I DON’T HAVE A PINTEREST-Y HOUSE, here’s why…

We have all done it. I have been guilty of it a couple of times myself because someone else’s idea of what’s in style and what’s pretty is constantly put in our faces. I would love to see everyone’s character and own style come back to life. How beautiful would that be? When did we all lose our own touch, our own style? When did every single house start looking just alike, from the outside in? Everything has become so commercial, so run of the mill. We have taken away history and stories. One day when I’m no longer here, when a child asks, “Where did you get this lamp with the seashells, Momma?” I hope she has a story to tell, and not a simple, “Oh, your great grandmother saw this on Pinterest.” I hope she can say, “This was an idea your great grandmother had after collecting shells on a Florida beach. Boy, do I have a story to tell you about that vacation!”

Our homes are where most of our memories are made, so why not add the old with the new as much as we can. I want my house to feel like home, a home that has stories to tell from people who feel like home. I want a touch of Marie Kinslow and Elizabeth Hogan (my grandmothers) and a touch of Momma. I am made of all three, we have some of the same taste. Whether it’s in style or not, it’s us. It’s part of me, part of my family, not some stranger's style I saw online. I want things in my home that remind me of them. A tufted chair, no, not the same chair Momma had, but one that resembles it, the one I loved so much as a kid. The one I would run inside and jump to before my brother could. The picture of a little girl on her knees praying, the same one that hung above Marie’s bed now hangs beside mine. A picture of an old man praying over a loaf of bread, it once hung on the wall over Marie’s kitchen table, it now hangs over mine, a coaster set Elizabeth bought at a little shop in Florida, the ones that were a little pricey, but she loved because they were ceramic and had swirled colors. Elizabeth’s favorite novel of a timeless love story setting beside one of her teal mason jars adorned with my favorite Hydrangeas.

Even the light-up church with stained glass windows that sits on my dresser, the one sent from a sweet friend when my brother passed away, it doesn’t match the décor, but I won’t hide it in a closet. I would stare into that little church, with the light shining through the small stained-glass windows, and those tearful nights, it took me right inside that church and gave me the comfort and peace I needed. They may not all go with the décor, but they have a beauty that’s all their own. Ladies, don’t stress too much that your rug doesn’t match your throw pillows, or the picture on the wall doesn’t bring out the color of the flowers by the fireplace. Maybe you don’t have things left behind from a grandparent or parent, then you have a chance to be the bellwether, perhaps a pioneer of sorts, with your own things, your own style, then someday when your grandchild pulls up an old stool to the stove to help you bake a cake, you will smile and be reminded of a time that their daddy stood on that stool helping you cook breakfast. The stool that has so many scuffs, bumps, and stories to tell. One day that stool, that coaster, that picture on the wall, may be the only glimpse they have into who you were, what you liked, a bit of your character. If I’m at your house, where there’s an old stool proudly displayed by the fridge, and you catch me staring at it, I’m not looking down on it, I want to know its stories, where it’s been and how it got there. That stool may not be Pinterest-worthy, but trust me, it’s worth so much more than being the same as the one next door.