This Ain't a Man Cave...

The past few weeks I have worked very hard to turn my living room - a place that is often a wasted space - into a place that is my space. A place for me to read, to sit and drink tea with friends and a place to escape testosterone when it becomes too much for me. It happens. I don't mind testosterone as a rule...just need to escape it every once in a while.

We have a den. It has a huge television and the Wii and X-Box with a nice big couch and leather chair and ottoman. It is named correctly - a den. For the men. I do not mind the men coming into my more feminine space - as long as they understand that they are on my turf. And if there is a chick flick on my more sensible sized telly - they should LEAVE IT ALONE. I'm just sayin'.

What I love about my little room is that there are things that are special to me. My piano, the chairs my Mom and I refinished together (still not quite done). The corner cabinet and pitcher and ewer that were my grandmother's, my desk when I was a little girl. My husbands grandparents 100 year old table, a rocking chair I finished for him before we were married, my framed cathedral quilt squares my childhood neighbor taught me to make that I framed, or the picture my 9th grade Sunday School teacher painted for me when I had the twins, an antique library table I found for a steal at a garage sale as well as my antique baby bed side rail I use for my magazine rack. My boys pictures and silhouettes and even a book case that was mine in college, given to me from my boss when I worked at Blue Cross and Blue Shield. It was the boys bedside table for years. I recouped it and it has all the things they wrote on it - I decided I liked it too much with their scribblings from years gone by than I would if I wiped it all out and refinished it. Everything in the room makes me smile when I think about the story behind it.

I think that is the way a house should be decorated. Not with just pretty stuff. But stuff that means something to you. That moves you in some way. When I sit in my little living room I am truly at home. I think every mama should have such a place.