. . . s o j o u r n e r s t o g e t h e r . . .

I can't tell you how many times the following words have flowed quickly out of my mouth when a guest arrives at our home for the first time: "Please ignore the paint color in this room, we hope to get around to painting it soon. And I'm sorry for the rip in our couch, we are currently saving up to get a new one."

If anyone new comes to our home, I am the first person to point out everything negative about our home. It's like I need to give an explanation for why something looks the way it is before someone looks at it and they judge me. It's twisted and weird, but I constantly do it.

That's why I love Myquillyn Smith's book, "The Nesting Place," because she doesn't just give tips on how to decorate your home, she invites you to evaluate how you view your home in general. She also provided some VERY convicting words of wisdom like this one:

"Stop apologizing for your home, it makes guests feel uncomfortable, it encourages discontentment, and your husband could be hurt if he feels you apologizing for what he's provided."

Yeah, I'd say I needed to hear those words. Instead, Smith encourages imperfections in our home, saying "imperfections play an important role, they put people at ease and people feel they can be real... when a home is perfect, I start thinking of myself and wonder if I can move a pillow or I worry about how to act."

And she then proceeds to break down the purpose of the home, asking how you want people to feel when they visit your home. Do you want it to be a place to connect? Then prioritize good conversation and plenty of comfortable seating. Do you want it to be a place of inspiration? Then pay attention to what inspires me and start collecting inspiring mementos. By her asking these simple questions it led me to think what is the priority in my home? After writing down some notes I decided that an important one is having plenty of space for Jake and his friends to place. So, we did something as simple as switching the direction of our carpet and our coffee table so Jake had more carpet space to play on the floor (and let's be honest, so I could sit down with him, too!) because we have all wooden floors in our home.

She also gives some great practical tips:

Move the furniture around- easy and cheap way to change the look of your home
Make your home useful for the life stage you are at
Home is less about stuff and more about people
Take risks
Quiet the room: remove all but rugs, furniture, and drapes. This lets you see the room and what it really needs- new drapes, new paint, etc. Then, try to find a signature piece for that room.
Start in the room you spend most time in then determine the purpose for that room
Don't buy sets, buy unique pieces that you can change

I could write SO much about this book, but these are the big things that really stood out to me from her book, as well as all the beautiful pictures! I love her perspective on the home and would highly recommend to anyone picking up this book- plus I hear you can get it on kindle for $2.99 right now which is a steal :)

We have had so many friends and family ask us to post pictures of our home in New York. Since most of our family and friends live in the Midwest, many of them probably will never see our place in person! However, don't let that stop you from visiting or staying with us if you do happen to be in the area :)

When we were looking for homes in New York, we looked at many different types of homes in a couple different towns. What is so neat about this area is the character and charm of the older homes, which is just something you can't get where we were in Chicago (well, at least not in our price range :) ). We honestly completely lucked out with this house. The previous owner was a realtor and put SO much work into this home. This was her forever home so she made changes like she was going to stay here long term- not like a home she was simply flipping to sell. Unfortunately, her father passed away and she thought it best to move into another home so her mom could move in with her and her husband. I don't even know the extent of all the things she did but I know some of the changes she made was painting, adding a first floor bath and laundry (I don't know how they lived here without a first floor bath!) repainting the porch, putting on a new roof, and creating an amazing garden.

It has been a lot of fun making this home "our home," however I have learned a lot in the process as well. Almost exactly a year ago (weird...) I wrote this post about what the real purpose of our home should be. We were in the process of redoing our entryway in our first home and I found myself getting caught up in creating a home that "impressed" rather than creating a home that was a place that could glorify the Lord.

Needless to say I found ANOTHER article that convicted me in a similar but different way. Because of my type A, list personality I keep a running list of the changes I would like to make to our home. Whether it's new curtains in this room or a new carpet in another room, it's all written down so when we have room in our budget I am ready to tackle the next project. I would walk into a room and start to only see the changes that needed to be made to it instead of being thankful for all the ways God has provided for us to decorate our home exactly how it is- right. this. second.

After reading that article I decided it was time to stop waiting around for me to fill every gap that I felt I needed to fill in our home and take pictures of what it looks like exactly how it is. And I can truly say that I am so thankful for our home just the way it is. Yes I still have my list of projects that I would like to complete at some point when we have the time and our budget fits them, but even if nothing else changes in our home we are so stinkin' blessed and my heart is full of thanks for how God has provided for us.

So, as if that wasn't a long enough intro to our home tour- here are some pictures. If there are rooms that we painted/ made significant change to I have posted the before pictures below and labeled them accordingly :) It was built in 1920 and the original homeowners owned a department store in the downtown. In the dining room there is a place where a button on the floor used to exist that would call their maid/ servant who lived on the third floor. There are also two sets of staircases in the home- one was presumably used by the owners which goes from the family room up the stairs and the other leads from the kitchen to the stairs which would have been used by the maid. That's about all the history I know about our home so far .... our sweet neighbors Ruth and Arthur filled us in on the info :)

We added lanterns later in the summer :)

The above 4 pictures all show you what you see right when you walk in our home :)

Yes, basically this is where we store all of Jake's toys. We hang out in this area for about 70% of our day so it just makes sense to store a lot of them here. And they are so welcoming anyway, right? And they totally add to the fireplace...(please disregard the bottle of Mrs. Meyer's cleaning spray that I left there....)