Simplicity Fail: Or When Planning Turns Into Covetousness

It all started with my renewed interest in taking homemaking seriously. During prayer time last week, I came to realize that I haven't been taking my job as a homemaker seriously. Nothing too terrible was happening, but dishes in the sink, dusty floors, and stacks of stuff randomly situated around the house became commonplace. One place of neglect were the windows in our family room/ kitchen open concept space. When we moved in there were green and purple walls. We got used to them. There were green laminate countertops. We got used to them. The previous owners took the curtains but left the rods. We got used to it. The cabinets were an odd sort of pickled cream while the appliances were white. I NEVER got used to them.  When our television broke and we bought a new one, our old coffee table became the new tv stand. Instead of replacing the dysfunctional overhead microwave we just put another one on the countertop.

Basically our most used room in the house was slowly sliding into ugliness. At first I looked at inexpensive ways to fix things--on the cheap. First up, build and paint an easy corner tv stand so we could reclaim our coffee table.

The prospect of a painted tv stand led me to wanting to paint our cabinets. I found a few tutorials and well, I was off to the races. That led me to pintrest, HGTV.com, and Houzz. My to-do list grew and grew:

• replace the microwave and dishwasher
• paint the cabinets white
• replace the laminate counters with wood--put together by me with my Kreg jig
• replace the non-functioning pendant lights with ones that shed more light
• repaint the dingy refrigerator
• replace the white knobs and pulls with brushed nickel ones
• sew purple and white curtains
• add a roller shade to the back door to cut the heat in summer
• build and paint a corner tv stand
• sew white canvas slipcovers for the sofa
• buy slipper or arm chairs so there is more seating around the tv
• build a few end tables
• buy a sisal or other neutral colored rug
• replace the black mats at the doors

Hours and hours later I had an an entire pintrest board devoted to all the new things I wanted to do to improve this space.

Then, I made the mistake of asking my husband his opinion. He loves the cabinets and even the awful green countertops. So I did what any grown woman would do in this situation: I pouted. I was stuck with an awful family open concept room! After a few hours of pouting I realized that I had fallen into that oh-so-attractive consumerist trap again. In my effort to beautify and make our space more useful, I had assumed that I had to buy and change stuff to make me happy. My happiness depended upon me getting to do what I wanted and (more importantly) buy what I wanted.

My online information gathering had morphed into online covetousness. So I've decided to take a break, clean my kitchen, put away the piles, and try to focus on one bit at a time. For now, keep things tidy and neat. I think I need to step away from the pintrest, and focus on the work rather than the dreaming for a while.