One of the challenges of being a military family and moving every 2-3 years is trying to make your belongings work, from home to home. The homes we have lived in over the years have all been so very different — in style, square footage, layout, etc. Our last home in Kansas was 2700 square feet, 5 bedroom and 3 bathrooms. Our home, here in Tampa, is a 1920s spanish-style home, 1600 square feet, 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. We do our best with making our furniture work from house to house, but photographs seem to come and go. There’s a bunch in our storage facility right now, due to lack of wall space. I also like to have a good mix on my walls — my photographs, photographs from others (that’s I’ve purchased) and art prints.
This is our living room entryway. The large print is 34×34 framed. I wish it was much larger.
My family books. One of my greatest treasures. I’ve been making an annual family book ever since I started photography, in 2006. I’ve blogged about my
book-making process quite a bit over the years. My book this year was over 108 pages. They make my heart so happy and I love that the kids will periodically pull out the books and start looking at them, giggling as they do. I can’t wait to look at these books 10 years from now.
If you turn 180 degrees from the credenza, you see our living room fireplace, which displays my most favorite family photograph, taken by Leah Zawadzki, while we were stationed in San Diego. This is another photograph I wish was larger, but it has moved this way from house to house. Do you see the HOPE in the print? Many people don’t at first.
The display shelves in my little one’s shared bedroom. They’re always doing little projects so the shelves have taken on a mix of photographs, art prints and craft projects.
And my 14-year-old’s display shelves. This is where Kiele keeps many of the photos of her Dad. He lives in California and they are only able to see each other a few times a year.
This is our bedroom dresser. It’s a mix of old treasures, mostly of my kids, when they were babies.
And the bedroom nightstand, which has a homecoming photo, from Steve’s military homecoming in 2008 (photographed by Peta Mazey).
The start of a wall collage in my office. I plan to keep adding framed prints to this wall. The ‘Remember Who You Are.’ print is one of my polaroids printed as a 20×20.
The inspiration boards, to the left of my desk, which has become quite the mix of inspiration, drawings from my kids and photographs. This area changes with time and seems to be getting messier and messier but…I love it.
This is really the only real hallway in our entire house. A lensbaby photo of Sky on one wall and a portrait of each of the kids on the other wall.
I have a pretty big mix of custom and store-purchased frames throughout my house. These
silver frames are from CB2. I love them because you can have vertical and horizontal displayed side-by-side in the same frame. Not a bad price either.
My husband just finished renovating our main bathroom yesterday (although still missing some of the hardware). I put this photo up, but I might end up doing a collage something like the image on the right. Still deciding. So proud of my husband and so excited to finally have a second bathroom back.
Thanks, Deb!