I love living in a home that makes me happy when I walk through it. Not just happy in the “wow, I am so happy I made this look pretty” sort of way, but the “I feel inspired by the blessings of life” sort of happiness. There is a difference.
I have no idea how people can live in a home that is “just pretty” but lacks real meaning. Pretty only on the surface can be so, well, shallow.
Creating a home with meaning requires surrounding yourself with layers of memories — not just random objects. When everything was bought to simply to serve a purpose or to fill a space, and nothing was collected through living life, a home feels flat and one dimensional. A surface “decorated home” misses out on the stories and character that can only come through decor that is a reflection of life experience.
I just re-framed and hung the etching my husband and I bought in Hawaii
19 years ago on our one and only special trip away from the kids!
Every single time I see it good memories rush to my mind.
Cheap therapy, I tell ya!
I feel it is so important to connect emotionally to the things you are surrounded by at home.
Your home and what is in it should have soul, not just surface beauty.
Disclaimer: This doesn’t mean you can’t have things that are simply pretty, I have lots of things that are just there to be functional or pretty. But sprinkled throughout my home are gentle reminders of the good in life. I love having things in my home that have a story. If you look through your accessories at home and do not feel your heart strings being tugged in some way, it might be worth adding in some meaning!
Treasures from our family’s past give us a sense of history at home.
They tie our past and present together.
Objects like my old postcard can enrich our life
because they make us ask questions and tell stories about our ancestors.
As I look around my home, I see framed photos of my children, art collected to remind us of vacations, shells picked up while walking along the shore, maps of places I’ve been, books I’ve loved and read over and over again, treasures and hand written notes and recipes from grandparents and sweet reminders of my childhood.
When I am surrounded by these things, my home is beautiful to me.
Jars can hold all sorts of collections and memories: photos, shells, trinkets.
This jar always reminds me of my childhood craft, painting clothespins!
Even subtle reminders of happy memories can make me smile.
That is the kind of home I love to live in. I want my home to feel authentic, warm and inviting. I want to achieve that not just with my time or money invested in decorating, but through LIVING.
Remember my motto, “When Life Inspires Your Home, Your Home will Inspire Your Life”? When you’ve lived fully (you’ve traveled, created memories, loved, cried, laughed and lived not just for yourself but for and with others), your home can be filled with beautiful reminders of what has mattered most to you. 
My grandma’s meatloaf recipe, written out with love for me.
She is no longer with us, so this is priceless!
My husband gave me a giant tea cup for a gift –
I adore it more than any other “accessory”
I could buy at a discount store.
And when you decorate with heart and soul, your home will inspire you to continue to focus on all that is right and good in your life. You’ll remember the good of the past and be inspired to live in a more positive state of mind.
The family wall. Image from: Living with What You Love
Tip: corral small frames on a tray. From: Living with What You Love
When I ran across this new book (in a post at my friend Holly’s blog), Living With What You Love by photographer Monica Rich Kosann, I knew I’d found a kindred spirit. Monica so kindly sent me a copy of the book. It is filled with her beautiful pictures and inspiring ideas to create a home with family photos, heirlooms and collectibles. Love that! I know you will all be inspired by her ideas, photos and tips as well — Monica has offered us a generous giveaway today!
THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED! THANK YOU FOR ENTERING!
A FIVE WINNER GIVEAWAY!
One copy of Living With What You Love
will go to FIVE LUCKY WINNERS!
All you have to do to enter is leave a comment sharing about something you have in your home that evokes a happy memory for you!
I will pick five winners at random to receive a book!
Share this post on Twitter, Facebook, or your blog for extra entries! Giveaway will end on Friday 9PM PST.
Living with What You Love can be purchased through amazon.com.
I have a quilt from my great-grandma on the mantle, gently piled into a large wire basket. I LOVE it.
I love the oil pastel triptic my then six year old daughter drew in first grade. It features three 4×4 inch pictures. Two of them are bright flowers and the middle is a rather Picasso-ish girl’s face. It’s a bit tattered and worn after two years, but I still have it up on the hallway wall.
I have a wall of photos in our family room of all of our loved ones when they were children. I also have a wall in our dining room of framed maps from places we have lived and/or visited.
Thanks for the opportunity to win the book – it looks wonderful!
I have a lot of things I love in my home, but something that is extra special to me are some old school books my grandmother gave me, which were her mother’s school books! I love books and and have a huge collection, but these are by far my favorites!
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I love this!
I have moved around so much and continue to lose things as I go. I don’t think my current home is pretty at all, nor does it have anything of great sentimental value. I have simply grown unattached to things – with the exception of books and photographs.
I would say that a book I picked up at The Ad Center in Virginia, which is an advertising school, evokes a very happy memory of a time in my life when everything and anything was possible. It was a very good time.
Cheers, Tia
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I treasure a tea-cup and saucer given to me by my husbands grandmother who is no longer with us!
Oh that would be a framed snapshot of my hubby and I grinning from ear to ear on on 25th wedding surprise party. What a great time everyone had.
I love this post; it resonates almost word for word with my own sentiments regarding how I go about creating the corners of my home. It is so true what you say, that besides having a good eye for aesthetics, decorating with “heart and soul” is what makes a home so coveted and enjoyed by those who dwell in it. Cherishing memories and having them displayed in those spaces daily occupied by me and and my family, does make me feel inspired, does make me feel happy and connected, and above all, it does make me feel “focused about what is good and positive in your life.”
I was lucky to have a great start with my 104 year old home and its ‘layers of memories’ because I already felt its ‘soul’ from the very first visit and it was a happy one. To it I added some of our own soulful layers including framed artwork from my children when they were small and an old 5″ iron key that opened up the front door of my grandfather’s family home in Europe (which is now about 150 yrs old). Those paintings and drawings always remind me of their cherub smiles as toddlers, and that old key evokes a connected sense of family and stories.
I apologize for this long comment, but I guess anything done with the soul is bound to be a little passionate. ;-D
I would have to say the books that are in our built-in bookshelves. There are adult ones of course, but mostly there are children’s books that I have read over & over & over again! Some are favorites of mine when I was little, some have become favorites reading them with my own 3 children. Each one was read with love!
My favorite art in my house is a painting of Forsyth Park in Savannah that my husband & I bought on our honeymoon.
I have 2 jars of seashells my grandmother had collected. Growing up on the beach in Maine is something I treasure and having such a great keepsake from my grandmother is priceless. Now I live in the South, far from the ocean I like to keep the jars on my mantel to remind me of my roots.
I love the shells from our first family vacation. They are sitting on our mantle in one of our jam jars. It speaks “our family” which is perfect & reminds each of us of a wonderful summer.
I have lots of things in my home that evoke memories, but one of my favorites is old, chipped crock that belonged to my great-great uncle. He was a wealthy man but having grown up during the Great Depression, he was quite frugal with his money. This crock was old and cracked but he saw that it could still serve for holding dry goods such as flour. Inside the crock is an old, cracked coffee cup that he used to scoop out the contents. Precious and priceless.
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I have a photo that I took of the sunset over the Mississippi River near my hometown of Stoddard, Wis. I used an old manual Nikon camera I bought from my Grandfather and hand held a smoky filter over the lens. Once the photos were developed, I couldn’t believe that I had taken such an awesome picture. I enlarged and framed it. I love seeing it there when I do my most dreaded chore, dishes. It reminds me of the river that I so miss and the great conversation I had with my Grandpa one summer night, so long ago. – Dawn, NW Arkansas
I just recently downsized and had to pick what I wanted to keep…My mother passed away just a couple of days after Christmas and she had a suite in our home and I had to get rid of her things, but I kept a few that had memories attached…So in my new home I have little reminders of her all over the place, her african statues on my music stand, some of her egyptian figurines on my bookcase, her cat decoration in my living room, her handwritten book of recipes and other small momentos throughout the house…What I wanted to keep but wasnt able to because they didnt fit in or just were too old I took pictures of and have a special file for them…Like you said surround yourself with happy memories!
My home is full of things that evoke happy memories for me. From the ceramic strawberry on my kitchen table that has held the family toothpicks for over a half century to the pastel McCoy pots that used to hold my grandmother’s flowers and now hold my pens and crochet hooks.
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A painting that my husband and I bought together. We have wildly different tastes so it’s not often that we find something we both like. When we do, we have to get it.
I have some really wonderful things that inspire me, but I think one of my favorites is my kitchen table. We bought it during a time that D was injured and couldn’t work temporarily (great deal on it, and we had NO table!). But the thing I loved about it is that it’s from 1910, and it had been through a fire so there is a very slight charred part on one of the legs. You would never notice it if I didn’t point it out. But to me it really exemplified where we were at, at the time.
We were really going through the fire, but we both felt like we would come out of it pretty good just like the table. So we bought it. I love that little charred part….and what it represents to us.
I also have a beautiful secretary from my grandmother that I love, where I sit and work, and think of her.
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So many of our things are hand-me-downs…but I guess that is just a cheap word for “heirloom”. I love a set of two old golden suitcases with leather trim that were my grandmother’s. They aren’t just “current decorator pieces” but something that reminds me of a special person.
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http://cleangreenstart.wordpress.com/2010/08/01/repurposed-decorations-not-so-fine-art/
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I love this post. I am a firm believer in sprinkling my home with meaningful things. I framed a small piece of a sticker that was placed on my luggage…the sticker was placed there when I flew to Guatemala to pick up our adopted child…it has the destination name, my name, the flight dates, etc…it’s a wonderful reminder! I also love black and white photography. To me, sometimes black and white photography can have slightly more meaning than color because it helps me to focus on the faces in the photos and not on busy backgrounds. I use a silver sugar bowl and creamer set from my grandmother on a small tray as a jewelry catch all in our bedroom. I could go on and on…
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This book looks right up my alley and I would love to win it. I have lots of pictures of my ancestors up on my walls in one room and I love it. I would like to be able to incorporate it through the rest of my house and it seems that this book would help me do it.
So, one thing that invokes a happy memory… The picture collages of my kids (and other stuff) in the hallway to my room. I got the idea from a Pottery Barn book and they are done by color. There are 5 – blue, red, green, orange and yellow. I smile every time I walk down the hall.
I have an old razor, shaving brush and bowl that my grandpa actually used. When I think of my grandpa I always remember his whisker rubs. A hug from him was special in a way no one else can replicate. I keep those ‘instant smiles’ on a bookshelf in my home. I’d love to learn better ways to display the important memories I have!
I try not to have things in our home that do not have meaning (unless they are just useful). A favorite is a set of 4 antique trays from an old beehive that my Mama bought me years ago when we were out shopping. They are worn and unique and make me think of her.
My mom passed away last january. My home is now filled with things that remind me of her. One of my favourites is a Royal Albert trinketbox (lid already glued several times) filled with, her rosary, some medallions and three lightbulbs from an old Christmastree light.
The book sounds very nice. I have to check it out on Amazon!
Thank you for the give away.
It’s tough to pick one thing! Most of what’s in my house has a memory attached to it. I’m not a person to pick a decorating theme and shop around it. I just try to make what I’ve got and what’s been given to me work together. So, one thing that has a happy memory is my wedding wall. I’ve got framed black and white pictures of family weddings in a collage on one wall. Happy days!
We have a photo wall in the living room of our home – pitcures from my husband’s and my childhoods through marriage and our life since. So fun to see the roots from whence we came and where we are now. It always sparks conversation among our guests and I love that as we share the stories behind each photo our friends and family share theirs as well…
What a great subject for a book! Here I am, yet another kindred spirit. One of my favorite such items is three of my grandmother’s angel food cake pans. I have the hanging on the wall in my breakfast room. They remind me of her and her indomitable spirit (she was famous for her angel food and she mixed every one BY HAND!).
We just bought our first home and have a little collection of family heirlooms, and photos, that I’d love to have around me all the time
Seeing anything from our trips to Korea to get our kids makes me happy – the silver chopsticks we bought, the mugs we were given, the hanboks our children came home with, and a myriad of other things.
You put into words what I have been thinking for a long time – I don’t want just a pretty house of stuff – I want a home that is fun and comforting and US!
Wow! I just realized I have been surface decorating. I do have a lot of photos out, but that’s about it. I do have prints that were bought on vacation, but after bringing them home I did nothing with them. I do have a antique sleeping cat that was in my Grandmother’s bfast nook. After she passed, that was the only thing that I wanted. I have the best memories of learning how to bake with her in that kitchen. I would love the book. I need a little push to change my mindset on decorating. I love what you have done.
My mother is an avid and very talented crafter. Our whole house, but especially my son’s room, is full of teddy bears, quilts and other beautiful things she has made with love for us. Seeing each of them everyday reminds me how lucky I am to have her in my life.
My most treasured decorations are photos of my family. I don’t display them so that others can see them, I do it so that I can look at them. I also love photography so I can attempt to catch the family in meaningful situations and its a shame when they are just kept in albums or the computer.
what an exciting give away! Things in my home that inspire me? Mementos from my husband’s mission trips to Haiti, small gifts from my friends, and WORDS…I decorate with words…signs, most of them gifts from dear friends, are all around my home.
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An old empty kerosene lantern that was my grandmother’s…it’s a perfect shade of blue with a darling little bird on it. It reminds me of her every time I see it.
My grandmother’s piano. Just seeing it in my home makes me smile! Whenever I sit down to play, I can almost see her gentle hands gliding across the keys.
Our children’s “handprint tiles” are displayed with family photos of our vacations in the San Juan Islands. We collected them for several years when we visited a potter on Orcas Island. She taught them to throw pots and the magic of Raku! The Raku collection is displayed on the wall of our patio.
I have little things here and there but I have some wooden toys from when I was young, reminds me of a time when things were peaceful and less stress
I love this post! I have a bench that my Grandpa made me out of old barn wood (it has the saw swirl marks on top). I have a quilt my Grandma made me. I have a cast iron cookpot that belonged to my Granny’s mother. Those are a just a few of my treasures!
This book looks fabulous – inspiring as well as fun to look at – I sure hope I win! I love to surround myself with family photos and am always looking for unique ways to display them!!
We have just moved to a new city, and are trying to fit all our furniture and decoritve things into smaller home, so I have definitely made the promise to decorate with things that I love. One of my favourite things in my dining room table. My husband built it for me when I was pregnant with our first boy, so that we would have a table big enough for the whole family to sit at and eat, do homework and everything else in between. For a while it sat unused in a formal dining room, but now we have only the dining room to eat in (no eat-in kitchen), so we get to use the big table again as our main gathering place.
What do I love in my home? For starters, I do not have an artistic touch, so when I walk into my kids’ rooms or the kitchen which I painted, all by myself, I feel proud. I also LOVE LOVE LOVE an antique table I found at a garage sale for $25. It has original casters on the feet and a leather inlay on the top. What a find!!
It is hard to pick just one item because there are so many with beautiful memories attached. There is the antique armoire we bought on our first anniversary, in the town where we honeymooned. The stack of old American heritage books which I read as a child, or the Cinderella book my grandpa read to me all crazy, saying “Rindercella and her three sisty uglers”. There are pictures of my older kids when they were little, or a 4 generation picture where my grandma is the youngest! There are so many sweet things to remember about a life well lived. I agree they are the BEST things to have around.
I love my collection of pitchers- all with images of lotus on them. I love lotus and have been successful in some years growing them in my above ground water ponds. Sadly, this year is not a good year for them. But I have collected everything from a silver pitcher with lotus in relief, two Limoges pitchers, and lots of little odds and ends………I even found a large one which was the same design as a small one I had for years. I love your blog. It inspires me daily.
I just eat up this post, and the scrumptious photos! How I wish I had a staircase like that! I also love a small art clock I found at our Uptown Art Fair (Minneapolis) a decade ago. It has followed me from home to home, and recently I discovered I love it even more hanging on the wall instead of sitting on a tabletop. It is utterly unique: it depicts a horse leaping over a tiny house…pure whimsy! It was actually stashed in a drawer for a few years when I was at a loss of where to put it. Then I decided to stop being so “by the book” and just to have fun with it! I love it and it makes me smile every day!
Cheers!!
-Jenni in MN
Beautiful! My desire for my home and my life is to create a place of beauty and peace for my husband, family and friends… and I receive such inspiration from your blog! My husband and I have framed two special drawings that mean so much to us: his is a small drawing of a rose in black that he made for me when we started dating, and mine is a rose in water colors that I painted for him when we got engaged! They hang together on the wall in our new home and remind us to always pursue each other and keep love foremost in our day to day lives.
Thanks for posting about this book.
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In my bedroom I have a photo of my grandparents. My grandfather just recently passed away from years of suffering. So that photo reminds me that he had a happy and full life with the woman he loved!
I have a “contract” I typed and made my husband sign in 1984 stating that he would take me to the World Series if Tx Rangers or Houston Astros ever made it there. In 2005 he fulfilled his obligation. I am trying to find a way to display the letter and memorabelia from that event.
I LOVE a watercolor my husband bought me on our one big trip away from the children – to Italy. I’ve recently framed it and hung it in our living room beside my favorite spot to sit. It’s bliss.
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My grandmothers teacup collection!