Rainy Days and Real Life

Most interior pictures you see on blogs and on social media in general are taken on bright, sunshine-y days.  Bright, natural light is great for capturing interiors, but those snapshots don’t always tell the most accurate stories.  They’re very one-sided.  Rooms aren’t always filled to the brim with sunshine.  Grey, rainy, dreary days are just as much a part of life as the sunshine-y ones.  I’m sure there’s a metaphor in there somewhere.

There is something really beautiful about a grey day, when lamp light fills a room during the day and you just want to stay in your pj’s and keep the coffee brewing all day.  Rain has a way of making you want to physically slow down.  Don’t get me wrong I love me some sunshine.  But the moody, cozy, lazy day vibes that the rain brings to a space really are wonderful.

And so, today I’m going against the grain, bucking the usual blog protocol and sharing some shots of my real life rainy day living room sans styling and sans coffee table (because I moved our table out to the porch).

I’m on the hunt for a coffee table, but it may be a long while before I find “the one”.  And I’m okay with that.

I’m thinking I want to stick with a round table, but something in a square shape might be really nice too.  Although the openness of having no coffee table is really kind of nice this time of year.  It lends itself to a simple, airy feeling.  And in the summer months that feels right.

Even without a coffee table there is plenty of space to set down a drink, and the open area makes you want to just lounge around with a stack of floor pillows.  It feels very inviting, very casual, and I dig all things informal.

So often bloggers don’t share spaces unless they’re completely finished or they have a design plan in mind.  And I think that sometimes creates an illusion that is a far cry from reality.  At least for me.  Spaces in my home evolve and change over time.  While I love a good design plan, I also enjoy the thrill of the hunt and collecting things as I go.  I enjoy designing slowly.  And living with things as they are until I find the right piece.  It’s a lot like one of those million piece jigsaw puzzles that you work on for months.

A lot of times when I’m hunting for a specific something, like a coffee table, I start looking back through some of my old favorite design books.

Novel Interiors has been a favorite of mine for many years.  It’s filled to the brim with design inspiration, but nothing is overly styled or perfectly tidy.  It’s a design book for lovers of real-loved, well-lived-in stylish homes.  And for anyone who has a love affair with classic literature, this book is a must!  I get lost in it’s pages every time I crack it open.

My favorite excerpt from the book:

“In the classic novels of Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, and others, home sweet home is a well-worn sanctuary where the furniture is a bit threadbare, the kitchen has yet to be tidied up from breakfast and a cheerful domesticity reigns over all.  Woven into the architecture of these richly detailed worlds are countless lessons on how to live simply and meaningfully.  When in doubt, keep it comfortable, they tell us. Embrace the charms of disorder. Go ahead and let the stitches show.  And don’t ever underestimate the restorative power of a good armchair.”  

God bless those perfect words!

As I sat here blogging, masking, multi-tasking, those words that I’ve read many times before washed over me in a new way.  Embrace the charms of disorder.  Go ahead and let the stitches show.  Again, there’s metaphor in there somewhere.

Happy Wednesday friends!  My first baby graduates from 8th grade tonight.  I’m not sure about stitches,but tonight I’ll surely be letting the tears show.

Sources:

Sofas- Restoration Hardware

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