Assortment

With What You Have | 36

 

Words about contentment inspired this series that celebrates ingenuity, creativity, and resourcefulness. Join me in the comments and share what you've done with what you have.

 

Boy things. They used to be rocks, sticks, matchbox cars, Lego, the wooden train set. Now? Trophies, medals, sunglasses, goggles, knives, speakers, clocks, caps.

All this that is deemed too important to be placed in the "junk drawer" crate that slides under each boy's bed, needed a surface to sit on. Understandably so - accomplishments shouldn't be shoved into a place where they can't be seen.

 

Enter the long-ago purchased Ikea shelves that had been lurking in the shed, uncovered in the last major purge. I'd hung onto them, thinking they'd come in handy out there one day, as they were just too deep to be of any use in the house. But, put to the scrutiny of January's intentions, followed by a trip through a carpenter's table saw, they became the perfect size and solution for holding the above mentioned boy things in the loft. 

 

Now each boy who wanted one (the running boy needed room for tacking up track photos, he said) has one at the foot of his bed nook in the loft, filled with what he wishes to display. 

Do what you can with what you have.

 

Full loft tour HERE

 

 

Have you been looking for a tastefully designed, small house plan that lives large? You may just find what you've been seeking in the Shelter Collection - four small floor plans designed for gracious living in 900-1400 square feet. Peruse the study plans & building plans here. 

Simple Matters

 

I gobbled this one up in a matter of days. Simple Matters by Erin Boyle. Those of us in Erin's following could finally let out a collective exhale (and a squeal of delight) when this much-anticipated book released two weeks ago and we could at last hold it in our hands and sink into its pages, its photos, its words, its message. The message that goes like this: 

 

Lives are complicated. In the same years that we were learning to make our home, we endured other deeply human experiences. We experienced death and crime and sudden grief. We continued falling in love. We missed our families. We wrung our hands about our careers. We plotted our futures. In some moments, we felt unspeakable joy. And we found that life isn't always simple. But the curtains can be. 

That's what this book is about. The simple decisions and practices and objects and habits that make up the backdrop of our tumultuous lives. It's a book about the pleasure of simple materials and honest design and the advantage of slowing down. It offers approaches to making a home that are gentler on the planet, but also gentler on ourselves, on our bank accounts, on our sense of self.

- Erin Boyle, Simple Matters 

 

Written into nine chapters, each offering eye-opening suggestions for decluttering, simplifying, organizing, decorating, bath & beauty, getting dressed, cooking & entertaining, cleaning, and thriving, the book gives actionable steps toward living wholly, purely, simply. There's good stuff on every page, but my favorite has to be in the final chapter on Thriving. Erin illuminates for us how to thrive, not because of what we have, but in spite of what we don't. 

It's a quiet book, the kind you'll want to read while cocooned in a wool throw, a cup of hot tea in hand. 

 

 

 

 

 

I'd like to give one of you a copy. To enter, leave a comment here, saying what is most inspiring to you about the thought of living simply.

Drawing will close Sunday, January 31, at 10:00 pm, MST.

 

UPDATE: The winner has been randomly chosen! Congratulations Teresa! I just sent you an email with the good news! Thank you to all of you who entered, your thoughts on simplicity are enlightening and encouraging.

 

 

 

Have you been looking for a tastefully designed, small house plan that lives large? You may just find what you've been seeking in the Shelter Collection - four small floor plans designed for gracious living in 900-1400 square feet. Peruse the study plans & building plans here.

 

In The Bag

 

There's a handbag hanging from a knob on my bedside wardrobe that holds the current embroidery and, in an inside pocket, a pair of earbuds for quick reaching from bed when I want to listen to an audio book while I do handwork.

From another knob on another door hangs another tote bag that has a scale ruler, pencils, graph paper, a measuring tape, breath mints, and a small bag of raw almonds - the necessities for taking out the door, along with my laptop and  project files, when I go on-site for design projects or trades meetings. 

And here, under the window in our bedroom, sits a vintage leather bag. It's my portable file drawer, dedicated to holding design project files when I'm at home. A successful cross between function and aesthetics, it's easily toted desk-side in my studio-nook when I'm working, and just as easily sits (unobtrusively) under the window when I'm not. 

For those things in life that need keeping, in the bag may be just the place to put them. 

 

Bedroom/studio tour HERE

Another glimpse of the vintage bag HERE

 

 

Have you been looking for a tastefully designed, small house plan that lives large? You may just find what you've been seeking in the Shelter Collection - four small floor plans designed for gracious living in 900-1400 square feet. Peruse the study plans & building plans here.