Our New Home: How to Decorate for Almost Nothing AND Still Keep Your Marriage Intact

Hello, all! It's been a little while since my last post. I have been very busy trying to get our home in order, and by in order, I mean completely decorated and looking as homey and cozy as I can make it. I'm pretty sure my incessant need to get it all completed (aka my need for Joel to hang 2 dozen or more pictures/sconces/other decorative items on the walls) came fairly close to pushing my husband over the edge, but thankfully, he was a trouper and we managed to come away with our relationship relatively unscathed. God is good. Joel is more of a leisurely pace kind of guy about pretty much everything, so I know it was tough for him to understand my need to get the house "finished" asap. As I told him, the sooner my house feels like a home, the sooner I can begin thinking of Willoughby as home...plus I knew that having all my pictures and valuables on display would help with the homesickness. And it truly has. This place finally feels like home, and I am pretty content with how it turned out, although the process of getting to this point had its, shall we say, rough spots. I can tell you that Joel encouraged (ahem, commanded) me to "sit down and take a break" several times in my frenetic frenzy as I rushed from room to room like a chicken with my head cut off making decisions about what went where. Those encouragements were slightly hard to swallow. I may have had a good cry in the middle of the bedroom floor because I couldn't decide how to arrange the pictures on the wall in the guest room. I also may have gotten a little high pitched and screechy over the placement of the clock on the wall in the kitchen. I definitely scared my poor husband out of his wits a few times as he wondered what would possess a woman to bawl her eyes out over whether a cluster of pictures should be positioned symmetrically or asymmetrically. While I tried to explain that women are like spaghetti, and that my homesickness was closely tied in with my decorating woes, his compartmentalized, waffle-like brain just couldn't make the connection. Thankfully, even though he didn't understand, he is incredibly compassionate and graciously showed me love in the midst of my meltdown(s).

And we persevered! The house is pretty much decorated (as much as I can afford right now), and I can finally relax. Occasionally my husband does catch me scrutinizing the placement some object or photo cluster on the wall, and immediately lets me know in no uncertain terms that I can analyze the heck out of it, but it ain't movin'. So much for perfectionism. I do understand his adamance, though. After all, I did decide that the 7 various sized frames we received as a wedding gift needed to form the focal point of the main living room wall.  This would not have really been that big of an issue, except for the fact that I decided I didn't like any of the placement templates provided with the picture frame set and said we would just make our own. Strike one. I organized the pictures how I wanted them on the floor and then told me husband just to make them look exactly like that on the wall. I told Joel it needed to be the perfect balance of "whimsical and classical...basically asymmetrically symmetrical". Strike two. Then after he had hung all seven, I pointed out that he had measured to the nail holes on one half of the arrangement, and to the outer frame on the other half, so they were too asymmetrical. Strike three. I suddenly picked up on the cue that it was time for me to leave the room, which I did. In the end, with a dozen extra nail holes later, all the pictures got hung exactly how I'd envisioned them. I have the best, most patient husband in the world. Not to mention that he is super talented at doing all kinds of handyman things that I could never do on my own.

Despite the waterworks, I took a lot of joy in decorating my house, and I enjoyed the challenge of decorating it on a shoestring budget. After pinterest-ing and googling a bit, I realized that you don't have to have much money to make your home look nice. Three things made all the difference in this realization. 1: Reusing old things in new places/ways. 2: Dedicated bargain hunting. 3: The Dollar Tree. Yes, I said it. Judge me if you want, but seven pictures frames for seven bucks is unbeatable. I also took advantage of Walmart's photo center, and my little photo printer I got as a present from a friend several years ago. Photos are one of the best ways to add a little fun and color to your home without breaking the bank. For example, in my little bathroom, I already had an adorable shower curtain (that had gotten thrown in in the world's best craigslist find two summers ago); I just needed a little something to put on the wall to make it look homey. The shower curtain is black and white with an abstract Parisian theme, with drawings of the Eiffel Tower and other French places/themes on it. I dug out my pictures from my trip to France four years ago and did a little iPhoto editing to tweak them. I selected two of my favorite pictures of the Eiffel Tower that I had taken, made them black and whites, and got them printed at Walmart. I also wrote a little note to Paris using my calligraphy pens, took a picture of that, edited it, printed it, and voila....three cute pictures to hang in my bathroom. I bought black frames at the Dollar Tree, and $7 later, my bathroom was complete. Here is a picture (not the best shot, but you get the idea) :

For the guest bedroom, I used a gorgeous quilt that I had used for one year in college and then stored and forgot about till recently. I also printed some pretty colored pictures off the computer that complemented my bedding got Dollar Tree frames for those. That was $4. Along with the little painting I found at a bargain shop in town and the curtain I got at Big Lots for $3 because they couldn't find a price tag or one like it, the guest bedroom was decorated for $11 total. The lamp is on loan from my sister-in-law, and I put a rug that used to be in my living room at the foot of the bed to tie it all together. 

Our kitchen is small, but cozy and my favorite part about it is there is a little breakfast bar that faces the "dining room". There is a little peekaboo window with shutters that separate the kitchen and dining area. Keeping the shutters open makes the whole space look a lot bigger. I decorated both the kitchen and dining area with stuff I already had, so that was free! Yay!

 Dining Room

Peeking through the window into the kitchen

Our bedroom didn't take much to decorate either. We already had bedding, but no nightstands. We repurposed our old dvd stand as a nightstand, and we also repurposed my breakfast nook table. Even though it is my favorite, there wasn't a good place for it because the kitchen and dining area are smaller. So I covered it with a black tablecloth and put several of our wedding and engagement photos on it, along with some candles for a romantic look. I needed a new curtain for the window, so I bought a gray one for $9 at Walmart. It is one of those blackout curtains, because the light streams in our bedroom window super early in the morning, but once I hung it, it looked a little harsh and plain. It needed a feminine touch, so I drug out some of the tulle we had used in our wedding that I'd insisted on keeping, and made a pretty bow over the curtain to dress it up. I also plan to paint a picture to hang over our bed, but it works for now. 

 Bedroom

Table and curtain

And now on to my favorite, the living room...we got our amazing sectional sofa and coffee and end tables for a song with a totally God-ordained craigslist find last year (which also included almost all the furniture in our house!), and I already had my curtains. I had a hutch that I had found for $20 at a consignment shop last year, and I filled it with my grandmother's china, which I inherited after my Poppy passed away. I already mentioned the seven picture collage of our wedding photos, all taken by the lovely Angela Wisley and/or Hannah Schreiner, which I made the focal point of the room. I absolutely love it. But perhaps my favorite thing in the living room, or the whole house, for that matter, is the picture on the wall catty corner to those. It is my favorite picture ever of me and my husband, and it is from our engagement session with the lovely Angela Wisley.  I had mentioned to Angela (who also happens to be my sister-in-law) that I really wanted to order a canvas print of this particular photo because I loved it and it complemented our living room colors. Lo and behold, about a week after we moved in, I received a surprise GINORMOUS package in the mail. Angela had ordered it for us as a housewarming gift. Isn't she amazing??

 The living room

 Photo Collage, courtesy of  Angela Wisley and Hannah Schreiner

Best picture ever! Thank you, Angela!

I am so thankful for the home the Lord provided for us and the blessings He has poured out on us here. I hope you've enjoyed this little glimpse of our new home and that you were inspired to find inexpensive ways to dress up your house. Thanks again for reading.

Until next time,

Chels