Housewife epiphany: Rotate the art on your walls! Simple changes make for an inspired home.

I’ve always had this dream of having seasonal artwork. Well at least since I was in my 20’s. The idea was that I would change the art on the walls of my house depending on the season. I still love that idea. But let’s face it with two kids at home under the age of four, I don’t have time for that sort of quarterly art exchange. Honestly, I may never choose to make time for it that regularly. But the epiphany I had the other day seemed like a practical and energizing version of this dream.

And this is it: “I can rotate the art on my walls like people rearrange the furniture.” It seems small, but it felt huge. For the most part, the art on our wall has been in place for years. Small, minor changes, but mostly it gets there and it stays there—I suspect this is similar to most people’s decorating styles. You chose a piece, you design your room, you hang it, there it stays. My epiphany was that it doesn’t have to be that way.

It all started with the photos on our piano, of which there are many. I love having them there— I should say I love seeing photos of my brothers and sisters, and parents (both mine and Jason’s) in our house, especially because they don’t live near us so we don’t get to see them often. But they are an absolute bitch to dust around which means, it NEVER happens.

Once my dad signed his name in the dust on the top of our piano on his way out of our house. I honestly can’t remember how long ago this was but let’s just say A LONG TIME ago, and I swear I thought I could see it under another hefty layer of dust l when I recently took all the pictures off the piano.

So I took them off. I decided to hang them on the wall in our hallway. A place we would see them, and it wouldn’t look so cluttered and be so hard to dust around. I took off the art we had there. Bought up all the decent 5×7 frames from our island Thrift Store, went through our photos on the computer and got a bunch of new ones printed.

I chose photos that either were great photos of the people—or ones that just produced happy memories of a time or a place. Like this is one of the pics I chose. It is both Jason and I’s families together on the beach a few nights before we were married in Mexico. As a photo, it’s not spectacular. As a memory, it makes a warm feeling.Two of my other favorites like this are me and my sister reading in the hammock together at my parents cabin—again not stellar of us—but lovely in memory.

One of my brother fishing at this location. For me this is also a childhood recollection. 

Another favorite one for me is my niece talking to my brother-in-law where they live in Lake Tahoe. Though you can’t see their faces directly, for me it totally conjures their relationship, and of course the scenery is beautiful and a happy memory of a family vacation we took.

There are others. Like these. And about 30 more!

Along with these changes came other “big” thoughts.

1. I can buy a piece of art that I love when I see it.
Usually I go through this thing in my head thinking, “Where would I put that?” Every wall in our house is already occupied. Now I am like, I can buy that, and change something else out, or put it up later in my rotating artwork scheme. The walls don’t have to be static. They can be dynamic!

2. I can store pieces I am not using right now and put them up later. As long as I just chose pieces I love I’ll always be interested in seeing them later. I can have a collection of things that I love to look at, for when I need a little change in our house.

Ahh! I am happy. I did a lot of other rearranging of our house artwork. The family pics went up last weekend. The piano top is dusted.  And I’m open to buying new art when I see something I love, knowing I don’t have to know where it goes right now to get enjoyment from it. It’s even inspired me to start making some new art for our walls, ideas I’ve always loved, but up until now, just didn’t know where they would fit!  “Sigh,” said the happy housewife. Simple discoveries make for an inspired home.