Lived In…

I like houses that have been turned into homes by years of wear and tear and clutter. I like that feeling of something being lived-in, but still taken care of.  What I love more than that is a house that has been lived in and taken care of by a woman.

I currently have snowman sheets on my bed. They are flannel and I keep them freshly washed in Lavender Vanilla soap and dryer sheets. They smell amazing, but they never compare to the sheets at the Bruner’s house or the Miller’s or my mom’s house. Those sheets always seem to smell like an angel washed them with a fragance you can’t buy at a store – love.

Recently I stayed at the McWhinney’s home in Holly Lake Ranch and even though there house was relatively new to them, it had all the elements of a home. There is something about the combined efforts of a man and a woman that seem to make a place special. There’s normally a balance of masculine and feminine and even if it borders on the feminine side I think that most men find that welcoming.

My house is a bachelor pad. I have minimal furniture, no family photos grace my walls, the countertops are barren in the kitchen. It’s exactly like I want it.

Right now my bedroom walls are painted with multiple swatches of color. I’ve got multiple projects going all at once and I’m finally getting the need to do things exactly my way out of my system. I love my home, but now I’m willing to give someone else a shot at picking the wall colors of my bedroom. I could use some help in narrowing down what type of flooring I want in the living room and what color of cabinets to put in the kitchen.

All of this is not saying that I’m ready to be married, but if I do get married, I’d now be ready to let someone come in and have their way with my space and that was something I wasn’t ready to let go of a few months ago. I needed this time to explore my ideas and to let loose with my creativity. Now I’m exhausted by the options and the futility of my efforts and I’m willing to admit that I’m not as good at this as I always thought I was.

So one day, I hope that this home and all the houses I have after this one, will have that “Lived-In” feeling where when people walk in the door they realize that this is where people live.  People who fight and cook and clean and love. Where people have friends stay over on clean sheets and when we say goodnight after a party our friends won’t want to leave.