Make it Meaningful

Next Friday, Graham and I will be heading up the coastline of southern Maine for a long weekend of lobster eating, lighthouse spotting, and beach combing.  As a girl who has never been north of New York, I gotta tell ya', I'm pretty thrilled to be going to such an iconic location.  One of the things I simply cannot wait to do is peruse around little New England towns like Bath, Wiscasset, and Rockland for a day.  I will be on the lookout for a new piece for my summer beach collection that I use to decorate my living room with between May and Labor Day.  I am of the mindset that good decorating takes time, and pieces should be meaningful and accumulated slowly.  Nate Berkus explains it well in this article.

"I always want objects in my home that have a connection to me or something I've loved," he says.  "It's still stuff, but it's stuff that has meaning."

 This spring, my husband's parents gifted us with the picture that his Grandmother Crouch painted of little Graham at the beach in 1982.  It works perfectly in my living room.

 I got this interesting backdrop at a paper store in New Orleans and bought it without really knowing what I was going to do with it.  It works well as a frame for these starfish, collected on a family vacation to Cape May, New Jersey.

 I saw this screen printed pillow at my favorite local store, Shabby Love, and had to have it.  A quirky little addition to my summer pillow collection. 

"Everywhere your eye travels in your home, it should land on something that resonates with you," says Berkus.  At a sisters weekend a few years ago, we all signed seashells for our nieces/nephews.  I keep Maddy's in this jar with our other ocean finds.

What meaningful treasures do you have in your home?