I’m in a decorating mood

The other day while visiting a relative I stumbled across an old, bright red record player that inspired me. I was instantly 8 years old again, wearing my heart rimmed sunglasses and playing my Mary Poppin’s “Spoonful of Sugar” and Snow White records. Ha. I thought about my mothers Prince album (the one with him riding the Pegasus naked) and her MJ “Off the Wall” and Chaka Khan albums, where Chaka and her daughter are wearing glamorous silk outfits sitting in their “living room.” I loved that album cover because it reminded me of my mother and me. Or rather, what I had wished we would be – sitting around in silk get ups, being beautiful and stuff.

The nostalgia that I felt seeing that little red gem abandoned in that garage between a bunch of random, partially discarded junk, but still bright and shiny despite all the dust, made me think that I needed to rescue it and take it home with me. It made me realize that too many of the items in my home needed to be more than just functional, but a true representation of me, my life, and my loves. That sassy little record player was going to waste, when it could be loved and cherished again in my living room. But my pack-rat aunt wasn’t parting with it. Ugh. So now I’m on a redecorating/rescue mission. Any excuse to thrift is a good excuse, in my book.

I have many unique items in my home that are near and dear to me, but for the most part my stuff is purely practical, almost robotic and really insignificant that if I were to lose certain items, I wouldn’t particularly care. They could easily be replaced. But I don’t want easily replaceable, meaningless, purely functional things. I want to give my home more charm and more me. So I’ve decided to recreate my space by adding things that have meaning to me as well as function. Even if that function is just to make me smile. For instance, I’m planning to mat and frame all of my mom’s old modeling pictures - the black & whites as well as the colored ones - in similar but non-matching frames and place them on my sofa table. I want people to walk into my home and 90 percent of its contents are awe-inspiring conversation pieces. If not awe-inspiring, at least they’ll be smile-worthy, inviting, and interesting, rather than just practical. This is obviously going to take a lot of time, but that’s the fun of it. I get to go thrifting and “junking,” as my uncle calls it, on a regular basis. And I get to experience the thrill of finding lost/buried/abandoned treasure and, hopefully, things that are meaningful to me. Like my mothers old modeling pictures from the 60s, or my mom’s promise ring from my dad, which I have stuffed in a box in my closet (I’m going to frame that too). I’ll have things cleaned off, blown up, refurbished, revamped, and reinvigorated, then placed on display as happy reminders of my past. Things that warm my heart and make me smile whenever I walk into a room and see them. I plan to begin this coming weekend by rummaging through my mothers’ closets and storage bins. If I find some particularly sweet items I’ll consider posting about them.