Spring cleaning

One of my favourite design sites, Apartment Therapy, is running an 8-week challenge to inspire people to spruce up their homes.  I've decided to follow along with their Spring Cure.  The timing is perfect: after a long winter of being almost hermit-like—during the end of pregnancy and now with a newborn—cabin fever has set in.  I'm itching to do some purging, cleaning, reorganizing, jazzing. What a perfect way to embrace my new current mission as a homemaker! (kidding. Sort of.  Learning to let go of my type-A, unrealistic expectations is the subject for another post ;).

This week's goal is to create a vision for how we want our homes to feel by the end of the process.  Here goes..... 

My home is my cocoon and a source of inspiration and regeneration.  I want it to have a natural, comfortable feel both inside and out.  I like it to reflect a spirit of creativity and adventure, with a unique personal flavour from the life experiences I've had.  All that exists now, I think.  So what I want to really concentrate on during my spring clean is to make it a bit simpler: to use the small space more efficiently, it will be great to decrease the amount of paper and stuff floating about (especially now that we have a boatload of baby paraphernalia added to the mix!).   That means paring down what we have, and doing a thorough tidy and reorg of every nook, closet, drawer and cranny.  It will make the house feel lighter and more open.  I'm up for it!  Finally, I want to inject some touches from our recent life together, such as photos of travels and baby.

These are some images that I find inspiring—

I like how this is tidy and open, yet cozy and rustic.

But I prefer more colour!

I'll keep looking for ideas that better capture what I'm going for.  To get kick-started this week, I'm aiming to give the home office an overhaul. It's the creative engine for most of my activities so that should get the juices flowing.