Dreaming about......... Flagstone pathways

I have recently been bitten by the gardening bug. I have always been amazed by beautifully landscaped homes. I love the structure and beauty of New England style gardens with the beautiful boxwood zones, but it looks like a lot of work. While I love the idea of gardening, I have learned that I do not enjoy all of the work that goes along with it. It’s not the initial work of putting together something beautiful, but the upkeep that follows the project. I find myself drifting towards more of a rough and tumble cottage garden, which is more in keeping with my esthetic anyway.

I have recently been obsessing over the part of our yard between the front steps and our vehicles. It is a muddy, sandy mess that always ends up in the floor mats of my car. Plus, it’s really ugly. I have always loved the way flagstone pathways look, there is something magical about them especially when they have a lush groundcover in between pavers.

Finding the Joy in Right Now

For as long as I can remember I have had friends and family telling me I needed to start a blog to document the projects I do. It has always been a dream of mine to have a design blog. Since the age of 16 I have devoured anything related to design. Back then I would pull out anything that caught my eye in a magazine and put it in a binder, I had quite a collection of binders…. until Pinterest came along. 

So what kept this self-described design addict from starting a blog? 

My husband and I currently live in a 3 bedroom 2 bath mobile home. Mobile homes are not known for the beauty of their architectural elements. My excuse has always been that I need to wait until I have a house, no one would want to read about the design of a mobile home.

I was allowing my future dreams of that quaint cottage farmhouse I have in my head to completely blind me to the blessing that is our current home. It may not be the stuff that my design dreams are made of, but the fact is that we are blessed to have a home that is paid for. We are blessed to be in a position where we can start saving to build that future dream house, because of the home we are currently in. In fact, our future dream home would not be a possibility without our paid for mobile home. So I decided to embrace what I have and start giving it the respect it deserves.

In a world where drool worthy billion dollar homes flood your Pinterest feed it’s easy to feel like what you have isn’t good enough to share. I have been allowing the comparisons between my current home and those images to rob me of my joy at the beauty of our situation. 

Moving forward I am going to dedicate this blog to what I know, and what I do best: design on a budget. We are saving to build our dream home and because mobile homes don’t yield a high resale value I understandably don’t want to sink a lot of money into our current home…. but that doesn’t mean that I don’t want it to reflect the style of the couple who live there.

So until the day comes when I get to document the building and decorating of our dream home…. I will show you how I make even the most humble of dwelling places feel like a million bucks on a budget.  

With Love,