The Joy of Re-Use

We've lived in the home we own for just over a year now, and I have to say, owning a home is both more amazing and more annoying than I originally thought.

It's amazing because I get to truly settle in a place, plant bulbs for the spring, make a home for some hops (which take a few years to fruit well), maybe even grow some fruit trees.

But it's annoying in the way that everything takes longer than you think it will to shnazz up, finish, decorate, etc. We've lived here a year and three bedrooms still have no curtains in them. Two have only single pieces of furniture. It takes a lot of work to go from dwelling a single bedroom apartment to a 4 bedroom, 4 story house. That's a huge furniture-to-space ratio change.

But one of the simplest designing joys is finding, suddenly!, that you will be able to re-use or re-purpose something that you found or that you already had. This week I found out my family was coming for Thanksgiving.  I suddenly knew I really, really wanted to hang up curtains and wall hangings in the rooms I have left abandoned before they arrived in three weeks.

Ugh. With my unemployment I worried about this cost. But then, as I was wondering the house, I found a bag of curtains a friend had thrust at us when we moved, hoping we could use them.  JOY! All but one room is handled. I can even do the basement and attic windows, which will just make everything look so finished from the outside.

Today, as I was saging the house, I had some time to really think about each piece of furniture as I passed it. Couch from a friend, chair I bought and have had to recover twice, coffee table Mark made. All have their own personalities and histories. I was grateful, in a new way, for each one.  I love each and every one.

Rent-A-Center and things like that may make furniture "easy" for people on smaller incomes, but relying on re-use, re-purpose, re-gifted furnishing lends a home-y personality to each room. Each corner feels like the result of hard work and careful thought, and the same way a meal can taste like love, my living room cozies like love.