Inspire the Positive: December 2013

I spent the better part of my fall redecorating and remodeling our living room all because one day my husband came to me and said I have idea, “let’s rip out the carpet in the living room and get rid of the entertainment center.” No words could have been more brilliantly spoken than his words that day; he might as well have said the most romantic words ever declared. I had to wipe the wax from my ears to make sure I heard him correctly. Funny thing is it’s not that he doesn’t like change or even enjoy nice things; it’s just that I am primarily the one with the ideas and decorating is low on his priority list. This is one of places we differ, my brain never stops, I have ideas about everything, and sometimes my ideas even have ideas. All my thoughts and ideas had been convening in my head almost every day for months on end, thinking of what we could do to the living room space, on a shoestring budget. So as soon as he mentioned this I’m sure he wanted to shove the words back in his mouth, because all of my ideas poured out, at that very moment. “If we pull up the carpet…we should paint the walls…if we paint the walls we need to paint the ceiling…we should put in hardwood floors….we could use new blinds and curtains and a new chair…we will need something to put a new TV on….I would like to paint the end tables and coffee table…the pictures need to come down and instead of fixing all the holes in that wall, why don’t we put pallets up there?” I’m sure I had diarrhea of the mouth but I was just so excited. His response *with a skeptical sideways look* was something like “pallets, really?” He handled himself pretty well considering I told him I wanted to put shoddy wood from pallets, in our home. He allowed me to proceed with my lot of outlandish thoughts because he is the most accommodating person I know and trusts me to no end. Most people would call on the professionals to paint, put in the floors and do most of the heavy lifting, not us. We will be eternally those people who are crazy enough to think we can do it all on our own, with no real experience, the right tools or even a proper work space. Some say naïve or even foolish. I say ambitious and creative.

As soon as I had the go ahead, I was off, spending the majority of my computer time on Pinterest, a visual wonderland in my mind, I just can’t get enough of it. I pinned and pinned all sorts of ideas, shopped days upon days in thrift stops, another one of my beloved activities. I filled my minivan with used broken down and ugly furniture, shopped for fabrics, made copious amounts of trips to Lowe’s and even made a few minivan trips with loads of pallets. As much as I hated the idea of driving a minivan, boy can you get a boat load of stuff in one, it might even be better than a truck. My creative juices were flowing now.

Edward de Bono was quoted saying “Creativity involves breaking out established patterns in order to look at things in a different way.” I would say that picking up the free chair, in the rain, on the side of the road, buying a dirty old used 1970’s dresser from a thrift store for a TV stand, making a piece of driftwood into a coat rack and nailing pallets to your wall, QUALIFIIES. I would love to say that all the concepts where uniquely my own but I took all the visual ideas I found, changed them around to fit my needs and made them my own. So many ventures, I was in heaven. Being creative is what keeps me going, I love to think outside of the box and do things most people think is foolish. I am unconventional in most of my thoughts and actions. Boring is NOT an option. I love to do things that people doubt and think aren’t what you are supposed to do. I delight in doing things that scare me or even make me think no one has ever done. In order to do this you must be willing to make mistakes. Creativity is about taking risks, inventing, experimenting, growing, breaking rules, making mistakes and having fun. It’s not how you feel about the vision you accomplish, it’s about how you feel about yourself for doing it. The words proud, triumphed, imaginative and resourceful are the words I feel about yours truly and this task.
Virtually everyone I spoke with while positioning pallets on my living room walls was skeptical, I got raised eye brows, laughed at and even the occasional “are you crazy?” Under no circumstance there came a time when I imagined my ideas failing. In my life, it seems, whenever someone has told me that I couldn’t do something it made me want to do it even more. I seem to thrive on doubt. I have always felt like a Fruit Loop in a world of Cheerios, in most aspects of my life. I love to prove people wrong and in this situation I think I have shown the neigh Sayers that it’s ok to think outside of the box. I think our living room looks amazing, I absolutely love it. I have a sense of accomplishment accompanied with being able to be different, imaginative, economical, and resourceful, and it feels great. I feel alive when I can be creative and atypical, it is what makes me happiest. I feel creativity is a form of communication. Our living room, is now a reflection of who we are and how we feel, it tells a story of us. We spend a lot of time in our homes, they should be a space in which you love being, can’t wait to get back to and ultimately makes you smile. If you fill your home with things that you love, regardless of the era or price, your home will reveal the true meaning of who you are. Break out of the established patterns that our society have created and do something that scares you. Look at objects and repurpose them into something you never thought of before. I hope it makes you as happy as it does me to create something beautiful, give something a new life, even if no one else ever sees it. Every one of us has creativity, go out and find it within you and cultivate your creativity NOW!
Here are some of the pictures from this project -

Dresser that I bought for $50 at a thrift store