This is my Genesis
Every story has a beginning, and here is mine.
I remember being really young, maybe 9 or 10, and loving the 101 floor plan design magazines. I don’t recall where i got my first issue, but I remember being fascinated by it. And discovering that outside of the home I grew up in, there was an infinite number of ways to construct a home by moving around all of it’s parts. I would study floor plan after floor plan, and then piece together my favorite parts into my “dream” floor plan on my sketchpad. While the other girls my age colored in coloring books, I drew blue prints of homes before I knew they were called blue prints. In addition, I would look thru all the home decor magazines Mom brought home, Better Homes and Gardens, Southern Living, and Architectural Digest. I was a sponge, and I wanted nothing more than to soak up all the colors, textures, and ideas that was home design.
I was raised by a single mom with a modest budget. For free entertainment, we would spend entire weekends going from model home to model home, as the building boom came to metro Atlanta. I can’t tell you how many miles we put on her car looking for new construction to walk through, no matter the price range. If it was open, we would walk through it. Talking about the layouts we liked, the too small bedrooms, the gorgeous molding work, the details we wanted and where we would put the furniture. We would come home and try to recreate what they did with what we had. On many occasions I would redecorate my room, trying to perfect the color scheme, and layout, until I came up with the perfect representation of me. We couldn’t afford to move out of our small house. But I could makeover my room and move to a new space, without moving at all. This is when I discovered the power of redesign.
In middle and high school I took all the art and drafting classes I could. I won an architecture scholarship to USC, out in LA, the summer before my senior year to study architecture for 3 weeks. In college I took architecture and CAD classes, and painting and photography classes, and then finally graduated with a Fine Arts degree. I spent the first 22 years of my life purposely immersed in fine art, architecture, interior design, color theory, and unlimited creativity. This is my passion. Architecture, interior design, re-purposing, painting, I love it all. I never tire of it, and I want to share what i’ve learned in the last 40 years with everyone who cares enough to look and listen.
This blog is dedicated to all the Moms out there who want their home to look and feel like a model home. You know that feeling you get when you walk into a model home and everything is clean, organized, perfectly decorated, and all the colors and textures just work. In your head you are thinking “God I wish my house could look like this! How on earth do they make everything look so good, so clean, so put together? I wish I had picked these paint colors. I wish I could hire someone to make my house look like this!”
From one mom to another, I am going to share all my time-saving tricks and money-saving tips that i’ve learned over the last 40 years to make your home look as good as any model home out there! We spend so much time in our homes, we want them to be functional, but beautiful, clean and stylish, all at the same time. But as a mom, we don’t (think) we have the time or the money to do it ourselves. But we do! You just need the know how!
I will show you the power of choosing the right paint color. How to re-purpose the furniture you already have, so you don’t have to buy new. I will teach you how to organize and display your art, souvenirs and tchotchkes to look as good as they do in the magazines. I will help you pick a style you love, and display it throughout your home, without it looking like a cheesy themed restaurant. I’ll help you learn how to do just enough, without going overboard. I’ll teach you how to make the most with what you have, and love your house again!
Let the journey begin!
Leigh Anne
