What do you think I should do with our bedroom?

I know you've all felt it... That urge to redecorate and make changes...  Well, I'm starting to feel that urge again, and it's our bedroom that I'm getting the urge to change.  Of course, paint will be involved--that's a given. I have some ideas of what I'd like to do, but I thought I'd ask what you would do if you were decorating our bedroom. 

Here are some pictures...

As you can see, the bedroom is so small that the night stands have to face the bed in order to fit. Believe it or not, the drawers actually open all the way, but they're not easy to get into.

The picture above was taken from the doorway. There is a window behind the bed, but it is off-center, so I hung the curtain all the way across so it's not noticeable.

The furniture was purchased by Jim when he had a larger bedroom, so it is really too large for our small room. It's not great quality, but we can't afford to replace it right now. Jim has said that it is okay to paint it though, so if you have any ideas that include painting--fire away!

Jasper loves sitting on the headboard. You can kind of see the window between the curtains. Take a look at the picture on the wall. I absolutely love that picture and it has to be incorporated in any ideas...

This is the bedroom floorplan, so you can see it is oddly shaped.  The green squares are electrical outlets. The yellow square is where the ceiling fan is located. The black lines indicate exterior walls, the brown lines are interior walls, and the white areas are doors or windows....  The bed is against the wall to the right. 

There you have it... Give me your ideas. What would you do? Can't wait to see what you come up with!!! 

Google+ Profile Privacy... Back to Blogger...

Just because you should always have something pretty to look at when you visit Small Moments!

I thought I should explain a change I just made regarding my profile.  I had to change from using my Google+ profile back to using my Blogger profile. I'm not entirely sure how this will affect my blog, but I really felt it was important from a privacy standpoint. 

For those who don't know, when you use your Google+ profile with Blogger, you cannot choose how you want your name to appear on your posts.  Google+ does not allow you to display anything but your first name and your last name.  To me, that's just not acceptable.  I do use my real first name, but I'd like to keep a bit privacy by not displaying my last name.

So, unfortunately, although I love a lot of the features that using my Google identity provided, I've decided to switch back to my Blogger profile.  This allows me to use just my first name, which I feel is more friendly anyway. We're friends here, and friends don't use their full names on a daily basis with each other.

What are your opinions?  Do you think that Google+ should change their profile options so that you can choose whether your last name shows or not?

Do you know who you're decorating for..

...or are you decorating for some imaginary family who might live in your house someday?

Have you ever not bought that beautiful apple green, or turquoise, or pink, or fill in the blank color of paint, because some future buyer might not like the color of your bathroom? What about that quirky ceiling fixture? What about that large piece of art that caught your eye?  Are you afraid to paint your kitchen cabinets, because the next people who live there might be upset that you painted their oak?

You need to decorate for the people who are living in your house NOW.
  

Eclectic Porch design by Media And Blogs Dear Daisy Cottage

Think about it...do professionals create beautiful rooms for people who will live there after their clients move, or do they create beautiful rooms for their clients who are living there right now?  They design for the people who are living there now.  And that's what we should do too.

So why are we decorating our houses for the next people who will live there, instead of making our homes a place that is comfortable for us and that reflects who we are? I don't know either, except that we've been programmed to think about adding to the resale value. In the back of our minds, we make every decorating decision based on what's going to help our homes sell. 

Source

That's why so many homes in neighborhoods all look alike...we've been programmed to think about pleasing the future potential buyers, and we decorate with that in mind instead of letting our creativity flow.

We see an idea we like in a blog or a magazine or on television, and we get all excited. "That's gorgeous! That would be perfect for my bedroom. I want to do that!" We study it, we plan it, we even go out and look at paint chips and pillows. Then our shoulders slump. "I can't do that in my bedroom, because the next people might not like it." 

Here's what I have to say about the next people who are going to live here: "I don't like their style. It doesn't fit the way my family lives. And if the next people don't like my style, too bad. They don't live here. I do. And I'm going to decorate it the way that makes me happy."

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This is the attitude we need to have about decorating and making our homes our own. We can decorate, paint, wallpaper, etc. any way we want. We have to make our homes reflect who we are. We have to decorate in a way that makes us smile when we enter our own homes. 

Down the road, IF we decide to sell, then we can modify our decor and repaint the rooms in a color that appeal to potential buyers. But until that time, potential buyers are not living in our homes, and we have to decorate for who's living there now. Us!