As I mentioned in a post earlier this week, I really needed to step away from my house for a while.  I was feeling a little overwhelmed by indecisiveness and was falling asleep with thoughts of rugs and fabrics bouncing around in my head.  It’s just decorating, Marian.  Good grief.  Step away from the room.  It just so happens that my husband had already planned to sweep me away to Charlottesville, VA for some down time.  He picked out where we stayed and he picked a winner. While I wanted and needed to step away from decorating, inspiration seemed to find me anyway.  (I just can’t turn that part of my brain off.)  I especially loved this room.  The trimwork is very similar to something I want to do in my family room and I loved the neutral jute rug. And I love all of the furniture with worn paint

I am not a trained designer.  My degree is in musical theatre, not interior design.  Decorating became my creative outlet when I hung up my tap shoes and tucked away the pancake makeup.  I’ve studied decorating by reading home decor books, shelter magazines, watching HGTV, and by a lot of doing and redoing.  The nice thing about that is I don’t have to worry about all of the things that are proper and conventional and “right” that I would’ve learned had I studied formally.  I just do what I like. I don’t always arrange things in odd numbers.  (Gasp!)  I often mix more than three patterns. (Double gasp!) And I have no trouble mixing shades of blue.  (The horror!) There are all of these decorating rules floating around…don’t paint a small room a dark color, don’t combine this color with that one, use red in every room, use black in