Welcome to a Corner of my Home

(Just a reminder, folks. This blog is involved in a serious competition called A September to Remember. There are very few rules - and the ones there are, keep transmogrifying. There may or may not be a winner. There may or may not be a prize. But I am determined to win and Win Big.)

As you may recall, my topic for September is "30 Corners of My Home." Since my (so far) main competition is Lea (no offense to Meg, Lori, Laura, Jilma (?), and any closet competitors... but Lea did get a MAJOR HEAD START on all of us), I'm going with a numbered theme, Just Like Her - but I also figured I'd copy her chronological format. She's doing 40 Women to Remember, starting with her birth mom. My house "begins" with the foy-a (long a, please). That's what you call it when you can fit three sets of bunk beds inside it. Which is exactly what we were tempted to do when we first saw the house. We are not Foy-A People. After all, we moved here from the country. But I've adapted well to the Foy-A Life.

Ever adaptable, that's me :)

What I hope to do with these "corners", is to try to include some of the "whys" and decorating theories behind the decisions I've made. I am a decorator wannabe. I did start to study interior design, but I found out very quickly that I would be an excellent decorator.....as long as my clients wanted their houses to look Exactly Like Mine. If their style was different, say...Modern...or Oriental...Or Minimalist (heaven forbid!), I could be of no service At All.

My house is my canvas, so to speak.

It's also a reflection of who I am and what I do with the materials God entrusts me with. It also needs to function in a way that makes it possible for my husband and children to prosper in their studies, their rest, their recreation, their sustenance, and their own creativity.

It's also a testimony to the world of what a Christian home looks like. Non-believers are looking for any excuse to justify their "uncomfortableness" with us. More about this later.

If you were entering through my front door (which hardly anyone does, because our driveway is on the side of the house, facing our back door - which has a white swing beside it...beckoning people to enter through the very dirty and cluttered mud room - A decorating snafu if there ever was one!)-

But if you did accidentally come to the front door, upon opening it, you would be facing this little reminder.....





...Nothing says Welcome like a subtle warning that your soul may be in danger.


To the left of the front door is this armoire - where you could leave your coat and valuables. We do have a coat closet, but it houses the vacuum cleaner, light bulbs, tools, batteries and other things you wouldn't trust with your coat. Of course, there are only about 14-15 days a year when we actually need a coat in Florida.
Maybe I should call it a flip flop closet, and fill it with beach towels and sun screen.

The armoire is not an antique, and I don't particularly care for the way it looks on the outside, but it is lined with cedar. I bought it used on the Internet from another homeschooler. I placed the arrangement on top to detract from the fact that it looks a little cheap. It draws the eye up. If you're not good at displaying items, just start putting things together and leave them there for a few days. When you walk by it, you'll notice where your eye naturally goes - and you'll get a sense about it. Little whimsical groupings make me happy. If it looks cluttered or thrown together - take it down...and try something else.






I painted the chair red, as well as the piano bench, to bring out the red in the totally weird and I-never-would-have-bought-this-myself wallpaper. Again, it's supposed to trick the eye into overlooking the monkeys and the very stereotypical, non-PC foreign guys in the background.

The lady we bought our house from was a museum curator - and she had just paid a ridiculously high sum to have this one-of-a-kind wallpaper hung in the Foy-A. When we were looking at the house, I listed the immediate things that would have to be "remedied", and the wallpaper was on the list. But it's growing on us. It speaks to what the house once was. A cultured domain. And it speaks to what it is now. A jungle :)




Although we resisted the urge to turn the foyer into a child's room - we are much too practical, and have lived in houses so 'space-challenged' - we couldn't leave the room with no purpose at all. So we put the piano against one wall. Our piano teacher comes to our home, pulls up the red chair - and starts teaching....for everyone in the house to hear, since there are no doors on the foyer. But it's a good excuse to make the children be quiet, and on most days I love hearing the music waft through the house.




I'm a basket person (not the same as a basket case). I use baskets for anything and everything. We were forever losing music when we stored it on a shelf, or in the piano bench - but for some reason the kids can easily find their music when it's stored vertically.



Here's a quote to end our tour. Tomorrow I will give you a chance to help me figure out what to do with my kitchen curtains. I have three different versions up now, and it's time to settle on something.


A house means a family house, a place specially meant for putting children and men in so as to restrict their waywardness and distract them from the longing for adventure and escape they’ve had since time began.
- Marguerite Duras