The Cultivated Home Journal

When our recently graduated daughter headed to college, she knew she wanted a space that would be a refuge in the very public life of campus living. She hoped for a space that would reflect simplicity and focus, warmth and comfort. 

Our daughter has always had a strong sense of her own style, so she started out planning her dorm room on her own. She searched the world of Pinterest, but there are not a lot of inspiring college dorms in that world. She’s worked with me on several other spaces in our home, so I was thrilled when she asked me to help her design something. 

It’s a big task, trying to get something as sterile and standard as this to feel warm and inviting:

When we look for an inspiration picture, we are not necessarily looking for a space with any similarity to the one we are designing. We look for something we love the feel of. “Start with the ideal, move to the real” is one of the educational principles we teach that also applies directly to interior design. Wendy was originally thinking pink, as that is her go-to in room design, but after exploring the options, she decided to go with a beautiful, calming blue.

This image is clearly AI and posted all over the internet, but it has a lovely feel. This room feels the way our daughter wants her room to feel: serene, architectural, and tidy. We roughly entered resources into an image editor until it gave a similar balance of color and texture.

My husband moved our daughter in before school started. We knew there were some things in our design we wouldn’t be able to determine until we were actually in the space. She opted against the bed skirt we originally planned. The headboard was on backorder, so we had to wait on that. We were still deciding on some framed prints on the side wall above her bed. Last weekend I had the opportunity to visit our daughter in the states and put the finishing touches on her room. 

By this time in the semester she knew she didn’t want her room to be just a place where she felt comfortable. She also loved that her five roommates liked to hang out in her room. She had a sweet little lamp, but inspired by the larger, cozier lamp her roommates had, we looked for something more appropriate to studying by that also felt nurturing. I hemmed the curtains (that she and her roommates brilliantly hung with Command Hooks), which polished things up a bit. The headboard came in a little more grey than we anticipated, so we decided to balance out the color profile and remake the nailheads in gold. We found some gold nail polish and she painstakingly “polished” each one. It made a world of difference. That and the beige throw pillow warm things up a bit. We determined that one picture over the desk would balance things better than two above the bed. We usually photoshop the image with all of the elements before purchasing anything, but when we made our Target run to buy the lamp, we found the Monet replica. We knew it was made for our daughter’s room.

A big need was a floor rug.  Roomies want to feel comfortable chatting on the floor, so this rug added a level of hospitality in addition to a clean space.  Today the final piece arrived. 

We love it! The experience was a bonus: we had fun working together and grew closer in the process. The process of transforming this sterile dorm room into an inspired study and living space is an excellent example of how effective starting with the ideal can be. Although our final product does not look anything like the inspiration picture we selected, it’s better than what we would have come up with if we simply patterned our decor choices after other dorm rooms. There were some good ideas—and we learned from those too—but the real magic came when we dreamed of what we wanted the space to look like and feel like rather than what was most practical. I miss my daughter every day, but I feel just a little better knowing she has a space that feels clean, comfortable, and uniquely her.

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If the kitchen is the heart of the home, the backsplash is the jewelry. For years, I valued function over form, but I have learned that a home is never truly finished until it’s beautiful. Layering beauty on top of cleanliness, organization, and intent is as much a spiritual and emotional completion as it is a design choice. If I had to choose one part of the home to get right, it would be the kitchen backsplash. It can put a kitchen in harmony with itself and the home as a whole. The backsplash sets the mood for life in the home.

For the backsplash in our Williamsburg home, we had a few things stacked against us. Balancing the greyed wood flooring and the honey oak cabinets required careful deliberation. Added to that, my materials were limited. I couldn’t use peel-and-stick, so any wallpaper or tile of that variety was out. In other areas, I would have used fabric applied to the wall with liquid starch—removable and washable without a trace or risk of pulling off drywall. But it’s the kitchen, and since I am not the only one who makes messes in this kitchen, I wanted it to easily wipe clean.

Here’s what we came up with. This lovely wallpaper from British design studio Bobbi Beck has my heart. It was custom printed based on my specifications. Although it wasn’t cheap, being able to order the exact amount we wanted kept the total under $200 (shipping from across the pond included). It comes in several finishes, so we bought the luxury finish for the main kitchen area and the more affordable premium for the desk nook. We used flat tacks, which we camouflaged by covering with wallpaper scraps: renter-friendly and possibly reusable. We love it.

We tend to think of traditions as the thing that stays the same, but I don’t think that’s true. I think traditions are constantly evolving, even if change is so subtle we don’t notice it. This year, while rethinking our Easter traditions, I’ve been thinking about what we do and why we do it. Here’s how our Easter traditions are evolving.

The Easter Card

We love sending Christmas cards. Sometimes they are personalized, more often it is a simple picture and generalized greeting, but as we write each address, we think of each family member and friend and just long for a good chat with each. I find myself praying the card will whisper just a degree of our love.

This past Christmas, we moved over Christmas. We didn’t have an address, so we decided to wait to send out cards until after we moved in. Then it occurred to me that Easter would be an equivalent time of joy in friends and our Savior. Why hadn’t it occurred to me to send Easter cards before? Maybe it’s because it’s not really a common tradition and my friends who send Christmas cards may lose track of me between Easter and Christmas. Regardless, we tried it out and are seeing how we like it. I appreciated that it was a less busy time of year and I could take extra time and thought in sending out these Easter cards.

The Easter Branch

Seventeen years ago, when I was expecting my first beautiful little boy, I was nesting. As part of my springtime preparations, my three daughters and I dyed and blew Easter eggs. We attached chick-yellow bows and hung them from a branch. We still have these eggs and every year we hang them on a spring-budding branch. Finding the branch is always an outing, as we search for the perfect branch to hold what used to be a dozen and has now dwindled to six pink blown eggs. 

I also hadn’t thought of the search for the branch as an official part of the tradition. But it is, and it was a delightful realization. As we examine each tree within our locality, we completely immerse ourselves in springtime discoveries. This tradition may not be “rooted” directly in Christ directly, but we always feel the Lord’s hand when we seek out His works.

The Easter Hunt

Ever since our oldest child’s first Easter, we’ve known that we are not the family that celebrates Easter by searching for plastic eggs full of sugary morsels. We decided not to feed our children processed sugar until they were at least three years old. But we wanted to participate in the fun! Over the years we’ve hid everything from fruit cups to whole pineapples, small toys to a nice watch, and yogurts to beef jerky. We try to make it fun, but also a celebration of healthful and delicious foods. Last time, my older son hid everything while everyone else was on a drive. Before we returned, crows had found our hunt and flown away with four string cheeses and a beef jerky. This is not our first mishap in hiding real food at Easter time. Plastic Easter eggs have their pluses. 

Holy Week

It’s pretty common now for members of our community to follow Christ’s last week of life in their studies the week preceding Easter. We started the tradition over 10 years ago. We have pictures to coincide with each day. After we conclude our studies for the day, we display that picture, adding each to the row in succession. I love seeing Christ’s works laid before us throughout the week and remembering all His teachings, love, and sacrifice. Preparing for Easter in this similar way each year has added to the significance of the day. 

Easter traditions range from secular to religious, some a mix of both. What are your beloved Easter traditions? Any new ideas you’ve heard of that you want to try?