PLAN????

WE DON'T NEED NO STINKN' PLAN!!!!

Sigh ...... :)

More of a "Dealing with What I Must Keep" coupled with "Collected Treasures" AND "Sneaking a Treasure in Past my Husband" kind of plans ......... :)

So there is my plan ....... "Rotate and Re-Organize!"

I would LOVE to be able to just say "yes -- I just bought everything new for THIS house" But thats a true lottery dream!

Actually I wouldn't want to say "Yes" I just bought everythign new for THIS house" because really...that always comes off too cold for me...it's like you were born the day the house was built. No personality at all, just all new stuff.

I'd much rather see a collection of "Rotate and reorganize" picked up over years and years of shopping and "I love that's" :)

I don't have a master plan. I see something and love it and find a place for it. OCcasionally that's a mistake, but not terribly often. Part of that is the beauty of an eclectic decorating style. If I was say all victorian and fell in love with a fabulous piece of pottery...I might be challenged, but since I have so many styles in my house, I can normally work just about everything in somewhere.

I agree with these 2 wise ladies. Very well stated. I think we "shopaholicks" probably invented eclectic, you think? LOL.

I'm totally with Teacats on this one. For a client I try to come up with plan, but at home, I've never had a plan of any kind. Not even a color scheme, and certainly never a theme other than "Stuff that I stumbled across on a day I had enough money to buy it" which method actually includes a lot more than you might think, becuse except for the spectacular 183Os sofa I bought last spring, (which was a whopping $850) I've never spent more than $250 for anything. Then again, I've never bought anything new. Ever. But, somehow, a bunch of mismatched used furniture works out just fine for me. Go figure. M.

Magnaverde Rule No. 3O:
Contentment comes easily to those who set their standards low.

Mag, I was hoping you'd see this post. I always appreciate your words of wisdom. You mentioned that you don't have color schemes or themes other than "stuff that you stumbled across on a day you had enough money to buy it." I'm curious -- are you like the majority of us and have things that you regretted buying and ditched them soon after making the purchase. Or, do you live with your "mistakes." Just wondering if you have a closet full of useless items that were bad investments.

Well, I do like a 'plan.' But, one thing I've noticed around my home, is that I lean towards certain colors or other details, so that even though I have things I picked up on a whim or purchased a long time ago, they relate. I'm amazed when I look back and see how I've repeated a pattern or something for an area in subtle ways without even thinking about it consciously. And I am rather eclectic in my tastes.

I would say that I do have a plan, but it's a consequence of having moved into this house recently and not having enough time or money to do everything right away. For example, I have chosen curtains for my bedroom but won't purchase them until sometime next year - I just hope they aren't discontinued before then.

Stargirl, part of setting one's standards low is giving up the will-o-the-wisp goal of "perfection". You know what I'm talking about--all those posts asking for recommendations for 'the perfect yellow' or 'the perfect beige' or whatever. Please. There is no such thing.

Of course, it's easier to give up that quest of perfection in, say, paints, if you mix up your own paint samples the way I do, then have them matched at the paint store. Maybe the finished wall looks exactly the way I envisioned it. If so, great. If not--oh, well. Like they say, it ain't rocket science. No one's life is gonna be ruined because there's an undertone in their paint color, for pete's sake. Or, if it is, there's something else wrong that has nothing to do with paint.

Then again, sometimes, even I don't even have a very clear idea of what it is I'm really looking for, so when I see something fairly close, well, often, that's good enough. After all, what's important is not any particular piece--nice although some of those pieces may be--but their totality en masse. In other words, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. I remember a cartoon in The New Yorker: a restaurant chef is yelling at a yonug cook: "Look, who cares how much oregano you use?!" That's kind of the way I work.

As far as chaging my mind after buying something, here's the flat-out truth: it's never happened to me. I have NEVER made a purchase I later came to regret. With a car, yes; with clothes, yes; with a meal--too much oregano!!--yes. But with a paint color or a fabric or a rug or a piece of furniture? NEVER.

That kind of remorse happens to people who read glossy magazines for 'inspiration' and who buy out of glossy catalogs or in stores where popular, upbeat background music & artful lighting can make any gimcrack tchotchke seem appealing, or they buy something because all their friends bought one like it, or because they saw it on that TV show with that cute guy--none of which things have anything at all to do with whether or not they themselves really like it. Face it: there's a whole industry devoted us making us toss our perfectly good sun-moon-&-stars shower curtains and buy new ones with mosaics & scrollwork. But here's the thing. None of those things mean anything to most of us, and if we hadn't already seen similar things in the catalogs & seen them on the shelves, there's not a chance in the world that any of us would have designed something like that. But it's hard to fight a marketing crowd like that. Anyway, with all that going stuff on, it's no wonder people buy things, then realize they don't really like them after all.

On the other hand, when you buy from your heart, you can never make a mistake. M.

magnaverde: Well said and good advice for us all to remember.

stargirl: In response to your question, I think it must depend on how confident we feel with our decorating abilities. I'm presently working on my living and dining room. Where I feel the master plan is beneficial is in terms of room layout so that I don't make major buying mistakes or find the pieces don't fit my space. I use graph paper for that and have been talking to a few designers since I'm new to this whole decorating stuff. One poster responded to a post of mine with a comment that I should think about the overall mood that I want to set for my space and that would help me with my decisions. I think that was a wise statement and while not a master plan per se, provides a framework in which to proceed. The way I am approching these "new" rooms is to think in terms of the bones and then the accessories. I do feel a plan is needed to get the bones right, but I think part of the nature of decorating is similar to gardening--it is something that evolves over time and may change as our moods change. Like gardening, we need to weed out things that don't work and it's never really finished.

Magnaverde really said it well. I have been getting things for our various "homes", starting in our French Quarter apt in 1971 and moving to Mirabeau Ave and then City Park and then married student housing in Chapel Hill on to AU as I was able over the past 37 yrs. I mostly have things speak to me when I look at them. I rarely pick them up but if I do I almost never put them down. My BIL made a smart remark a couple years ago" so what did it say to you??? huh? " I ummm didn't have a printable answer. I love wood so over the years I have been lucky to have people make me wonderful pieces or as happened long ago I found a place in VA that made me a wonderful china cab and chairs and 4 poster bed. The bed has a great story to tell : the great granddaughter of the original owner of the company called and apologized and said they only had one man who could turn the large posts for the bed. He was 70 and had developed pneumonia. She asked if I could wait 6 months for the bed...I was so moved by her request and said let him get well and I will wait as long as needed. It was 18 months....that was in 1979. I love that bed and never walk by it without stroking the wood and thinking of the artisan that made it possible for me to have it. I believe that if you love it and it has a "story" to tell then it works. Caroline

Of course I have a master plan. My master plan is to BUY WHAT I LOVE. The problem is sometimes what I thought was love was actually a spring fling, a short infatuation that was over the minute I see it in my house.

It helps that I never make a huge commitment. My friend just spent close to 100k on a Karges dining set!! egad that's like a Catholic marital contract w/o an out clause. Thanks god so far my purchases have been limited to thrift store and Craiglists. Thanks god for craigslist. The perfect answer for a decorator swinger like me.

There are times in the past when I defrayed from my mantra and be seduced into buying what's cheap. That never went well. Eventually the unloved thing would find its way back on CL, hopefully to be bought by someone who would love it more than I do.Sometimes I got distracted and bought more for the life I wish I can have than for the life I am living and that doesn't work out either. It only goes so far before I realized that an art deco table may satisfy my desire to be Sophia Lauren but it will never make a Sophia Lauren out of me.

Buy what you love. Keep only what you love. But if what you thought was true love was only an alcohol induced one night stand, there is always craigslist. ;-)

I rarely do anything in my house without planning it first. I'm about to kick off a bathroom remodel after months and months of planning - after drawing about 30 different options I am pretty sure of what I want to do. Every tile has been laid out so there are no bad cuts, every sample has been color coordinated.

If I'm buying a piece of furniture I generally lay it out first to make sure that the scale of it is what I am expecting.

Accessories and easier to change colors - not so much. I often don't know what I am looking for until I see it. But overall yes, I am a planner.

Squirrelheaven offers good advice...if you stick with a certain look throughout the home with a few basic colors carried from room to room, you can always move things around and never get bored :) People with a different theme in each room and color scheme can't do that, it limits their possibilities.

Magnaverde said exactly what I'm always trying to say to others! The reason why many people are not happy with their homes is because they are decorating in a way someone else does or says they should, instead of doing what THEY love. Stop trying to keep up with your in-laws, your best friend, the lady down the street or what's on display at your favorite stores and decorate your home with what YOU like. You will find that you're not changing things as often that way because you are being true to yourself :)

Something else that often bugs me in decorating is that some people tend to make their master plan down to the very last detail. They come up with this picture in their head and expect it to be just that way. Never mind that you pictured curtains that don't exist in a color that was two seasons ago so you can't find it anywhere and then they're all upset and think the whole room is ruined. You can't do that. Instead of insisting that you're going to find the perfect floral curtains in the EXACT colors you pictured (again that never existed...sure you can maybe have them custom made but it's going to cost you a fortune. The reason for that is that it takes a lot of time and work...like the "simple" valances that my MIL wanted and thought I could do in like an hour that took 8 hours!!), try coming up with a few options like a few solids or stripes, too, then go out and see what is out there and if it's possible to acheive it. Think out of the box sometimes (just because you find a particular design that you love for a bedroom doesn't mean that you can ONLY shop in that line. Look other places for similar colors and designs to mix and match! It looks more put together that way!) Just don't set yourself up for disappointment!

Also, I can't remember who posted it but someone mentioned the perfect curtains that they want but can't afford and hope are still there when she can...if they're not, it wasn't meant to be! That's how I see it! Things happen for a reason. You may think you HAVE to have those curtains and will be devastated to find them gone, however, they're gone because you were never meant to have them. Something else will come up....

No plan here and I would not want all new for a particular house. I love and treasure many old items. Also, I have to love something to use it.

tina

What a great thread. Magnaverde, your views are a nice stiff wind blowing the cobwebs out. I have a probably hormonally driven urge to nest-- it's so weird, really, when you think about it, the human need to read shelter magazines and choose color and pattern-- must be in the DNA somewhere. I love the stuff, read and watch HGTV lots, then suddenly I'll rebell when I hear somebody talking about the granite picking up the tones of this or that or something which, when you look at it, is pretty devastatingly trivial. Bearing in mind I am deeply drawn to all this trivial stuff and am as capable as the next person of mooning over color chips and biting my nails over fabric. I think a large part of what I want (reference "What makes a home" thread) is not so much a matter of color and pattern as something more elusive, but still fun to chase. It is nice to be reminded that perfection is not required or even perhaps desirable.

"When you buy from the heart, you can never make a mistake." Thanks for the reminder, Mag. That should be the number one rule for decorating. That being said, if you lived in a box car, a barn, a loft, or an ocean-side condo, would you still have the same treasured objects that you have now? People are always talking about decorating to suit the space -- but that's not always true, is it? I can't imagine you NOT having the things you love no matter where you lived.