Do you ever get so utterly tired with your saturated colors and patterns that look like a circus and NASCAR and rainbow all got together and had a love child and that love child is your house and you just want to whitewash and neutralize everything so you remove any and all elements in the room you possibly can to make it seem serene and quite and even grab some neutral premade curtains just to see what they look like even though you know they won’t work because they are too short and then you realize that you have a loud and happy perfectly wonderful 6 year old toile sofa that you will have to work around and your house ends up a big empty looking mess and you are mad at yourself for not being content with all your perfectly fine stuff when people are dying in Haiti?
Yeah, me too.
Kimba has a sickness too, makes me feel better.
yes. I have this sickness…. let me know if you find the cure!
((((Hugs)))) This is one reason I went with white walls after years of color. It’s calming.
Must be catchy, I go through that too!
My friend….you need to come over to my house and I’ll help you take care of that sickness…..right now. I’ll nurse you back to health. :)
we could totally be BFFs. :-)
I don’t have that problem:) I love all the rooms I see online that are all cream or all white but I just like my colors. I like to have color on the walls, black furniture, pretty rugs. That is my sickness!
I am guessing you are seeing all these beautiful rooms done in the neutral colors. They ARE beautiful and they are *the thing* right now, but they are not for everyone.
Be happy with your beautiful room and colors.
tina
As soon as I visit my “white wall friends” I return home and re-love all my color and warmth. Maybe you should go visiting!
Ok. So, 1st I can totally relate!!! I have ‘all I need’ and some days I don’t have a thing…
I’m looking at the Indiana shirt in the picture and was curious if you were from there (as I am/was) so I checked out your profile and well, you’ll have to go back and read it.
Something about: “it doesn’t have to be perfect to be beautiful”
I love your blog…your nest looks great to me!
But, yes, we all have this sickness from time to time!
Oh yeah. You got it bad, sister! Can’t wait to see what comes of this sickness!
I think it’s just a January thing where discontent runs rampant, we all feel it.
I love the picture though it’s happy and warm and joyful and makes me think about the best of Haiti.
Ah, yes. I had such an advanced case of that I decorated my bedroom in response to its symptoms. Pale, pale chalky blue walls, cream coverlet and curtains, dark, plain furniture.
It was calm, serene, artistic, beautiful.
And totally NOT me.
Now a rich gold is on the walls, a quilt on the bed that is a riot of reds and blues and golds and creams, and I am happy and cozy and snuggled into it.
All part of the process of discerning what I appreciate versus what I really want to live with in the day in and day out.
That’s why I cried about over the weekend…
This happens to me in the spring. I like the lighter feel.
Okay, it also happens to me before spring – after I take down Christmas. I get very jazzed about the empty clean look.
lol.. you make me crack up. I can so relate to this… a lot of my time gets wasted “rearranging,” and then I wind up exactly back where I started. Thanks for the humorous reminder to keep things in perspective.
Sister, I’ve never found a band-aid for it, but I have the same problem!
I go thru this a lot. Those are the days that my husband comes home from work and I’ve worked really hard “decorating and re-arranging” and not actually cleaning. The dishes are piled in the sink and clothes, toys, etc are strewn around from my toddler…but the pictures and bookcases are rearranged and look FAB! lol. I get tired of my house being too bland though…rather than too busy. I love pattern but have a hard time commiting so I end up going with beige and black and white because its safe. Oh well…i’ll learn eventually!
When I saw the curtains that were too short I though about some posts I had seen to change the length by adding a different material, I can’t find the one I have in mind which adds a colour to the bottom but here’s some added to the top:
http://thriftydecorchick.blogspot.com/2009/10/kortneis-kitchen-consultation-before.html
Maybe a neutral shade or a colour from your sofa?
Been there, done that, got the tee shirt. I’m not trying to solve that problem in this post but, FYI–target has all sorts of 95 inch length curtains for great prices on line–so if I decide on those ones I think I’d just order them as opposed to paying $5 less and having to get my lazy hiney in gear and add too them.
I grew up in a “navajo white” walled family. Now? Gimme color, peeps! I’ve got yellow, red, green…ahhhhhhh. My mother cannot get over it. She keeps reminding me ‘how hard it will be to paint over it’.
Uh, mom, that’s why they call it primer (or even better, that newish 2 in 1 paint, with the primer already in it? Oh yeah. Momma’s right there…lol.
I see the neutral color schemes. And they have their place. In a sanitarium. Not in my house filled with rainbow love-child art from my 5 yr old’s crayons…the handmade afghans from my grandmother (done in stripes of leftover yarn–so they really *are* a nascar/rainbow love-child explosion! :-) ).
I like a bit of white (all of my decorations on the ‘over the windows’ shelves are white milk glass, ironstone, etc right now). But it serves to contrast. And I think you’ll get back to your normal, abnormal self soon enough.
Please post a turquoise picture soon. Or red. Or black. Or green. Or Robin’s egg blue…please! ;-) It’ll make you feel better.
Now, off to keep the chaos at bay, and the children from harming themselves…or each other…lol
Heart you. Soooo funny, if I turned the camera the other way you would be blinded with color.
Missy K says it best.
As soon as you go neutral you will be accessorizing with color.
Those white neutral palettes are pretty but would make me feel like I was walking into the wrong house.
I am more Mabel’s House and Nienie…give me color!
Yes, true, but that’s the beauty, you can change up your select color at a moments notice!!! No worries, I will always have color…buy I long for change…
You crack me up! That had to be the longest sentence in the history of man… but it totally made me feel the pain with you! ha!!!
I am so feeling like a purge of Red Toile! I’ve been put on bedrest for the next 3 weeks until I deliver baby 3. I’m sitting in my Red Toile bedroom that’s making me insane. It’s 6 years old and use to be my sanctuary but now I sit here all day visualizing a spring remodel in the near future!
Yep, I hear you.
Hi Nester … perfect post !! If you stop by my blog, you’ll laugh at my recent post about the same thing !! You are NOT alone … many of us have these thoughts ALL of the time. (In fact, I had them *just* a minute ago, as I had to take a break from staring at my master bath, that I recently decided I just HAD to re-do.) LOL. I love your blog and your beautiful home !!
I’ve had this illness for a long time & am tired of it. I’m on the verge of getting rid of everything red I own. I think I may need medication.
I can so relate. I’m trying to change things around in our mbr on a budget. I’m so swayed by all the gorgeous neutral, rustic interiors I see online. Everything in perfect shades of white and creams. But if I had to define my style, I’d probably be called traditional. So I’m fighting against my natural design inclinations to try to achieve a look that’s sort of not me anyway. Part of me wonders if I should keep pushing through it to maybe achieve something new and fresh…part of me wonders if it’s always best to go with what you know works…
I thought this was going to be a Flyleaf remix… (Like the Pants on the Ground remix…)
“I’m so sick,
infected with where I live,
let me live without this empty bliss,
selfishness, let me live,
I’m so sick…”
Actually, it kind of fits doesn’t it!?!
I decided I want to change the entire color scheme of my house and since my husband will kill me if I ask to repaint the living/dining/kitchen, I’ve schemed an entire plan to get him out of the house for a weekend, and already called all my friends to come over and help me prime and paint while he’s gone. You’re not entirely alone, my dear.
OH MY GOSH! You, in one paragraph just described my inner battle! I constantly flux between bright colors and then a sudden need for calm serene, then followed by guilt and that I should not be spending this much time and energy on something like this with little eternal value!
yup, I got that disease too. I pared down on my belongings as much as possible. Going for the “no one lives here” look. Nothing out of place. No books, school bags, violins, guitars, snack wrappers, overflowing garbage bags, etc. Very hard to maintain but very pleasing and tranquil when achieved :)
Definitely have this sickness. Is there a cure?
Hope your having a blessed day!
Yes…Hence a garage full…and people in Haiti have sheets for walls! I am undone this week….I want to be more like Jesus, but I keep getting in the way.
so.. it’s wonderful to see that you.. and the rest of us who struggle periodically with this sickness.. are not alone! we’re gearing up for a move.. a new life altogether.. and i’m in peek mode of looking for new inspiration! toured a home that had such a neutral palate, and began to dream of how i could extend that feel. ahhh.. my love of design and real estate combined.. i might just cry! lol ;) enjoy your nest.. whatever color you decide on… for now!
many blessings,
-Tracie
dude, I just painted my RED kitchen and my BROWN living room oh and RED school room a nice calming “cloth” (okay, so it’s really white,but with a touch of yellow/cream). I LOVE it. it’s a bit bland in photos, but lovely in real life.
I totally get that! I should be so happy to have so much.
Blessings to you my friend!
oh, i feel the same way…but i have found a few great neutral colors that i use in my house now…lexon tan from Benjamin moore and my other all time favorite is Asian Jute…Hirshfield’s color…it is currently in 3 rooms in my house…I went a little over board on it!
I literally had to take a big breath after I was done reading that to myself. Flippin’ hilarious!
What a ‘colorful’ way to set my mind at ease. Just yesterday I was looking at my to-do / wish list, yet again putting pressure on myself to do it better, bigger, faster, prettier…and then had to set it down because I was overcome by the knowlege of all that I have. Who wants normal?
I totally get it. It’s just who you are. Me, too. I am just as drawn to color and sometimes I feel like I live in the technicolor dreamhouse. I love the simplicity of a white-washed room but even when I set out to move in that direction, I can’t help it. In the end, I want rusty oranges and peacock blues. I think, too, that when you go through change after change after change, you start to welcome it and even long for it.
My heart is pricked about Haiti as well, and I’m feeling the same way throughout my day. I feel the same humbling when I start to feel discontent, knowing that I should be thankful for these beautiful and not all that necessary things. It makes me want to open up my home more and share all that God has given us. In big ways and little ways. You probably already do that.
I can totally relate!
Yes.
Nope. I never want neutral because I know what DIRT looks like on neutral. I know my limitations. Bad, bad choice for this house. I DO love your run-on sentence skillz though!
You could try to just find one little spot, that destination place that Melissa at The Inspired Room was talking about yesterday, and make it neutral and calming for yourself. A chair and lamp in a corner of your bedroom with some of your neutral accessories, your desk area etc. Make yourself a calm spot in the midst of a stormy and busy life. The tradgedy in Haiti and all the emotions that stirs up in us is an even better reason to find your destination space.
…viat sackville west had to create a white garden…because it did not exist in nature…God put color everywhere…and i love it…inside and out…after living over 60 years…and seeing design come and go… and come back again…i think the monochromatic/white/cream idea will fade fairly quickly … i have found my life is better in technicolor….
I don’t ever get tired of the colors in my house, but I do occasionally want to update. If I had WHITE walls I couldn’t stand it – I HAVE to have color. It is hard to decide to get new things when what you have is perfectly “fine”. What’s a girl to do???
Really? Those curtains are too short? Makes me rethink my curtain length… mine just come to the bottom of the sill. Oh, great. Now I have the sickness.
oh my goodness, yes, yes, yes. Can hardly blog period, because everything next to Haiti, just seems complete irrelevent and I become a hater of my own dull self because how on earth can I post painting a table and chairs when people are trapped under them somewhere. Emotional and blogging stuckness because if I’m not doing a zillion $ fundraiser for them, I must be wasting my time! So perhaps I should not be wasting my time doing anything else, and yet sitting still seems wrong, wrong, wrong! I’m not sure color can help either, but???
Love, love, love my colors. They are warm and soothing. The secret is to not get stuck with the same thing and to be able to bring new colors in. That’s why I picked 2 cool shades of green for kitchen. All seasons go with green. YAY!
So much to do here. And you get to work too, on that ebook! No procrastination!
oh i have the opposite sickness that you do. i can only commit to brown, green, white (& offwhite), and black. i’ll take your sickness any day over mine. :-)
Love your authenticity, Nester, LOVE it! ;)
Same exact thing is happening to me. Maybe we can just blame January.