~MIX IT UP!!~

OUT with the NEW and IN with the OLD!! Spring seems to be the time when everyone wants new things. Pretty new clean things. I'm the same way...I look around my house after a long winter like we have had and when the sun starts to shine through the window I notice all the dirt and grime I couldn't see over the dreary winter months. This is when I start to FREAK OUT!!! I start cleaning everything....just ask my kids they will tell you! They give me that look like I've lost my mind and hey, maybe I have after a few hours of cleaning with amonia or bleach. But it's not just the cleaning, it's the want for something new and shiny or super white and clean. You know that feeling when you replace something OLD with something NEW and it looks all nice and fresh. Well my way of thinking is just the opposite. Now, I'm not telling you to go and throw away all the new pretty things and replace them with old grimey ones but what I am saying is MIX IT UP! My 15 year old daugher had a snow day yesterday. Around 10 am she texted me and asked me if it was ok for her to move some furniture around in her room to which I replied "idc as long as you are careful and don't hurt your back or your hip." When I got home she had moved a few things around and as I was standing in her doorway admiring her new found interior design skills I noticed how much I really love her bedroom. Not because of the many pictures she has of her and boyfriend or the billion and one bottles of hair products on her vanity but because many of the items in her room are things I picked up at flea markets or second hand shops and gave "new life" to. Her bedroom is the perfect example of mixing the OLD with the NEW. Her and I have a running argument as to which of us has the more comfortable bed. She is convinced hers is the best in the house. It is comfortable I will give her that. New mattress, new box springs and of course new soft and cozy mattress pad all of which were super white and blindingly crisp when purchased. However those things are sitting on a vintage metal headboard and footboard I purchased for $4.97 and spray painted to give new life to. All those pretty new bottles of hair products are sitting on top of a glass and wood table she uses as a vanity with an antique cabinet door inside the glass which I've painted (twice to be exact..it is now black and white but it was pink and white when she was 5). She sits in a vintage soda chair which was splattered with paint when I bought it for $8 but is now all white and fresh thanks to a $2 can of white spray paint and the mirror she uses to straighten her hair and apply her $10 mascara is etched and cut, not just square or rectagular and I paid $5 for it. Half the cost of the mascara!! The full length mirror she uses to make sure her jeans make her butt look perfect is oak and heavy as heck with crisp white paint, not like the ones kids get today from the local dollar general for $5. Her 1930's "heavy as heck" one..........$1 at a garage sale. I love her room because I love that the items she has aren't things that are mass produced and sold to anyone who is walking up and down the aisles at Target or Walmart. I love the fact that a young woman who is now in her 80s was looking at herself through the same mirror making sure her hips didn't look too big in her dress when she was 15 just like my daughter looks through it admiring her butt. New shiny things don't have to come in a package or a box. Sometimes they are things that have been around awhile and just need a new coat of paint or a new screw or nail. Sometimes out with the NEW and in with the OLD can make the thought of out with the old and in with the new even more exciting because that OLD item has history, it has character and sometimes it might even have class! So mix it up this Spring.....don't be afraid to think outside the "brand new packaged box." Take a few extra seconds to pick up something OLD and think of how it might look with a new coat of paint! That $1 mirror might even make your daughter love her $100 jeans even more! :)

PS: I was watching Sex and The City the other night and Carrie had just purchased yet another pair of Manolo Blahnik shoes, these ones costing roughly $600 and as she walked out of Barneys she made the comment "now off to my favorite vintage thrift shop to find the perfect $8 dress to wear them with." I guess even a city girl knows you can't go wrong with mixing it up!!