lost along the way- and continued to grow personally in the process.

At this time, I started dipping my toe in the waters of helping clients (mostly encouraging friends and family) with design and organizing projects of their own.

Forever Home?

Although we loved living in the split-level house, the time came when we felt like we were ready to approach building again. Our land was sitting vacant and I knew if we were going to move again, I wanted to do it soon so that our kids could “grow up” in the new house as much as possible.

Although I could have carried fear from past mistakes with me, I chose instead to trust that the lessons I’d learned since our last attempt had better equipped me to create the right home for our family.

This time, the process was a wonderful experience.

• Instead of designing a home from scratch, we started from a “stock plan” and just made a few tweaks (saving so much time and $$$).
• We were vocal about the budget from the outset, and made sure to take steps along the way to limit design features and architectural elements to those that fit within our budget.
• We saved money by building a ranch house with a finished basement and keeping a modest square footage.
• Our new builder operated on a cost-plus model, which meant he was very transparent about our budget for each category of expenses. This meant I could tell each vendor exactly how much I had to spend at design appointments and make sure that my decisions were within reason.

In the end, we were able to build a home that works so well for our family. Because I was able to design spaces specifically tailored to the activities I knew we wanted to prioritize (bunk beds for cousin sleepovers, a home gym with room to play basketball, and a home office where I could write) our life operates so smoothly here.

It’s hard to imagine living anywhere else. My husband says he’s never moving again and I laugh because I know how unpredictable life can be. But I secretly hope he’s right. I love it here.

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The word “home” has meant so many things throughout my life.

Each move has been more than a mere physical change of address; the transitions also symbolize periods of personal growth, creative discovery, and the ultimate realization that a home is what you make it.

Each step along this path has contributed to my understanding of design, organization, and the importance of crafting a nurturing environment.

I’ve learned that home is a state of mind and that gratitude and contentment go a long way toward loving the way you live in your home.

Which is why I continue to sit down at my computer each week to write and share what I’ve learned with you. There is value in these lessons and discoveries; they matter!

If you want to learn more practical tips for creating a home for yourself, check out the Building A Home section of the blog for practical ideas – these tips were all pulled directly from my personal experiences.

I’m honored to be a part of your journey in creating a home, no matter which phase you’re in.

Thank you for bringing me along.

xoxo,