I used to think creativity meant copying what I saw online. Then we started renovating our older home, and it changed my perspective completely. Instead of forcing a brand-new style, I began paying attention to what the house seemed to “want.”
The creaky doors, the wide baseboards, the slightly uneven floors they all hinted at a time when things were made slowly. So I leaned into that. We chose warm paint colors instead of the trendy gray everyone else was using. We refinished the original wood trim instead of painting it white. Somehow the entire place felt calmer once we stopped trying to modernize everything.
The biggest surprise came from the dining room. Hidden behind drywall, we discovered a small archway. It wasn’t perfect chipped, cracked, worn in places nut it had character. We restored it rather than replacing it. That single detail guided the rest of the redesign.
Inspiration, I learned, doesn’t always come from magazines or Pinterest boards. Sometimes it’s sitting right in front of you, waiting to be noticed.
Renovation feels more meaningful when you let the house tell part of the story, instead of trying to overwrite it.
