It's been over a year since we've been in our house now. Yay! We love it and our neighborhood and our ward (and living in this climate this time of year). One thing we don't love though is deciding what to hang on our walls. Yes, folks, it's been a year and a good number of our walls are still bare. This is not due to the fact that we have nothing to put on them. In fact, the opposite is true. We have too much to put on them, and frankly, we don't know what to put where, or what to do with some of the very thoughtful and / or time-consuming and / or expensive wall decor we have been given over the years that is just not our...um...taste. Every time we go to tackle actually hanging things on our wall we end up going through our vast supply of decor and just putting it back in the same closet, with maybe one more thing hung up.
The problem is we watch too much HGTV, I think. We've become quite picky about what we actually want in our house. However, we also don't want to be ungrateful for all the things others have provided for us. Why should we waste or spend extra money on even more decor when we already have plenty? There are impoverished people all over the world and I want to complain that some very thoughtful gifts just aren't my style so I feel justified spending more money to get what I really want? This is what we go through every time. We feel like we should hang all this stuff up, yet we don't get excited about a lot of it, so we just give up all together and our walls remain bare.
Does anyone have any suggestions on how to handle this dilemma? (BTW, if you are reading this, it's not likely you have given us anything we don't want to hang up. Some gifts from non-readers are the biggest culprits here). Do we just not worry about hanging up things people have spent a lot of time and money on and get what we want? Do we get over our vanity and be grateful for the generosity of so many people that allow us to decorate our home w/o us breaking the bank? Seriously, it's such a ridiculous thing, but I feel like our home still feels unfinished and I am really ready for it to be finished, so how do we deal with this?
13 comments:
Our house is very much unfinished as well and it drives me absolutely crazy! I want to finish it off so bad but we started off with NOTHING decor and it takes a lot of time/money to furnish a house. Poco a poco, no? Honestly if I were in your situation, I would probably be on the "ungrateful" side and DI those decorations that aren't my taste and just buy new stuff that I loved and was excited about. Is that so bad? It's your own home after all and you should love it! Im sure someone else has better advice though:) Good luck and post pics of the home when its complete!
LOL
I totally relate to this post. I'd rather have nothing on my walls than stuff that I don't like. That's why our walls have often been lacking everything but paint.
There have been a couple times when i just hung stuff...out of guilt or gratitude or impatience for our blank walls. And everytime I did, I've always hated it. I guess I've erred on the minimalist side. Most of our unwanted pieces have made it to DI now. But we still have a couple pieces...including a life size mural in our bedroom...that I just don't know what to do with.
Good luck!
Wow I would go nuts with nothing on the walls! I'm complete opposite and right when we move in I have to start hanging stuff on the walls. Anyway, as for your situation, seriously, chuck or yard sale what you don't like. Why keep it? If you do put it up, you are just going to stare at it and think how much you hate it and wished you had something better in its place. If you haven't hung it by now, you never will. Here is my rule for clothes, if you haven't worn it in a year, get rid of it. You will never buy new if you don't get rid of the old. I think that rule applies to your situation with decor. No one is going to get offended that you aren't hanging something they got you. Buy what you like and make your new home look nice!
If I send you a really ugly sweater for Christmas, will you wear it? (Even when I'm not around?)
It's your house, and they're your walls, so don't put anything on them because you feel obligated to. Put on them what you want. That said, money is an issue. (That seems to always be the case.) What is worth more to you: having decorated walls that you like, or having money for other purposes?
Finally, remember that you're not going to hot glue the stuff onto your walls. (You're not, right?) Put something up, and in 6 days, 6 months or 6 years when you're sick of it, take it down. If you hate it forever, throw it out, give it to DI, have a yard sale. But all those years of undecorated walls, those you can never get back!
Is there a way to change some of the stuff you do have to fit more into your style? Painting it or adding to it. If not, then I don't think it's a bad thing to DI it. Someone out there will love it.
I say be willing to budget some money for the "important" walls - entry ways, living room, etc. Get something that really "speaks" to you. Then hang up the most important things (from grandparents, or spent a lot of time on, etc) and hang those in other areas - office, hallway to the garage, laundry room, bathrooms, etc.
I think you should have an "ugly room" filled with the stuff you hate all over the walls.
No, I really don't. I think you should hang what you like. And there are some things that I don't think I could just get rid of even if I didn't like it (like a cross stitch with your names and anniversary on it from your grandma) (and I'd like to say that we have one of those, but I like it, so it's ok). But there is no shame putting that in a box with all your wedding stuff and putting something you find tasteful on the walls.
Decorate it how you want it, for heaven's sake!
Right now I'm frustrated because our apartment looks like a museum dedicated to Nathan and I. We got so many lovely picture frames from the wedding and have almost no artwork to kind of balance it out. 3 1/2 years later, and we still never seem to have the money to buy the art, but I HATE bare walls. So what goes up? Every picture I have of the 2 of us. Pretty silly. As a cheaper solution, I'm going to start making my own stuff. Could be fun, could be a disaster. We'll see!
P.S. Love, love, LOVE HGTV!!!!
P.S.S. Sorry that was all about me--probably should've posted that on the blog instead. :)
One mans trash is another mans treasure. Sell it or regift it. Forget about hurt feelings, its your house!
I have hung some of my old stuff in my new house, but in my living room I bought all new frames....know what I'm going to do now? Slowly and eventually replace ALL the old stuff.....There you have it. Get new. I have trouble hanging things up, I went the first year with only one wall in my whole house decorated. go out and buy something you LOVE for your favorite room. You can DO IT!!!
I have the same bare walls problem, but not the having closets full of stuff I don't like to put on them. :) My sister-in-law just introduced me to Hobby Lobby here in Texas and I've heard that there's one in Phoenix too. I got a bunch of really cute things for my walls and am really looking forward to decorating my walls when I get home.
I hit publish too soon. Don't feel bad about getting rid of stuff you don't like just because it was a gift. There's absolutely nothing wrong with regifting or donating what you don't want.
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