I LOVE making our house a home. I come alive while making a mood board for a room, scouring sources for decor and inspiration, and little by little seeing a room come together and feel cozy and ordered and “right.” I have always loved seasonal decorating and Fall is one of my favorites, slightly behind Christmas of course!
This is our first Autumn in our new home and it’s been so fun to watch our big trees in the front yard rain down leaves, to dress up our stoop with pumpkins and planters and just enjoy the beautiful weather while walking in the neighborhood. I can hardly wait to have our first fire in our wood-burning fire place! All of my favorite memories with my Nanny happened around her fire and I’ve always said I wanted a house with a wood-burning fireplace. It probably wouldn’t have been a deal breaker, but it just felt like a hug from Jesus when this house had its original fireplace.
It’s fun for me to have these posts to look back on, because so much changes … especially in the first year of owning a home, I think. I’ve been trying to figure out my style, how to stay true to the house, how to enjoy it while not every room is furnished or exactly how I envision it one day to be. Even since these pictures, we’ve painted our fireplace Sherwin Williams Peppercorn Gray because the red-ish brick just wasn’t sitting right with me, especially since we want to eventually add a leather loveseat to that room — it would just be too many browns and reds competing.
One thing the Lord has really been helping me see this year is that the process / the journey / the walking with Him is where the JOY is – in His presence! I am so quick to want to just be DONE with the “process” of something – the training, the in between, the long project where it feels like the result you want is not within reach – but the process is actually where the good stuff is. He has been showing me in the deep parts of my life and in the seemingly mundane tasks that inviting Him in to ALL OF IT and seeing ALL OF IT as an opportunity, even in the messy middle, to honor and obey Him is the joy of the process. I can’t wait to see in 6 months, 5 years, even 10 years from now what this home has become, who fills it, or if the Lord takes us somewhere else completely…but right now, this is where we’re at…and He is here.
