Rearranging Your Home ~ The How: realistic and practical

A few days ago I explained the "why" behind the constant rearranging in my home.

Today I will be mapping out the "how", strictly for fun of course.

For me, it always begins in my mind.  I get an idea in my head and begin mentally moving things around until I have a general idea of how it's going to go.

Have you ever played the game Rummikub?  It is one of my absolute FAVORITE games!  I can almost ALWAYS find a place for each tile and then, as an added challenge, I enjoy finding a home for everybody else's tiles after I've won the game, uh, I mean, after the game has been won;)  Sometimes it doesn't always work out the way I had intended it to go but I still eventually find a place for all my tiles.  On the occasion that I can't remember for the life of me how it all played out  in my head and I'm left with 2 tiles (and a big jumble of switched tiles), I just have to retrace my steps and put it all back.  I've got nothing to lose, right?!  No harm done, except for the impatient players to my left and right waiting for their turn which I have completely screwed up, ha!

Ahem, anyway...

I kind of feel like this is how my home is.  It's like my Rummikub playing table and the contents of my home are my tiles.  Even if my original mental plan doesn't work out, I WILL find a proper home for all my belongings.  Occasionally I have to eat my words and put everything back to its original position, but most of the time it will be in a way that feels fresh and new.

Here are a list of things I think about while rearranging my home.  Maybe they will help you too!

• Don't get too married to a particular home for something, unless, of course, it is absolutely perfect every time you look at it and it allows the object to serve it's purpose to its fullest.
  
  
  
  
• It can't just LOOK good, it has to be practical in your season of life. For example: if you have small children, you probably won't be able to mimic every beautiful living room landscape you come across on Pinterest.  Have you ever noticed how UN-kid friendly many of those set ups are?!  Or how difficult it would be to maintain?  It HAS to be practical for MY family.
• Think outside the box. I love finding uncommon uses for common household items.  Just about anything can be turned into a candle holder or container for art supplies.  We have a door shoe rack that houses our office supplies.  Wood crates that hold bathroom towels. This can get really fun!
  
  
  
  
• Embrace the imperfections!  Finding a way to be content with the things that you cannot change can be a complete game changer.
• There are certain rules in decorating a home, but don't let those rules counteract your own preferences.  For example: book shelves are only supposed to be filled 1/3 of the way full (what a waste, I know!).  But in our home, we have a LOT of readers and even more books, plus a husband who likes to be able to see all his options, when searching for a specific book.  So for us, you aren't going to see many "staged" shelves.  Instead they are going to be slam packed FULL of books and I have to be ok with that.  That is why I do things like this!  I make shelves out of things like baskets or place a pallet behind our couch, so I can implement a little splash of color and eye candy around my home.  Something OTHER than books:) 
  
  
  
  
• Clear the area of everything that doesn't make your eyes happy.  If something doesn't look right, move it.  Either find a new home for it or get rid of it.
• Less is more.  I like simple.  I like toys to be put away in baskets.  I like things off the floors and counters.  I like trash in the trash can and dishes in the dishwasher.  All these things make for a happier place to reside.
• We don't have much that is super nice or expensive (having 5 kids has a way of giving financial and possessional perspective, not to mention all the things that get broken on a weekly basis), so I ain't skurd to get the spray paint out.  I've stated before that not much of our furniture is its original color anymore.  I've come a long way.  It's kind of like the time when I first began scrapbooking and had such a difficult time trimming down and cutting photos.  It felt so permanent and I felt so intimidated.  But I quickly realized that I hardly, if ever, wish that I would have kept the entire landscape of the photo. Besides, I could always order another print if I screw it up ($.10 at the most, ya'll!).  A lot of our furniture has been passed onto us from friends and family and isn't in the most excellent condition anyway.  I figure I can always pain it a different color if I don't like the way it turns out.  Paint is cheap.
• Go shopping around your own home.  Need a color accent in that corner?  Take a walk around your home to see what you can find.  Want something to place all those markers in?  What can I use as a container? Maybe a glass honey jar or a coffee or tea tin.
• Always, always, ALWAYS make sure you have a plan for the Christmas tree.  As well as a large enough area for the boys to wrestle on the carpeted living room floor, adequate lighting by Josh's reading area and a place to put our coffee in the morning.  Those are all MUSTS for us.
• Find the right people to rearrange with.  I like to rearrange furniture with the same people I like to shop with...NO ONE.  I am prone to make a ton of changes and switch things back and forth so much that it's almost embarrassing.  Therefore, I prefer to do it alone.  That way I can be as particular and painstakingly tedious as I want without having to think about how crazy I must look to somebody else.  Unless of course you need an accountability partner to ensure you don't bust the walls out of your kids bedrooms again....moving on...
• Above all, remember that YOU are the one living in your home, so make it your own!  Get creative. Think out of the box. Don't be afraid to change something, you can always revert back to the original.

So there you have it.  A glance into the life of this obsessive home rearranger:)