Your home is suppose to be your sanctuary. The place where you go to after a long stressful day and you can kick you shoes off and be yourself. You open your house up to the people you love the most. I always felt your home is a reflection of the people living inside. Maybe that is why I have always wanted a home that was clean and clutter free. Mostly because I want to feel comfortable when I am there.
Which is why I like to put things in my home that I love. My hubby has his " man cave" where he has things he loves like his prized deer mounts, metal vintage signs, sports memorabilia, and other things he has collected through the years. Might I mention his huge life sized indoor scoreboard complete with buzzer. I must say when he fires that baby it heats the whole basement!!! Our daughter has her room where she has all the posters from movies she loves, two huge bookcases filled to the brim with books she buys, one wall is completely covered with pictures of friends and places she's been to. Even a Clint Eastwood poster!!
Which pretty much leaves the rest of the house for me. First time visitors to my house notice as they walk in the front door immediately that I may have a slight obsession with Paris. After all I have my mini Eiffel Tower right inside the front door. My house is filled with pictures, posters and other Paris things. Some, like the framed drawing of my daughter that was done by an artist in the Place du Tertre (I know, I know, but I am after all a tourist), and my personal pictures I took while there are some of my prizes possessions. I don't think there is a room in my house where there is not something from Paris in it. These are things I love. I even have my small walk in closet decorated with a poster from the Louvre, and pictures I bought while in Versailles, not to mention all my Bono and U2 pictures and momentos.
I do have one non Paris thing that I love and that is my child sized China hutch that I bought from my Aunts estate when she passed away last year. That little piece had great memories for me. Growing up the 2 things that remained from when my Family had a small farm was the empty barn and chicken coop. As a child I played in that chicken coop and I had it cleaned out and it was a playhouse for us and the neighbor kids. It was mostly me and the neighbor girls that used it. Anyway my aunt had this China hutch when she was little and it ended up in that chicken coop, so we used to play with it and put our dishes inside. Eventually my Dad sold that chicken coop and my Aunt brought that hutch in her house until I bought it from my cousins after she passed away. I took it home, bought some chalk paint and brought it back to life. It sits by my front door with a Fenton glass basket from my Aunt and some other momentos inside. My Mom had a child's tea set from Germany she gave me so that is in there too.
I think it is important to have things you love in your home. For awhile I collected various things Only realizing later they really had no meaning to me and I didn't really love them. I started to weed out all those things. You can fill up your life with stuff, but in the end you can't take it with you. Does it really matter to have all that stuff that you just like around? A house is only a home when the people you love live there and the things you put inside it show your personality.
As spring will roll around eventually it will be time to clean out and unclutter. Take a look at the things in your home. What do you love and what do you look at and think "not really loving this" or " you know I thought this had meaning, but it really just takes up space" ? Get rid of it. Surround yourself with only things you love.