Homeownership has been less than kind to me, but it has definitely taught me A LOT! When I first bought my house I knew I wanted to make some minor adjustments - rip up the carpet in one room, paint some paneling, possibly take out one small wall - but that quickly escalated, and though it took me a while, I eventually embraced it. Yes it was costing me gazillions more than I had planned, but when it was done, it would be fully mine! They would be my faucets, my cabinets and countertops, my floors and doorknobs, every single detail. But I’ve kind of taken that to the extreme.

I learned a lot about The Enneagram the past year, and I am a hard-core 4. I’ll probably go into more detail about this in some future post, but one of the aspects of 4s is that they want to be completely unique and authentic, and find meaning in all the things. I have become obsessed with not having the same things as everyone else and my house has been my latest focus. (Although this probably isn’t really a new obsession seeing as in elementary school I was sporting stirrup pants, oversized belted t-shirts, and bolo ties, while all my friends sported soccer shorts and jerseys.)

Wichita is not a bustling metropolis full of cool boutique stores, so most people here seem to deck their homes with the latest Hobby Lobby, Target, or Home Goods finds, which results in some strikingly similar interiors. I’m not saying this is bad, and honestly many of these homes are gorgeous, but something inside me wants nothing to do with it, and can’t stand the idea of a Pinterest-worthy, 80-shades of gray, or white, or neutral copy of everyone else’s. I am especially averse to gray - can we just move on already?! Hasn’t this been “the” color for years now?

Anyway, this has caused an insane amount of extra pressure on myself to have everything be “different.” I couldn’t just leave boring ceiling fans in my living room, I had to customize them; I couldn’t just buy curtains for my dining room, I had to paint them; I couldn’t just put up regular old wallpaper or paint on my walls, I needed custom murals. I literally spent a week looking at doorknobs before a friend pointed out how insane I was and just picked a super basic one out for me to get me out of my spiral.

This also translates to every single piece of furniture and knick-knack I bring into my home: I couldn’t just buy a dresser at a store, I had to get one from my grandpa’s farm and then paint and gold foil it; I couldn’t just buy Hobby Lobby art to hang on my walls, each work needed to have personal significance like art my mom made, pictures I take, art I buy on my travels, or items friends make for me; I couldn’t just go to the store and buy dishes, I had to get pottery my grandma made, that friends bought for me, or that I found at thrift stores. Every. Single. Thing.

A firm believer in vision boards, I try to do one every year, but was too busy with the home remodel at the beginning of 2020 to make one. A friend recently sent me a message saying that this year my house was my vision board. With more time at home than normal, and being cut off from travel thus having more money than normal, I spent this entire year molding and sculpting my house into my home. I told my friend it was funny she sent that message because I had just been thinking about how much I wish I was an artist, but am not, but then realized my house has been my art. Some people work in paint, or clay, or charcoal, but I work in my house. It has taught me so many skills - painting, sewing, woodworking - that I would have never otherwise bothered to learn or experiment with.

In other words, it has been a journey. I planned on having a BIG ASS party as soon as I finished the remodel, but I literally moved in right when quarantine started, and then, well, Covid, so only a handful of people have seen the finished product. I use the term “finished product” loosely though because another thing I’ve come to learn is that a home is NEVER finished. I keep thinking, “Once I get X done, then I’ll be finished,” but immediately 8 other projects pop into my brain. This might be the hardest lesson I’ve had to learn with homeownership because I am not a patient person and I just want it all DONE.

Anyway, I keep getting requests for photos and what it’s like now, so the next few weeks I’ll be featuring different rooms in my house. My home is not picture perfect or Pinterest-worthy, but it is wholly mine. Enjoy.