What is it exactly that makes a home a home? Having moved homes so many times I can barely count, from a home around the corner, a home across a province and a home across the other side of the world, I can say I'm pretty confused about the concept of home right now. Bel call's this house "the old house" and if you ask her where home is she'll say Tofino. When I talk about England I call it home. If I'm out at the supermarket and the kids are getting ratty and tired I'll say "let's go home" referring to this house, just for lack of a better word really. I know one thing for sure. This house is not my home. We own it (well, the bit the bank doesn't own) which is more than I could say of our little home in Tofino but that little house in Tofino with all it's horrible laminate floor and weedy little patch of gravel really felt like HOME. At this point we're stuck here in Edmonton trying to live in a house that doesn't suit us and that none of us like much and hopefully not trash the hell out of it before a buyer comes our way. We left quite a lot of our stuff in our storage unit in Tofino with the highest hopes that we'll be back there in the not too distant future which has added a few challenges to the task of staging our house to sell. It's waaaay too big, and it's pretty hard to make a big house feel cosy when dealing with limited furniture and GIGANTIC empty walls. Problem number 2 is the colour scheme. The wall's are not too bad, they're kind of a custard cream colour. I wouldn't choose it but it's ok. It's just when paired with the poo brown of the trim that it becomes extra horrible. When we bought the house I was really thinking of it as a temporary home that didn't necessarily have to meet my exact tastes but now that I seem to be stuck with the place, literally like an albatross around my neck, the poo brown is starting to get to me. Big time. Repainting is out of the question, it would cost a fortune to get someone in to do it and with all the will in the world I just don't think I could face that task myself right now. This place has 29 doors! TWENTY NINE I TELL YOU! And then you'd have all the baseboards and window trim to paint.....eeeerm, no thank you. We've had a few people view the house and nobody has cited the ugly poo brown trim as their reason for not buying but I'm putting it down to that anyway. That and the big cavenous empty feeling. SO now I'm on a mission. A mission to cosy up this big old place and make some one fall in love and buy it so that I can cut it loose and be on my merry way. I went out to Ikea and bought a massive map. Seriously the thing is huge in the store but at least ten times bigger once you get it home as is strangely the way with all things bought from warehouse sized stores. Still I like the map and it served it's purpose of filling up a ma-hu-sive portion of wall. See above. I also stuck up a bunch of frames trying my best to spread them around the house for instant added cosy-homyness. I used my trusty Command strips because I needed my plan to work instantly, I'm not patient enough to try to hang pictures any other way and they can be removed without a hint of mess........ love those things!
It helped that I had recently received a delivery of lovely fish prints to frame from my super talented sister. The sockeye salmon above is her work and my absolute favorite piece of art ever to be hung upon my wall is this one....
A can of sardines. I love it! You can see more of her work at Squid Ink designs on etsy. She has lots of beautiful prints at really good prices( I keep telling her to charge more) and some gorgeous hand painted plates all with a fishy theme.
Now, back to the poo brown dilema. I decided that what was needed to cover up at least some of the trim was some nice long, light coloured curtains. They make the place look a milion times better, no, make that a billion. see below for the evidence.....
You see? Theres about 6 feet of poo brown trim covered up by one curtain panel and remember that there are three huge windows in that room. The curtain's also just soften everything up and make the huge space feel a teeny bit more cosy. I didn't want to spend a fortune and found a really cool idea while googling "cheap long curtain rods" to use metal EMT conduit. You buy it in 10 foot lengths at Home Depot for ....wait for it......$4!! That and a can of flat black spray paint and I had me some pretty nice looking curtain rods!
I've added a lot of colourful things here and there because that's what I like and that's what I think this house was lacking. I sewed a couple of cushion covers and a table runner and put some of Bel's pretty paper butterflies on the wall. This is where it gets a bit complicated. I know that pretty paper butterflies are not to everyones taste particularly in Edmonton and I know that you are supposed to keep personality out of the equation when it comes to home staging. The thing is that I've got to live here for now and some colourful paper butterflies detract from the poo brown trim and make me feel the tinniest bit happier to be here.
There are quite a few big lumps of wood dotted about the place that I couldn't be without. Whenever I walk past one I get a waft of cedar and a head full of Tofino.
Generally I think I've succeded in adding a bit of personality to the place. Only time will tell if that's going to help us get this place sold or not. If anyone has any tips or ideas or if anyone thinks I've made the place look like crap then please do tell me :)
For now though, these few little changes have helped me feel a little bit more at home.
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