After living in our home for over four years we finally put up some curtains in our living room. When we first moved in there were some stylish peach vertical blinds and we just loved them so much we didn’t bother taking them down.
Peach + Vertical Blinds = Raunchiest Window Treatments In The History Of Such.
It’s a little embarrassing that it took us nearly half a decade to hang some curtains. And it’s a LOT embarrassing (grammar rocks!) that the crusty, floral 70’s wallpaper in the spare bedroom in the dungeon basement is yet untouched and we have wood paneling on the walls in the rec room and peel ‘n’ stick tiles on the floor downstairs. On top of that, I am married to a resourceful pack-rat who feels the need to hang onto every piece of twine, every issue of National Geographic, and every souvenir sombrero from Mexico because you never know when you’ll need ’em. And on top of that, I’m an infamously half-hearted housekeeper. All of those things combined make for a home that is often more unsettling than relaxing. A source of stress instead of a haven of rest. Sometimes it seems insurmountable. I’ll think, “Even if I cleaned this place from top to bottom, there’s still just too much stuff in here so it would just be a disinfected pile of clutter instead of a dusty one. What’s the point of that?” Then I go eat some Smarties.
And Steve has been just far too consumed with, I don’t know, replanting the entire orchard and building a rental home, to be even scarcely motivated to think about addressing his pack-rat issues. So, in our miry filth we remain.
The living room really does look a lot better with the new curtains up, and I spent some time decluttering the bookshelves last week so it’s coming along quite nicely. I know it’s not worthwhile to sulk about the state of a home that really isn’t so bad, and a lot of my dissatisfaction probably stems from HGTV and home decorating magazines and the pressure to have flawless surroundings.
I would post a photo of my new curtains but the sun in shining through the windows and you can see the year’s worth of damage from a wet doggy snout and the sticky fingers of my child.
I’m just wondering, how many of you find yourselves completely satisfied with your home? And if you’re not, what’s the reason?
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I’ve just moved into my first house, and I’m not satisfied. I guess its the fact that I haven’t been able to put my “stamp” on it. It still feels like someone elses house, with all the holes from pictures and icky icky wallpaper and paint. Someday I will have enough money to fix it up, but thats a someday.
We have been in our house for 3 years an I still do not have any furniture in our family room (hmm…something to blog about later). I am not satisfied with it, but an empty “dance hall” that echoes, echoes, echoes, is a lot cheaper than the modern room that I want.
Jonathan is a pack-rat too. We have a class size white board that he brought home from a job site in our garage. Oh, and when we got married his mom sent us boxes of his stuff to go through. In it was an old Star Trek outfit that he wanted to keep. I quickly nixed that.
Well, right now we are half-packed in a basement suite in which we never bothered to unpack much of our stuff, and barely bother to clean, sine it doesn’t feel like home, and I have the same feeling that even if I did clean, there is still the mount of boxes that just makes the place look like junk. People like to see your husband’s dirty underwear on the ground, right?
I feel so much pressure for our new house. Being a designer, EVERYONE comments on how our house is going to be SO NICE!! And when I respond, “well, it would be if we had money to decorate it”, they say “oh, you’ll make it look amazing!” I know they are trying to be nice, but the pressure is huge! I have to try to make a big house look like a million bucks with only 3 dollars. And 2 rooms of furniture.
PLUS, I have the same cleaning theory as you. I’d rather sit for 5 hours when I get home from work than clean.
I’m definitley not satisfied. And I think your right about HGTV and Sarah Richardson, and all those magazines. It just struck me that maybe I shouldn’t pay attention to those, just like I decided several years ago not to pay attention to fashion and health magazines that always feature women with unattainable appearances for us normal folk. So when I feel unworthy for having my blanket in a rumple on my couch or my carpet is a few days past needing a good vacuum (or my garbage a day past needing to be taken out – yuk), maybe I should just accept it for the comfort and safety that it is, and be thankful for my home, just like I try to tell myself to be thankful and appreciative of my body for all that it is and does for me. Let’s let go of perfection, in all aspects of our lives?
Not satisfied! Right here!
We rent though, which makes us lazy. Why bother, you know? The walls are painfully white. The wallpaper painfully landlordish. And we’re somewhat just out of college (two years is still just out, right?) so our furniture is all mix-matchy and colleg-y (I’m making up a lot of words in this comment). Also, I’m lazy and addicted to bad TV.
Some days I like our little home. It’s cozy. It’s where we live, together. Other days I cry.
Can you believe that I LOVE LOVE LOVE my house…only because we just did a major clean/organize/declutter/decorate/paint because we are SELLING it?!? It sucks. We’ve lived here for 2.5 years and we kept putting off “house” stuff. Then we decided to sell it…and spent a few weeks getting it “staged” for sale. And then we loved it. AND someone else also loved it…loved it so much they bought it the day after we listed it for sale. We’ve learned from our lesson…the next place we move into…we’re doing all that good stuff RIGHT AWAY!
I have never felt settled in our home after Ava died, although I have downgraded my HATE to TOLERATE.
Also, our home is way too small for Samson. We need a bigger home for the dog.
I’m still new enough to the house to be completely, droolingly in love with it, but already I’m starting to freak out about where we’ll put all of those non-existent babies. HGTV sometimes makes me feel like crap too–it’s the Cosmo magazine models of television: how are we supposed to live up to that kind of perfect?
(p.s. Watch “Clean House” and the other shows that film people living in squalor. That always makes me feel better!)
We have been in our house for four months and have run out of money so convincingly that I can’t justify doing all the little finishing touches I was so looking forward to! Its sad because its so nearly perfect and I am so close to be really happy with it all, but there are a couple of big projects that have to wait. Like blinds in our living room. We did manage to take down the vertical blinds in our bedroom and my mum helped me make those curtains which look great! I think I need to do one last push towards hanging pictures and tidying up the junk that just got put down and left and then start making a long list of dream projects when I get some money/start working!
no, im not happy with my home, i too am a less than skilled house keeper, and my laundry pile in getting very very tall…
i love my house..i just want a dang linen closet and it would be a haven
Ha! Joyce said it for me – nothing pulls that “list” of things to do into sharp focus as much as putting your house on the market – especially in a weak market like the US is right now. We are moving in (gulp!) 6 weeks for my new job, and all those little things we’ve been meaning to do in the 6 years we’ve been here are now top priority. And how we’ve been kicking ourselves because so much of it is cheap and easy (new paint, new curtains, fix the squeaky stair, major de-clutter, etc) and we now love our house even more. And the stuff you can accumulate in 6 years is staggering! Ugh! Someone please buy my cute, cute, clean house! :)
I’m mostly satisfied. The only thing I’m unsatisfied with is the kitchen. I feel like it’s the only room that lacks even the potential to be wonderful. Everything else can be worked at and made into what we like. The kitchen we can make improvements but it will never be my “dream kitchen”.
Hi, I don’t comment nearly enough, but this post really hit home for me.
I was totally ok with how my apartment looked….until I had my son. Now, everywhere I look, toys, toys, toys! And it really sucked that he had nicer bedroom furniture than my husband and myself. I found inspiration from the tv show “Clean House” and went out and bought a new bedroom set for us.(and I agree with Leah, that show DOES make me feel better about the state my home is in!!!) We’re having fun choosing a few things each month to finish our room off. Once that is done, the only other “ugly” thing left from our early years is a thiry some year old Ethan Allen couch that is orange/brown/beige. Yuck!
Decluttering is hard for me. Well, my stuff, at least. As long as I keep my son’s stuff in control, I don’t feel too bad. I just try to keep things picked up. Not always easy when the little turkey is right behind me re-cluttering! Sheesh.
Ha! It’s so funny that you posted about this because it is something that is always at teh forfront of my brain – home…
I don’t think that I will ever be completely happy with my home because.. well, I’ll never have that much money. BUT, I’m happy to live here and to call it my own and to work towards making it more like what I want. My kids are happy here, so what else do I need?
[…] amanda added an interesting post on Hung.Here’s a small excerpt:After living in our home for over four years we finally put up some curtains in our living room. When we first moved in there were some stylish peach vertical blinds and we just loved them so much we didn’t bother taking them down. … […]
Not satisfied but too damn lazy to do anything about it. At present we have: holes in our kitchen walls where structural engineers drilled to confirm we couldn’t take down an internal wall; half-finished wood flooring in the kitchen; son’s biro doodles on hall wall done when he was 3 (he’s 9); icky pink carpet in living room; icky beige carpet in shower room; curtains which came with the house (7 years ago); all rooms except one still have the original coat of paint the builders put on the house when they built it. In 1994. Do I win the scuzzy prize?
As you well know, we’ve been renovating for SIX YEARS. It’s getting there, though, and I’m feeling better about it. A home you feel comfortable in is a blessing.
Can’t wait to see the curtains! I’ll have to invite myself over :)
Good question. We’ve been in our place for almost a year and a half now, and while I’m very satisfied with our decorating of the place, I constanly whine about the size of it. 690 square feet was all we could afford (the DC Metro area is reeeediculous) and that just isn’t enough for 2 people and a dog to comfortably live without wanting to gouge each other’s eyes out. On good days, though, it is very cozy :)
We’ve been living in our house for a little over a year and instead of focusing on one room at a time, we bought a big fatty entertainment center for the living room, a dining room set and a bedroom set. So, since we’re not too far out of college, we have a nice entertainment center, but couches with slip covers that don’t fit. Nice furniture in the bedroom, but holes in the walls because my dear fiance wants to put in a french door (HELLO MONEY!) and sees no reason to patch the holes if we’re going to be tearing apart the wall. And we have a BIG family room with no furniture because we’re trying to be responsible and pay off the rest of the furniture first. Oh yeah, let’s just pretend those other two bedrooms don’t exist because we just sorta throw stuff in there if we don’t feel like figuring out what to do with it.
Oh the angst! I’m living in my 6th house since I got married, and it’s by far the nicest house we’ve ever owned! I don’t watch any programs about decorating because they make me so crazy. Once a year, I go shopping and pick out something nice for the house. In 10 years, I should be finished with it! And we also have “that room” where all the unwanted things go until we figure out what to do with them. Which usually doesn’t happen until we put the house up for sale. Sigh.
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I’ve been lurking for a long time but I had to comment on this post. I am going through a divorce and I am in the middle of a full renovation of my house. I had to buy a new bed when he left, so I finally got the 400TC sheets in a lovely feminine color that I’d been lusting after for years. Then I had to get a comforter. And new shams. And new bed skirts – yes, two, because I got risers for my bed and the skirt didn’t hit the floor. Then I had to get window treatments. And now my bedroom is done. Then I started on my dining room and finally took down the nasty wine colored 1970s-era roller shades in the dining room and hung gorgeous green drapes. Now I need to get sheers to go under them. Which in turn will require me to get new table linens in a lovely cream color to coordinate with the drapes. Which now will require me to get new dishes because my white dishes don’t look good on cream colored table linens, and of course I found a new set that I love that coordinates beautifully. And while I was looking for table linens I found a fabulous new shower curtain and curved hotel rod, so I bought that. It’s a never ending cycle and I’ve discovered once I change one thing it just leads to changing something else. But I love to do it and I just pace myself – drapes this pay check, placemats the next, etc. Have fun – it’s your house and if you’re comfortable, that’s all that matters.
I’m with you on this! I am sure your house looks great, though! I have “tan” syndrome, I can never decide what theme or color to decorate my house with, so I always opt for tan or beige. My house is all neutral! I also agree with what you said — I am affected by the beautiful home decor I see in magazines. I subscribe to Real Simple & have also looked at Cottage Living & Better Homes and Gardens, I want my house to look like something out of one of those magazines but I realize that it will probably never happen! I don’t think any lived-in house can look that simple, beautiful, and clean! Plus, home decorating is toooo expensive.
We are just preparing to remodel our awful bathroom. Blue everywhere! Blue walls, back of the door, the window panes. Who does that??? Not to mention awful linolium. I can’t wait to rip it all out!
I just stopped watching HGTV all together. It makes me sad.
I’m satisfied! We aren’t done with all we’d like to do but it’s a work in progress and I can handle that.
I guess I find myself not being satisfied. I really should be…but I think as humans we are always wanting more. Oh to have a Country Living home or something out of a magazine. If I had more money, I would do a lot more..but I guess my home is ok for now! There is lots of love there and that is what is important, right? (please say right…)
I’m happy with our living space in that I have squeezed (almost) every last bit of fabulousness out of it that I can with the money we’ve got (ie – none.) I am incredibly lazy about most things except for my living space, so I whipped the entire thing into shape in about two weeks. When I lived in a house, it was the same thing – the only projects that didn’t get done were due to money. Curtains or a coat of paint can make a huge difference and be done on the cheap.
I’m not happy with our living space in the sense that I crave to live in a house with every fiber of my being, but there’s just no way that’s going to happen now or for a very long time. But I’m sure there’s plenty of people out there who feel the same.
I’ll never be completely satisified with our house. It is a work in progress and just as we finish one small project I come up with something else that must be done. I love decorating and home repair and think I would be bored if there wasn’t something to work on. Although our current looming projects are big ones (kitchen and bathroom) and we are dragging our feet when it comes to starting either one of them.
Not satisfactory, would sum it up! I put very little time in to decorating. I’m generally happy if it is clean (which is becoming more and more infrequent). *sigh*
We recently moved from a 2001 house to an 80’s house, so we have a lot more work ahead of us. That being said, it has a LOT more character which we love. Not having TV hooked up has helped so that I don’t compare my place to the crazy awesome ones on TV. I think I’ve learned that there are higher priorities! I must say the one thing I would change immediately if I could would be the lighting…aka as many sunlights and windows as possible.
We live in a 700 sq ft apartment that we do not own. I love the building and I love the apartment, but it is hard to be completely satisfied living in a shoe box with rent higher than most peoples mortgages. But these are the choices we make – so I have to live with the wall colour and carpet choice that was made for the 240 suites in these two buildings. But at least right now I can’t pine for renovations…
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