Picture Perfect Home

I am an avid magazine purveyor. I love them. I love the articles, the pictures, fascinating people and places that grace each page. I also read my daily horoscope. I don’t live and die by it, but I like to read it everyday just to see if at the end of the day I can say, “Oh, now I see what it was saying.” I have a point, I promise.

The other day my horoscope said something about not comparing myself to the images in magazines because those pictures are staged, airbrushed, and held to almost impossible standards. To be flawed is to be a living, breathing person….or something to that effect. So it got me thinking. This same insight could be held to the home magazines that I like to daydream over. The pictures are always pristine.  Everything is always in place with matching colors schemes and flawlessly decorated. I would love it if all my rooms looked that way, but then who wouldn’t, right?

I recently received my copy of Do It Yourself magazine, and while flipping through the pages, that old feeling of “I wish my living room looked that way” began to wash over me. Then I came to a pretty profound realization: My living room will never look that way (at least in the foreseeable future).

 
Here is why. See this picture:


There are about a billion reasons why it will never look this way on a daily basis but I will narrow it down five:
  1.  I have little kids.  That's right, all of you out there who have kids are probably picking up on the same things I am in this picture.  My kids + light furniture + white rug = disaster.  I try to be conscious of where my kids set down their drink cups but inevitably one gets past me and it results in juice stains.
  2. Accessible shelves.  Again, kids will see this as an open invitation to explore the contents of everyone of those baskets to see what they can find. 
  3. We have toys....lots of them.  We have separated the toys and make an effort to have our kids pick up what they are playing with before they get out something new.  However, when you have had a long day and everyone is crabby, sometimes it is just easier to leave them out and walk around them.  I know, please try not to judge.
  4. I have stuff.  We have clutter in the house which admittedly most of it is mine.  I try my hardest to operate under the "everything has a place rule" but it doesn't always work.
  5. No matter what I do it just never stays that way.  About the only time my living room remotely looks similar to this is after I have cleaned because I am getting ready for a holiday/birthday/get together.  You know what I'm talking about. 
Someday, when the kids are older, my rooms will look this way.  Until then, I will continue to daydream and remind myself that I am only human and my space isn't a picture, it's home.

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