One of the hardest things about returning to blogging is that I have SO many pictures, reference notes, and experiences to share that I don’t know what to pick!
I decided to install a random picker app, put a few ideas on there, and let it help. I use Tiny Decisions.
There’s no affiliation, but the name did help me decide which app to download 😉
Today I’m going to talk about one of the painting classes I took last winter.
If you’ve been reading for a while, you may know that my little family is now living in house number three. The first was a little mid-century ranch in the the Westbury subdivision of Houston, Texas. It was a foreclosure and we did quite a bit of renovations prior to moving in. We lived there for a little over three years, decided we were moving to Connecticut, then I shared a before and after of our first home.
Next up, we owned a little Cape Cod style home. It was smaller than our previous home, but newly gutted with brand new just about everything–pipes, electric, windows, drywall. Brand new. It was small and on a small lot, but it had a really lovely view of a pond directly behind it, and I’d hop in my kayak in my backyard and row around a bit sometimes. We also had the pleasure of seeing a lot of wildlife in our backyard. It was lovely, but then came time to move, again. So, I shared a before and after of our second home and a subsequent post about maximalist decor in a small space.
Now that I’m back to blogging, I’ll introduce you to home number three.
Prior to yesterday, the last time I wrote was when I had only a few days left before we moved into our new house. I shared with you a home tour of our first Connecticut house, though it was staged in those photographs for selling. As promised, here are some pictures of what our communal space looked like as we lived in it.
Upon entering our previous home, there was a mud room just big enough for a small closet. On the other side of that door, you were first greeted by these stairs.
I wallpapered the stair risers with this gorgeous metallic wallpaper from Jonathan Adler. The paper was a real splurge, but I still have enough to do a decent size project again and it was, in my opinion, the biggest “wow” feature I could have in a small space.
They’ve since discontinued this wallpaper from Jonathan Adler, as well as most of the others that were produced by his brand.
On the wall going up the stairs was my collection of photographs from our travels and some of the more exciting experiences we’ve had that were on or off the bucket list. I called this wall my “gallery of adventures.” With it being up the stairs, it was very hard to shoot, but here’s a glance.
Almost all of the frames were thrifted, and if they weren’t already a shade of bronze or gold, I sprayed them with Rustoleum Metallic.
The pink French door led to the mudroom. I painted it myself. It was white, along with everything else, when we moved in. Check out New House Project Plans to see the beginnings of this space. It was a real blank canvas.
Those footstools were from Homegoods. I thought they were totally unnecessary when I bought them, but I couldn’t resist the fact that they were the perfect colors to go with the rug.
I ended up putting them near the entrance so that we could sit and remove our winter boots somewhere other than the stairs. We did this, but far more frequently we’d move them over to the coffee table as additional seating for board and card games.
Both of the wingback chairs were thrifted for $25 each, but a few years apart. One day I’ll at least reupholster that mauve-y one. The black and white striped pillows were a couple of my first sewing machine projects. The fabric is from Ikea.
When we moved in to this home, one of the first things I did was remove the bamboo blinds and add sheer curtains. It allowed for just enough privacy but made for a lot of natural light that ultimately helped the small space feel larger.
Here’s a wider shot of the living room. In it you can see the weaving that I created with a hula hoop. Going through these pictures is making me so nostalgic!
For every meal (or any other activity), I sat on the right, facing the water. I really loved the view of the pond and that we could see it from so many angles of the little house.
We added these shelves out of necessity–there wasn’t much cabinet space in that kitchen at all! They were simple shelves from IKEA with traditional white brackets from the hardware store for support, painted gold. 
There originally wasn’t a light fixture above the dining table at all, so when I had this one from West Elm installed with stained glass lightbulbs, it made a big impact.
And in the center of it all was our not-once-used fireplace and the definitely used TV that came with the house. We hadn’t had a TV for a few years prior and we left it when we sold…but I admit, we bought another TV 🙃
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And that’s all she wrote! This space, and the projects that I created within it seem like ancient history now, but there may be times I want to reference it or I may decide to finally share half-written step-by-step tutorials for some of these projects.
My youngest son is over seven months old! There’s so much that I haven’t shared. There was a time when I felt really free to be open, frank, and vulnerable when blogging. Then I let the anxiety that I experienced upon moving get to me. I let social media get to me. I underestimated the identity crisis I would have once I was separated from what was always home.
I got out of the habit of blogging because I started getting paid work to blog for someone else’s business. I was journaling every morning a la The Artist’s Way in a paper journal. I was sharing my photographs, creative pursuits, and travel through social media. It felt like I was sharing enough, even if it was on someone else’s platform. The paper journaling has served me well; I’m able to gather my thoughts without fear of judgement, organize my future, and look back on my past.
But what blogging does for me is a little different. While I can have a train-of-thought writing experience in private on paper, blogging organizes those thoughts. I’m then able to share those thoughts with others, with the potential to add some value, be it small, to their lives.
I hate how much time I’ve spent doubting myself, talking down to myself and waiting for peer approval to give myself the freedom to share. Every year, I talk about sharing more. It was my goal in 2018, and I fell short.
I’m seven months in to being a mom of two. I wholly underestimated how having two children would knock me off my feet after being a mother for a decade. I really did. As only children, both of my boys would be a breeze. But that’s not the case.
In the chaos of taking care of my children, my marriage, my home, my dog (honestly, he’s mostly forgotten) I have had the hardest time taking care of myself in a way that doesn’t ask too much of my husband, who is having his own hard time with self care. Sometimes self care still feels like work. Exercise feels good, but I need to do it because I need to get healthy. Cleaning feels good but I need to do it or my mental health will suffer. Getting out and meeting with other moms feels awesome, but I need to do it for my infant’s social development. Taking care of myself starts to feel like another obligation, another task to take care of.
Maybe what I really need is to come back to this space, right here. To organize my thoughts. To share. To use my itty bitty platform to shout out into the abyss, “THIS!” to wait, and listen, for over the pond, across the mountains, to hear s little voice in the distance say, “SAME!” Or to say, “I MADE THIS!” To pause, only to hear back: “I think I can, too!”
I’m resolving to make the time to share. To stop feeling like I haven’t “earned” writing on my personal blog because I “should” be doing more freelance work, or cleaning, or taking care of everyone else first. This is the one space that is completely mine, and I do it for me.
In other words: Hi, I’m back. I have so much to share.
I loved this house well and I had so much fun making it ours, adding my personal style everywhere. The following pictures don’t fully reflect my personal style, because these were the listing photos for the house just prior to us buying it (sight unseen!) and after my friend Ky and I pulled up our bootstraps and prepared the house for showings.
If you haven’t sold a home before, you probably don’t know: you don’t just take pictures of how you’re living in it. You’re going to want to do quite a few things before you put it up.
As mentioned in our moving announcement, our house sold in three days! We had an offer and a back up offer quicker than we could have imagined.
These are photos that we had listed online of our house when it was on the market in 2015 when we bought it, and months ago when we listed it.
I didn’t expect to write this post this soon, or at this stage in our lives. I admit, I knew this wasn’t our forever home. When we sold our first home in Texas and moved to Connecticut, I became a bit more realistic about my expectations about how long I would live in one place.
We bought our Texas house with “forever” in mind, and we started making preparations and decisions to move to the East Coast after living there for a little over three years. I was devastated but excited. I was scared but adventurous. And then we moved 1,600 miles away.
Before I had fully unpacked, boxes still strewn about, Mark was surely high from the experience of leaving it all behind + what new experience awaited us. Then he said, “Maybe in a few years, we’ll move to the West Coast.”
The nerve! But I didn’t take it that way. He was just reminding me that adventure awaits, and to leave my heart open for possibilities. I knew I was going to take good care of it, try to not get too attached, and make it full of art, memories, laughter, souvenirs and a lot of love. That I did. And now we’re moving. But, where? Continue reading
We’ve been busy around the Oreta household! No time to update all the way, but I’ll give you a little peak into a recent highlight.
A little over two weeks ago, Tobias took his very first solo flight.
He stayed with my sister and her husband for a few days in Estes Park, Colorado and had a blast snowboarding and enjoying Rocky Mountain National Park.
While he was doing that, his dad and I took a romantic vacation to PARIS!
