Ho ho hum

After all the holiday gifts are unwrapped (and exchanged or returned), the decorations taken down, and the house returns to quasi-normal, where do your thoughts turn? Well, you could run to the stores with your new supply of gift cards, but you might as well wait until the inventory has been restored to something more palatable than the leftovers that no one else wanted. Huge discounts are really only worthwhile if it's a great price on something you truly want. I don't know about you, but I've got enough clutter. I don't need more.

I find that once the chaos of the holidays has quieted and I'm surrounded by a snow-covered yard that doesn't need mowing or gardening, my thoughts turn to improving my indoor spaces. That means that one room will probably get some sort of makeover this winter. And when I make over a room, I remove EVERYTHING — furniture, rugs, wall art — and start with a blank canvas. Sure, it makes everyone else in the house a little annoyed, but I'm a domestic artiste and that's what we do! 

This year I'm tackling the dining room. It's boring. The walls are going from off-white to a soft, creamy yellow. The old curtains will soon be history. And the china plates on the wall will head to storage until I'm ready to reconnect with them. In their place, I'll hang some frosted glass shelves to display an array of family photos. The hutch will move to the opposite wall, just for a change. Two new wall sconces, a new area rug, a new table runner and centerpiece, and I'm done — unless I cave in and add a buffet. Every makeover deserves at least one new piece of furniture. And I figure I've saved a lot of money by not getting caught up in the January sales and not bringing home deeply discounted stuff the will clutter my space. In other words, I'm nesting, and investing in my comfort is, as they say in the commercials … priceless!