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Creating a Meaningful Home: Cleverly Inspired

CREATING A MEANINGFUL HOME blog series featuring Bloggers sharing the story of their home: FEATURED is Tracie of Cleverly Inspired - a MUST READ story!

Today’s guest post for Creating a Meaningful Home blog series: Year 3 is Tracie of Cleverly Inspired.

Welcome Tracie…

I was so honored to be asked to be a part of Jenna’s creating a meaningful home series this summer. Since I started my blog 5 years ago that has been one of the main missions in my life and on Cleverly Inspired, to not only place objects in my home that fill the space but those objects should bring joy and bring meaning to our life. I think that when you create a space that has meaning and is purposeful, any guest or friend that visits can feel that energy and they will know how you and your family feel about the space. It is a challenge because there are so many things out there to buy! All the pretties catch our eyes…and we want to just bring home the baskets, tins and the pictures and the artwork and put them all in your space. It becomes a clustered mess! One of my mantras that I live by when it comes to decorating is…

If everything is special than really nothing is special.

If you put everything on a shelf that you love or every piece of art on a wall …then very quickly those special things become not very special at all. Your eyes should rest on an object or part of your space and be able to take it in without having to look past a lot of other things. What I tell folks is the things that you love should rotate in and out, maybe with the seasons or maybe just every couple times a year so that you can really rest your eye on the things that you love and really appreciate those items.

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For me those things are items from my our past. Things from my childhood that I remember in my Grammie’s house. Things that my dad has refinished for me….pictures of our kids when they were younger. These things I want my eye to rest on every day so that I’m constantly connected and comfortable in those spaces.

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We recently moved last summer into a brand new home. I think that is one of the challenges with a new home is to find your nook and crannies again. It’s kind of like buying new shoes that quickly become your favorite boots because they get old and worn ,tattered and comfortable and you sink into them when you put them on.When you buy a new home, even though the space is completely you and you designed it and you love it….it takes a little bit of time for you to sink into it. After we have been here a year I noticed where my favorite spots are to sink into and where I find peace. My husband and my kids feel the same way. We all have found our little spot that we like to crawl into and that is what a home should do for you at the end of the day. Allow you to drop your keys , take your coat off… put your purse where it goes and then you just breathe a sigh because you know you’re in your space.

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When I help people design for their spaces that is my one question that I want the real answer -, what will make you love being in this space. Sometimes it’s a piano…. sometimes it’s a particular favorite chair, sometimes it’s books, a it’s a bar stool, finding what that thing is and using it to inspire your space will immediately calm you when you enter it. What is current might not make you comfortable… so finding what makes you and your family at ease and comfortable might be a look from the 1970’s it might not be a current style. That doesn’t mean it has to look dated but to replicate what you see in a catalog or a magazine might not necessarily be your design style.Finding out what will make you and your family let out an “ahhhhhhh” at the end of your day….that is your goal. It really it really can be a very simple task.

Thank you so much Jenna!

Tracie has many wonderful thoughts that she shared.  I like her perspective of, “if everything is special than really nothing is special” and the idea of rotating things you love seasonally or yearly to give your walls & space a break.   It’s okay to love alot (I certainly do), but sometimes it doesn’t all mesh together at the same time in the same space.

One project of Tracie’s that I love and is perfect as the back to school time approaches is this repurposed ladder office organizer.  So creative, cute, AND functional!

Repurposed old ladder office organizer by Cleverly Inspired

Head on over to  Cleverly Inspired, and give Tracie a BIG HELLO!

Check out all the Bloggers that have contributed to this series on
Creating a Meaningful Home

Plus don’t miss out on all the previous Bloggers who contributed to this series in 2013 and 2014!