One of my personal goals this year is to be more disciplined about taking photos each week. We are deep in winter, and the evenings creep up so early. Now that I live up here in the Pacific Northwest, I am even more in awe of Stephanie Congdon Barnes, co-author of 3191 ~ A Year of Evenings. She managed to photograph half of a book in the dark!
However, truthfully, I think I use the fading daylight as a bit of an excuse. Sometimes I look around and feel like there is nothing worth photographing. Does this happen to you too?
We are gradually carving out our life here in this new house. It feels a bit like an excavation. I see progress each week, but it doesn’t always feel very photogenic. The last 3 weekends we have been replacing the fireproof door from the garage to the laundry room. I don’t even know how to explain why this has taken 3 weekends. It just has. We had to do a lot of extra steps that were not on the instruction sheet. On the upside, we have lots of new tools. Angle grinders. Saws. Brad nailers.
Meanwhile, our upstairs doorways all look like that last photo above — partially painted. Just enough white paint on the base to get the carpet installed. That top photo is my husband’s future office. Right now, it’s just bare sub-floor and piles of trim waiting to be primed and painted.
And in the middle? Well, it turns out there is plenty of pretty stuff mixed in here after all. A bouquet of iris in the kitchen. Bolts of fabrics waiting to be put away. What I thought at first was a “mess” on my desk — until I looked again and saw a pretty arrangement of purples. A little splash of color on a shadowy gray day.
What about you? Are there any bright spots in your home you’d care to share?
I am working on a whole house tour — the “before” of what I hope will become a nice “after.” It takes a little courage and self-belief, doesn’t it? You’ve got to believe you’re going to end up some place great!
