Home Style Guide - Brought to you by Linden Street and JCPenney

A Clutter Free Lodge

Pioneer Woman | August 12th, 2008
21 liked this post. Do you?

A week after returning from my sister’s home in Austin (see above), my house is much farther along on the road to being clutter-free—well, unless you go upstairs to my kids’ rooms, and I haven’t even begun thinking about that trip through Purgatory. But the downstairs? The kitchen and living room area? It’s so clutter-free, it’s almost scary. I still can’t decide if it looks like mom and dad came and stripped my dormroom of all their furniture…or if it looks the way it should look. All I know is, it’s sparse. And I’ve never been happier in my life. Suddenly, a huge weight has been lifted.

We’re in the middle of a huge remodel project on the ranch—not in our own home but in The Lodge, an old guest house up the road from our place. We’re more than halfway through the remodel, and are about to finalize the kitchen plan. Soon we’ll begin thinking about wall colors, furniture, and accessories. Here’s what it looked like before we started the remodel:

My recent Clutter Revelation has got me thinking. While I want The Lodge to be comfortable, homey, warm, and inviting to guests (or Marlboro Man and me, when we escape the mile and a half there to go on an occasional “date”…but that’s another story for another time), I can’t help but shake the notion that I want things to be simple, clean, understated, sparse. It is, in fact, a “lodge”, though, so stark stainless steel and sleek, contemporary furniture and cabinetry would be completely out of place. But the way my mindset is right now, so would big, ornate leather sofas, Navajo throw pillows, and paintings everywhere you look. I don’t want the place to look highly contrived and decorated. I want people to walk in, kick off their shoes, and feel at peace.

Basically, I don’t know what I’m talking about. I want the Zen-type feel of sparseness and clean lines. But I want the warmth of a luxurious Colorado ski chalet. What approach am I after?

This is what’s been occupying my thoughts all week.

POSTED IN clutter | lodge | pioneer woman | ree | remodel | wetsy