|
|
A Room for Inspiration
In October of 1999 we bought a lovely little, 20-year-old townhouse in rural, wooded Medford, New Jersey. It’s a very nice contemporary-style home with three average size bedrooms, two baths, and a living room with a fireplace and a cathedral ceiling. Looking over the living room is a small loft area that I use as my studio where I do my commercial art, write, and manage our four websites and eBay business. When you look through the living room or down from the loft towards the back of the house, there is a small sunroom that faces directly south. Because it has full southern exposure, it is truly a "sun" room.
When we first looked at the house, the former owners were using the sunroom to store a large old exercise machine and other personal items. It was just a place to store stuff. Why they were under utilizing the room was a mystery to me because just outside of the sunroom is a large deck with a great view. I looked at it and thought, "Hmmmmm.... I see potential here." I was feeling the spark of inspiration.
|
Here's one of our the yard sale furniture finds. When we first got the furniture, it had been outside for a long time and was very sun faded. The cushins were shot and the wood frames needed some minor repairs. Semi-gloss redwood paint, pillows, southwest-style fabric, and a few hours later, we had a very nice outdoor furniture set. I'm planning on adding a string of amber lights to the fica tree.
|
I use fishing line to hang sun catchers, mobiles, and a dream catcher along the back windows. Since the room has southern exposure, our brightly colored decorations fill up the room with warm colors.
|
I didn’t spend much time there through the first winter, but as Spring broke and it wasn’t so cold, I began to spend more time out there with our fold up chairs and table. It didn’t take too many hours of being there before my creative juices began to flow. I was asking myself, "What do you want to do out here?" I had the sense that I wanted to make it a special place, sort of a personal sanctuary where I could rest, relax, read, meditate, daydream, and recharge.
At that time, I was still working as a designer and product manager at a large toy company. Thanks to the Tom Hanks movie, "BIG." most people have the misperception that working for a toy company MUST be TONS OF FUN! While it wasn’t a horrible place to work and certainly wasn’t a sweatshop, it was NOTHING like the Hanks movie. It had all of the usual stresses and concerns of any large contemporary corporation. I knew I needed a place to "get away."
It’s funny how an inspired mind operates. It seems that all you really have to do is ask a question and the mind says, "Let me get back to you." Here’s where knowing how to be mentally quiet and open can help you to hear the whisper of your Higher Self, and the voice of Inspiration. The Higher Self and the Voice of Inspiration almost always speak in hushed, whisper tones. As I spent time in my sunroom just being quiet and asking, "what can I do with this space to make this a special place?" the answers began to dawn on me. It all started with the carpet.
|
|
|
Designing My Inspiration Room
A few years before, we were renting a townhouse with carpeting in the living room that was going bald in a few places. The landlord wasn’t ready to replace the carpeting, so we bought a large southwest style area rug to cover the shabby old carpeting. When we moved into the new house, the indoor-outdoor carpeting in the sunroom was very faded, so we decided to trim the area rug to fit the sunroom. It made a huge improvement. So I was sitting there one day and asking myself what I should do and where to begin. I kept looking at the area rug and noticing that it had four basic colors, beige, medium brown, medium pink (salmon) and turquoise. That did it! I clearly saw the paint scheme and theme of the room.
I decided to go with a southwest color scheme. Why not? After all, it is a "sun" room and looked South. So painted the walls, "Pinehurst Yellow," the ceiling, "Cookie Dough," and the trim, "Matisse Blue" (turquoise). The new colors made the room come alive. Meanwhile, my wife Karen was indulging in one of her favorite pastimes, "Yard Saling." She is a master yard "sailor" and was having a blast in our new community. Although Medford Township is essentially a rural community, like much of the country, it is becoming developed, and has many upscale developments that make for excellent yard sale possibilities. There isn’t anything in the room that cost more than $40! The chairs and table are repainted redwood outdoor furniture. The ceiling fan was $29.95 on sale at Wal-Mart. Everything else in the room are inexpensive finds from trips to the Jersey Shore, second hand shops, birthday gifts, and yard sales.
|
I keep a cassette tape player in the room for times when I want to listen to affirmation tapes, meditation tapes, or my Conversations With God tapes. Everything here is simple, low-tech, and inexpensive. That's my chair, but I let Twiggy the cat think it's his.
|
With the doors open, the New Age music from our cable TV system spills out into the deck area. That's Twiggy the Guard Cat on duty.
The ceiling fan is a must-have in the warm months. On days when the humidity is to high (and it can get VERY humid here in New Jersey), we able to be comfortable even when it's in the low '90s. When the fan isn't on I use a reostat to turn down the bright colored party bulbs for additional accent lighting.
There's a strong Native American presence in this area. As a result of several archelolgical digs in the area, many spaces have been placed zoned as open spaces to preserve ancient Native American burial grounds. If you've ever seen the movie "Poldergeist" you know it a very good idea. Sometimes on cold Winter days, I try to imagine what it must have been like when the Leni Lanapi Indians lived here. Hmmmm...
|
Since I wanted soft music for the room, I added a pair of yard sale stereo speakers by running the speaker lines through the wall to the stereo on the other side of the wall in the living room. Our cable service has over 20 music channels, our favorite being the "Atmospheres" channel that plays contemporary instrumental music, i.e., New Age Music. Since I like to read and write in the sunroom, I added enough direct and indirect lamps so I can see what I’m doing.
For those times when I just want to relax and mentally free wheel, I added some accent decorator lights. A string of chili pepper lights, as well as amber Christmas lights inside of wicker plant holders light up the room with warm accent color. For a splash of color, I painted the ceiling fan blades with the same paint I used on the trim and added colored party light bulbs in the ceiling fan’s light fixture. A rheostat allows me to adjust the intensity of the colored bulbs. The ceiling fan is a big help during the warm months and allows us to use the space on all but the hottest of days. The log holder functions as a magazine and book container for various inspirational books and periodicals.
The rest of the room decor is made up of things that I find to be charming and have bright colors. Since I spend a lot of time there during the daytime and evening, I usually refer to the room as the "Sun-Moon Room." That’s why we have the Sun wall hanging and Mr. Moon clock, as well as the gold painted paper mache Mr. Sun hanging from the ceiling. The Native American dream catchers are there to remind me that the very land we live on was once the home of the Lenni Lenape and Delaware Indians that once occupied New Jersey, Delaware, eastern Pennsylvania, and southeastern New York for centuries before the Europeans arrived.
CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE.
|
|
|
|
