Virginia meets Hawaii – Michelle’s Story

Virginia meets Hawaii

Hello!  My name is Michelle, and I am the oldest of the sisters. I want to invite you into my personal space, and share sneak peeks of my home and my decorating inspirations.  I believe it is so important to bring life into your home and surround yourself with things that make you happy.  I love seeing beautiful spaces, listening to others talk about their home, and collecting pieces from our travel adventures. These are all things I discuss daily with my sisters, and I am so excited to now share everything with you. I sincerely hope that, through this blog, I can help your decorating inspirations.

My passion for decorating began at a very early age and was inspired by my mother.  When I was a little girl, I can remember my mother constantly moving around furniture and holding up pictures to find the perfect spot. My sisters and I were too small to help, so she did everything on her own. One time, I watched, horrified, as she lugged up a loveseat twice her size to the second floor on her own! No room was safe, she was always styling and re-styling each room until it was personalized just the way she envisioned. And then the process would begin again when she got a new piece. As the saying goes “All women become their mothers” and now I do the exact same thing.

We recently moved to Hawaii from Virginia, and it was a real challenge to fit all of our precious pieces from a spacious home in Virginia into a tiny little bungalow in Hawaii. To prepare, I drew out the floor plan of our new home on graph paper, then measured each piece of furniture and created paper cutouts to scale. Unfortunately, this made me realize that some of my very favorite pieces would not make the move – there simply wasn’t enough space. This was our ninth move, and it was, by far, my biggest challenge. As a decorating enthusiast, I love using our stuff in different ways and personalizing each space. I had to find a way to mix my Virginia “modern fox hunting” decor with a little “Aloha.” Since this is not our forever home and our time in Hawaii is short, I could not waste any time. These pictures are a sneak peek of our family room, the room where we spend the majority of our time.

I plan with each decor post to share my ideas on how to give your home a personalized collected feel rather than a “decorated” feel. I will provide tips on mixing high and low, masculine and feminine, ornate and simple, and how to add color and pattern to your space. I’ll even try to share tips on incorporating that whimsical piece that we all have and love but don’t know how to fit it in.  I hope with each decor post it will inspire you. Hopefully, soon you’ll be shopping, antiquing or pulling out the forgotten treasures buried deep in your storage closet or working your old [or new] pieces into your decor. I would also love to see pictures or answer questions if someone plans to take on any projects in their home. Thanks for stopping by and I look forward to decorating with you all!

“Your home should tell the story of who you are, and be a collection of what you love.”

                                                                                                     – Nate Berkus

Let’s get inspired together and start collecting for a gallery wall. There are so many ways to go about it to make it your own personal space.