(Couch on display at the art museum S and I visited)

This couch is gorgeous. Seriously. Look at it. The color! The textures! The shape!
I love it.

You know what’s less-than-beautiful? My apartment.

Don’t get me wrong! I love living here. It’s the perfect spot for us. The location, the rent, the landlords, the space – all perfect. Living here was an unexpected opportunity that is better than we could have hoped for.

But sometimes I notice the little parts of it that are less than appealing. Things that weren’t finished out all the way (it is a basement apartment, after all), or things that were finished out but look a little funky.
And of course there’s my complete lack of interior decorating skills. I have no earthly idea WHAT I’m doing when it comes to making a house look pretty. I don’t even have pictures up on the walls because the whole process seems intimidating. How do you select pictures? How do you decide where to hang them? How do you match the perfect picture to the perfect frame? I have no idea how to gauge wall space and how to tell which area needs what.

I’m lost, folks. Lost.
Sometimes, I feel like I’m failing somehow by not having a lovely home. It can make me hesitate before inviting someone over. What if they notice?

But let’s be real. Who do you know that has their ideal, perfect, beautiful dream home? Who do you know that has made their house absolutely stunning inside? I can think of one single person whose house I actually admire – and I’m not even sure how they feel about it! They might not be as pleased as I am.
On the other hand, whose house have I had fun at? Whose house do I have wonderful memories of? I can think of a lot of those. I don’t remember their flooring, the color of the walls, their furniture, or how clean it was. I remember how I was treated and what was shared.

That’s what’s important. That’s what people care about.
While I’m still trying to figure out what the heck I’m doing with my walls, I can focus on the experience of sharing time and food and space with people.
Creating an atmosphere is more about the people than the space.

(PS- Still taking interior decorating advice, and/or a team of thieves to help me steal this couch from the third floor of an art museum.)