When I was a newlywed and even when we were engaged and registering for gifts, I felt like our house had to be plenty masculine so that Seth would be comfortable in our space too. It’s kind of like how I thought I had to avoid cooking with mushroom, beans and olives because Seth didn’t love them (read: hadn’t tried them). Slowly,  ever so slowly I have allowed myself with each home to let it slide toward the feminine side. Not because I don’t want Seth to like it, but more because I realized that he really doesn’t mind either way. And it isn’t that I am not including the masculine into things,  but it’s more that in addition to those things I am not shying away anymore from the more feminine things!  As long as the house is comfortable. So just as the mushrooms, beans and olives have made their way into our menus over the years, so have the florals, paisleys, fru fru pillows. And I love it!  And if you ask Seth he would agree that olives extra pillows aren’t so bad because he knows I love them. Well, pillows are a bad example, he hates extra pillows but the other stuff has gone over well

Our bedroom was a major place I originally thought should be the perfect balance of feminine and masculine. We went out to a carpenter in Colombia and had a bed made from  a Pottery Barn catalog. We made sure it was big and dark and  masculine. It turned out twice the size we anticipated and in the right room (ie Rebecca’s farm house) it looks perfect but in a small space it eats it up! So when we moved here we bought a wrought iron bed.  Much lighter looking and I love it.  In terms of other furniture, we started with just the brown dresser but a girl without space for her clothes isn’t a nice one to contend with on say Sunday mornings when she has just dressed the younger half of the family and all she wants is to get dressed in peace with ACCESSIBLE clothes! So last week we pulled in my childhood dresser…which, bingo, adds the perfect feminine balance to Seth’s dresser. It has a hutch for the top but I decided against using that since the room is small and any spare space needs to be visible.

The bedding we picked when we got married was paisley but in rusts and browns and reds. I still love it but it is for sure more masculine. We have since gotten a lighter weight quilt that is all kinds of soft colors, paisleys and florals. We painted our room blue (see, there are boy colors still) and I tried my best to keep it super simple in there. For the walls we just put up things that were meaningful to us, engagement pictures, black and whites of our babies, our marriage license and a reading I gave Seth on our wedding day.  We also put up an old painting I found in a Swiss thrift store.

I found the curtains at HomeGoods. I wanted something with simple, neutral colors but some texture and paisley-ish pattern. I mean, I am not a very spontaneous person, I have yet to do all of those wild right of passage things from my teenage years but paisley, it’s my spontaneous. Cheery, unpredictable and just fun.  The chair was a Swiss salvation army chair that I had new cushions made for….very thrifty idea turned expensive project! It’s matching chair lives in our downstairs.  We are attempting to sit in the pretty chair rather than pile laundry on it. You’d be proud mom, the chair is on Seth’s side of the bed so 99% of the time it’s his clothes that are stacked on it, not mine.  The chair isn’t fitting quite so well with the addition of the dresser but we will see if she gets to stay.  The light fixture is a chandelier I found with my mom at the architectural salvage in Ft Worth!  It was new to the salvage store and they hadn’t priced it yet so I got a great deal!

The tricky part about our room has been training the boys that it isn’t their space and to keep out the legos, Noah’s million animals, and pirate ship pieces and other various toys! The minute I see boys run into my room, racing around like banshies and sword fighting with shattering lego swords, you will find me hot on their heels shooing them out. The kids can take over every last inch of the house, but not our bedroom!  Another blogger is blogging about hospitality this month and I am enjoying every single post. One was about hospitality beginning with your relationship with your spouse.  When Seth and I have time together and invest in our relationship we are better parents and are better equipped to reach out to others. When we don’t slow down on this marathon of life to invest in each other it shows, big time. I wanted our room to be a peaceful, tidy place where we can relax and not feel like we are tripping over legos!  In the past I have worked to have a pretty room but put so much more effort into other rooms knowing that those were the ones people used and would actually see. It took a few homes into marriage to realize that this is where I want to make beautiful just as much or more than the rest of the house!  And someday I hope this will be a room that involves full nights of sleep uninterrupted by wee ones. Until then at least it’s pretty!