What Makes It Our Home?

I mentioned in Month of Love that we try to love on our house. To us, this frame sitting on Quiet Pond Place is more than four walls and some stucco. We are intentional people by our design, so no detail of this house is without purpose. Forethought. That's best reflected in this element in our entry hall:

Home - not the building called a house, but the family and memories within it - is where your story begins. In a world gone crazy with rough and tumble, we are determined to make this house the most soul-changing, smile-making home it can be.

So, you can see how important it would be, then, to us to make this home beautiful in every way. A key way I do that is to change the house with the seasons. This keeps it from becoming stale and, really, don't we all change our wardrobe and accessories throughout the year? Why not a house, too? Now, I confess: this idea is not original to me. It's not even specific to me. But the beauty is that it looks specific to each house. My friend and mentor, Marita, taught me this by example when Craig and I were first married and lived in Alaska. When you enter the Shipman's home, it positively shouts grace and peace. Obviously, the decor alone doesn't accomplish that feat - the hearts and souls of the ones inside it do that - but the love poured from them into the ambiance of their home, I learned, accentuates their authentic selves. This family is also why we entertain so much. Their leading by living accounts for the myriad of new families we welcome to our home and why dinner is not just an appointment, but an event. (Thanks, Scott and Marita, for being so stellar.) 

So here's a "pict-folio" of how we love the house that changes with us to continually be our home.

Three key components: the seasonally-changing cloth dinner napkins, the "snack jug" that feeds all the hungry with an ever-varied cache of goodies, and our welcome chalkboard to mark the day or celebrate the arrival of dinner guests...Grace is in charge of the art. Wonder why.

Two sconces at the entry arch are filled with different picks to flow with the seasons' colors and textures. Here's what's in there now - winter.

Our accent wall in the parlor showcases the current portraits of the three gifts we treasure most. As they change, so does it...to remind us they're growing and there will never be a day like today again. Best seize it, then.

The upstairs hall spotlights our favorite black and whites...mixed in with some treasured memories that take a turn up there, as well. The wedding picture of my hands pinning Craig's boutonniere always stays as does my prized silhouettes of my pregnancy with Elijah (thanks, Tosha). Otherwise, we hang what we need to remember most at the time.

Our study hallway also changes with the seasons: sometimes these frames hold collections of leaves; sometimes pictures I shot of fireworks near our annual 4th of July vacation spot; sometimes pressed flowers from the yard or snow scenes. Here's today's collection. (Thanks, Kendall).

And don't forget the closeup: I love how the mirror creates texture and interest in this piece.

And this sums up the mantra of the house as a whole. Many of my ideas are my own, but some come from excellent friends who become a part of our home when I incorporate their expressions of selves. In the end, we have a house that feels warm to us. That inhabits His presence. That welcomes all into it. However you do it, I hope you're inspired to do it. It's how we make a house our home.