The Y-Not Homestead: Decorate? Me?

I would love to spruce up my home's decor. Decorate like I mean it. Living in a distant rural land, raising and homeschooling boys, and gearing up the homestead for greater production next year, has made decorating my living space a low priority. Unfortunately. The upside is that I no longer am doing any of this inside a fifth-wheel! And, my garden has helped give me a way of enjoying my indoors today.

I was outside in the garden last night harvesting herbs. I brought them up and placed the bounty on the only useful surface, the dinning room table. That's where everything lands. As dinner approached, I was forced to relocate the herbs. So, I hastily placed them on my grandmother's old kitchen table and went about my business. After dinner was served and cleaned up, I looked over and realized that with a little tiny bit of arranging, I had a work of art before my very eyes!

Voila! An old-time country table filled with life's most basic pleasures, herbs! Notice the potatoe bag I left under the table, to make sure I don't loose touch with reality!

With the house filled with strong, fresh scents of the earth, I cut wire and hung the herbs to dry behind the wood stove.

Not only is there visual beauty, but our home is filled with the mixed aromas of sage, rosemary and lavender! Oh the satisfaction! Suddenly my home is beautiful! Despite some unfinished areas.

As I begin to look around I find renewed happiness in the little vignettes I've already created here and there. Like the simple little incense burner I love so much. The basket weaving is by a young novice Navajo weaver. And my husband's cowboy hat, another touch of reality, 'wherever it lands.'

And what really makes this house a home is being able to enjoy and display my own artwork.

These are my favorite pen and inks. Southwestern scenes depicting the mystery and beauty of nature at its best. No real rhyme or reason to the display, just that I love the watercolors too!

This is my six-year-in-waiting kitchen. A long time coming, but worth the wait. It's not finished yet, but it's coming together. It's quite an upgrade from cooking on a camp stove or in the fifth-wheel! One of our neighbors is a skilled wood worker. He made the cabinet for the sink we found laying in the desert dirt. The owner was happy to let us take it.

Our friend made the beautiful cabinet and put the perfect hardware on...

...which matches the style of the sink and the faucet handles we were given! Not to mention the stove itself. It all came together.

We found the stove on Craig's List. MW went down to Mesa to pick it up. Once we got it home, we tested the stove, pressure washed it, and scrubbed it down with degreaser. Almost as good as new! Well, actually it has a lot of 'character,' with all its chips and dings in the porcelain! But isn't that what makes it so much more interesting? So not only do I cook dinner, I now do it in style!