And how I got to where I am today with interior designing
After I posted the home tour, I started thinking about what I wanted to post next. A few ideas came to my mind, but I thought it would be more fitting for my next post to be on how I got started decorating our homes and why I have come to love it so much.
Let’s rewind to 2015. My husband and I haven’t even been married a year and we were living in Maine for only a couple of months. I had just become friends with another Coast Guard wife and her family. Her husband worked on the same boat that mine did and they set us up together. It turns out she has been one of my dearest friends to date and I miss living close to her everyday. Her home was/is still beautiful. She has this unique style of vintage and farmhouse decor that she uses throughout her home. I honestly loved every time that I went over to hang out at her home. It was always so inviting with her decor, not to mention she always had coffee to offer. She was truly the first one that got me hooked on home decor and started my love for Fixer Upper. After visiting her house a couple of times, and when my husband was gone for two months, I decided to make a run to Hobby Lobby and buy some things for our empty apartment. I should mention that it wasn’t until 6 months after we moved in that I unpacked all of our things, oops. I will mention that I now have it down to a 4 day unpack and decorate time frame. Once my husband came back from his deployment, he was surprised, but he told me he loved it. From that point on, I just dove head first into the world of interior design.
At the start I really got into hand lettering on chalkboards and was all about having a cute coffee station. Let’s be honest, I’m still all about having a cute coffee station, but I don’t have the space to make that true in this house. I also did my very first DIY wreath in Maine and I absolutely loved it! I unfortunately had to retire it last year, but it still remains my favorite. My husband also started getting into wood working while we lived in Maine and he created a small table and bench out of pallet wood. We have since upgraded to wood from Home Depot. We also refinished an antique dresser and I love it so much. During our time in Maine I always just copied DIY tutorials word for word. I never really put my own spin on my decor. I just went for it without thinking about what I wanted for our home.
When we moved to California I really got into hand lettering different things. I still loved lettering in chalk, but I also created cards for my cousin’s wedding and I lettered signs that my husband built for a dear friend’s wedding that ended up lining the aisle. We also created a couple of DIY builds there like a wine rack and a flower holder. This is where I sort of branched out and experimented with adding my own style. It wasn’t perfect, but I did start forming my own ideas and started copying less and less.
Once we moved up to Washington, we built a huge farmhouse table. It seated 8 people and it was our pride and joy. We eventually gave it to a friend a few months before we moved out to Connecticut. Not long after we moved to Washington I got pregnant and we were expecting our first son. We went right to work on building a crib. We also refinished a big dresser for ourselves, and updated our original refinished dresser to be the changing table/dresser.
We moved once more in Washington to be closer to my husband’s work and church. I noticed my decorating started to look more cohesive. At the beginning I was all about just wanting to fill our big to us apartment after living in a tiny one. I had no idea on how to make a cohesive space and just bought everything that I liked the look of. I don’t think that’s wrong by any means, but I did find myself growing out of some of the things that I had purchased before. Instead of just buying things on impulse now, I really take my time to think about what I want. One of the reasons I love our house now is that I was forced to really think about how I wanted to decorate it. We waited almost a month to get our things into our home and in that month I went through each room and wrote down what I really wanted for that space. I still don’t have everything that I would want in some of the rooms, but I am okay with that. It takes time to curate your specific style and how you want it to be perceived in your home. During our time in Washington, I really came into having my own style with how I decorated our homes. When we were expecting our first son, all of the ideas started floating around when we were preparing to decorate his nursery. I felt like my design style started showing up pretty strong. I started buying more intentionally than just willy nilly. I also think decluttering my home like Marie Kondo really helped curate my taste in decor. I donated/gave away things that I truly didn’t enjoy.
Now here we are in our present home in Connecticut. I’m still not perfect in designing - I have decor that I haven’t put up and it’s hiding away in a closet. But I feel like I have curated a good balance for home, design wise. I’m always changing my style though, and when the time comes, and when finances are more available, there will be upgrades to things. For now, I am really happy about our home and continue to enjoy it.
I am so grateful for my dear friend in Maine who opened my eyes to home design. I am still, to this day, inspired by her beautiful home that she has created. I hope this peak into how I came into my design style showed you that it’s okay to be always changing and growing into your own design style. It takes trial and error and time. I want to say, it’s perfectly okay to slowly replace things that don’t reflect your style if you can’t do it all at once. Just know you will get to a place where you love your home and I will help you get there.
Thank you for reading!
With love,
Brittany