the den slump

IT ISN’T DONE, PEOPLE. (Long, boring story.) Most of my books are piled in laundry baskets and our basement guest room looks like... well, like this:

REAL LIFE HOUSES OF FREDERICK COUNTY

Updating the den has been a lot of fun for me, but it’s also been taking (wait, grab a pretend flashlight and point it under your chin, Sandlot style and say it with me now)... FOR-EV-ER. I started shopping for the room six months ago! Changes inside the room started two months ago. Yeah, I thought I’d be done by now.

One of my favorite design bloggers, Emily Henderson, recently posted an update on her family room, and her honesty about her lack of progress made me sigh with relief. Emily bought her home in the fall of 2013. She first wrote about her family room in early 2014. It’s a mess. Fast forward to November ’14, where she posted about some progress that had been made. Notice there’s no art on the walls (except for during the photo shoot) and the pieces of furniture are all “works for now” kinds of pieces. She just gave readers another update of the room, as of February 2015. (Though to be honest, with the way many bloggers plan and draft posts, the room could be completely done right now and we just don’t know it yet.)

Emily is a successful designer and stylist. She’s had her own show on HGTV, she’s been featured in countless magazines and she was (is?) the home style expert for Target. Between her knack for great design and her bigger-than-mine income, she could pull her dream family room together faster than a year and a half. But she hasn’t! And I love that! :)

So, no den reveal quite yet. In the meantime I’ve been re-decorating the ladder bookcases in our living room and trying to “shop” in other rooms of the house so I’ll have plenty of options when I eventually style the shelves in the den. So far I’ve pulled a few bookends from the living room, a lidded basket from my bathroom, picture frames from our “Craigslist room” and a bunch of postcards that I had forgotten were in the back of the guest room closet.

I was hoping to put art up today, but last night Andy asked if I’d be open to putting a TV in the den. Attached to the wall. This should not be a big deal, but I’m the kind of person who internally freaks out whenever a slight change is made to her plans. We shall see.

Even though the den isn’t done, I’m already much happier in the space. I have a new little spot to sit and read! Here’s a tiny sneak peak: