home made lovely- megan's home tour

home made lovely- megan’s home tour

Welcome to Home Made Lovely!
A weekly series featuring inspiring homes from around the blogging community.
I’ve asked each blogger the same question-

“What does creating a lovely home mean to you?”
Here’s what Megan shared…

Hey there! Have you been loving these Home Made Lovely posts as much as I have? Each Thursday I can’t wait to find a few spare minutes to sit down in the lovely Heather’s space and take a peek into yet another creative, unique home.

I’m Megan, by the way. My blog, Contented Sparrow, is, like my home, a creative outlet for me. I neeeed to create. That’s how God made me and I feel it to my core every time I stitch or paint or cook or photograph. Ever since I can remember, I’ve been rearranging furniture and feathering the nest I’m in.

But these days, making my home lovely is much, much more than simply a creative outlet for this mama. I strive to create an atmosphere for my family……my husband, 2 sons and 1 daughter. An atmosphere of safety and peace and calm and comfort and rest. A cheery home with bright color, squishy pillows, cozy blankets, fragrant candles, cookies baking, soup simmering, art spread on the table, music playing, and books upon books. A home that shines Christ.

I’m not at all saying that we live in a bubble of calm. Hahaha….far from it. But it is the atmosphere I aim to create. You’ll often find laundry spilling over, crumbs under the table, stains on the carpet, papers scattered, harsh words spoken, too much noise, daily mess inside and out. Yet, we accept that mess is a real part of life and even though we flail and fail, He redeems our messes. It’s all good!

Whoa, sorry, I didn’t mean to get so wordy. On to the tour! Woo-hoo!
(But first I can’t contain my need to apologize for my not-so-great photos that I’m blaming on the crazy dark and cloudy day and my inexperience. Me+low-light photography=blah. And it’s blindingly bright & sunny today. Yes, I could cry. But I don’t feel bad enough to retake all these pictures! :)
That said……

If I had to name my eclectic style, I’d call it Granny Chic. Yep, I first heard that term over on Flickr and I think it sums up my decorating bent. To me, vintage items, things with a history, hold more charm than new items. I smile conjuring up the history of the bits and pieces I find at thrift stores and antique malls. If it makes me smile, I know it’s right for our home. (Totally off-topic but by the way, I hold hard and fast to the wisdom of “bring something in, take something out”, weed through, give away, remake, reuse.)

If you’ve read my blog or followed my Pinterest for any amount of time, you can probably surmise that my heart aches to live on acreage with a small, old, white farmhouse and lots of outbuildings (with chickens and goats and pigs and cows and ducks, of course). BUT that hasn’t been in the plans for us yet and we’re content in the newish, suburban home He’s blessed us with.

Content but always holding very loosely to this home and these things. Meaning, I’ve not yet lived in a home that I was “attached ” to. I always trust that home is really wherever my family are and whatever brick-and-mortar home God provides is right where we’re supposed to be for the time. Honestly though, I do romanticize moving into a small, rickety, fixer-upper where I could really put my creativity to the test.

When you walk through the front door, our homeschool room is on the left. This is all you’re going to see of it because it’s VERY lived in if you know what I mean. The daisy chandelier is sentimental for me……it’s lived with us in three homes now. The white wall desk in there was a free craigslist find. FREE is good!!!

We’ll skip over to the main floor powder room now. When we moved in here 4 years ago, I knew I wanted to use beadboard or V-board somewhere in the house so the little powder room seemed like a logical place to try it out. If I could find the “before” shots, you’d see that this was a dark, sage and brown cave.
Hello light and bright!

Love our initial hooks in the back hallway. Thank you, Anthropologie.

His Words everywhere. Daily reminders of His love.

Next, we’ll head out to the living room which just was the happy recipient of a makeover. When you bring a piano into your home (thank you, craigslist), a makeover is surely needed. Tan walls - be gone!

Nothing in that room (with the exception of a few pillows) was purchased new. Nothing!!! All was thrifted or craigslisted or antiqued or garage-saled (sure, that’s a word) or given to us. Do you see the awesome outdoor chair below that swivels AND rocks? I know you’re jealous.
It was FREE on craigslist.

(map inspiration here)

We have an open floor plan which we LOVE, love since I LIVE in the kitchen. No, seriously, I live there. But I’m going to skip the kitchen for now and mosey on upstairs to the bedrooms first.

Our boys have always shared a room and last year we surprised them by making it over. These awesome hanging loft beds on this blog over here were my inspiration but, as you can see, on ours we decided to add a support post going down to the floor because the boys here are swinging, jumping, hanging, crazy b.o.y.s. As with the rest of the house, vintage rules.

On to the little girlie’s room. Being that she’s the younger sister to two brothers, this girl’s a little spitfire yet she is all girlie-pink-loving-girlie. What you don’t see are all her animal friends I may have stuffed into the closet before the pics. :)

Pickiness (mine) and cost restrictions mean that I always end up making our duvet covers with thrifted sheets and/or new fabric. I’m happy with how the girl’s turned out using some Heather Bailey fabric on sale I snatched up on etsy.

OK, first here’s just the teensy-tiniest sneak into our master bath. Teensy-tiny because nothing’s been done in there. Just some tans walls waiting for paint. My colorful jewelry kind of matches my house, huh? (That my latest printable thrown into a hoop…..I want to see those words first thing in the morning.)

And, secondly, here’s our bedroom. When we were looking for a house, one thing my husband and I both agreed on was that our bedroom did NOT need to be big. We would have said it was the very last thing on our wish list. So, when God brought us this house, the big master bedroom was just a bonus! An extra blessing. It’s my favorite, favorite room because of the windows. AHHHH, the glorious light that pours in those southeast facing windows in the morning. They’re the BEST!

Do you want to know the other reason why this is my favorite room? Yes? It’s because I can have a whole area dedicated to my crafty endeavors! What a gift!

Back downstairs now to the busiest place, of course, the dining area and kitchen. Dinner and chatter are enjoyed around that table very night. I heart cooking and baking and like I said before, I live in this room.

Remember how I said Heather’s request lit a fire underneath to finish projects? Well, painting my brown kitchen cupboards was one of those things that (hallelujah!) was completed. It was s.o. tiring but s.o. worth it. There’s no window right in there and now the white on top and light grey on bottom makes it perfectly bright! Yeah! (If you want to see a “before” picture, you can peek at one here.)

(chalkboard inspiration here)

OK, y’all, that’s it. Phew. Please know how I wish I could have you over for strong coffee and buttery baked goods instead of visiting through the screen. Consider yourself invited. :)

And I hope to have inspired you in some way as you build an atmosphere of loveliness in your home using the creativity that God has given you!

Megan