Creating a Peaceful Home

I think it was Elisabeth Elliot who gave the advice, we must first do what only we can do. For instance, a father may want to help his nursing wife but only she can give the baby milk in the middle of the night.

In my home, we all bring some gift to the party. My husband brings order and balances the checkbook. My son brings excitement, life and broadens all horizons. The cats bring laughter, not a day goes by without one of us laughing at the antics of the felines in the house.

As for me, I bring beauty and peace into the home. In my mind, they go together. I'm the only person in my house that makes peace and beauty a priority. (Not that my home is always peaceful with three humans living in it.). I've worked hard at creating an atmosphere that surrounds us with beauty and peace as soon as we walk in the door.

Peace is getting harder to find in this world every day. Our ears are being blasted with noise and words, our eyes are inundated with those pictures we would rather not view, driving brings more stress, prices on everything are going up, and we are having wars and rumors of wars. Tensions in the family are high whether we live in a "Christian" home or one which follows no faith. Life is not peaceful today.

I learned long ago that I can create a peaceful environment within the walls that shut out the rest of the world and its' noise. Many years ago, I read a suggestion of collecting pictures of scenes that bring us joy, calm us down, etc. and then beginning to keep them in a scrapbook. Soon after that, I purchased a very inexpensive, old time scrapbook at a fabric store. I went through my decorating files and pulled out pictures of rooms I found to be peaceful. I began to cut out magazine pictures of other pictures I found brought peace.

For instance, I have a few pictures of garden scenes, interesting old buildings, Tasha Tudor's home, pics from the old Victoria magazine of family life, pictures of table settings, pictures of tea being served, pictures from British decorating and garden magazines showing vintage kitchens and roses...you get the idea. I have Susan Branch stickers throughout the scrapbook because they make me smile. I don't do any fancy scrapbooking in this book, it is kept simple by only cutting and pasting (often using double sided tape).

Only a few months ago I began to read on blogs about using tart warmers. Since then I have found two lovely warmers at Goodwill. I have tried a few different tarts and seeked out new scents at favorite stores. For the past couple of weeks, those entering my home are met by the aroma of autumn fragrances. Aromas, music, laughter...those cannot be cut and pasted into a scrapbook but the ideas can be transferred to paper and kept in in the scrapbook.

I often pick up my scrapbook and peruse its' contents. It takes me on a very personal road to calming down within. It makes me smile. Just as the decorating files I've kept over the years have given me an education in interior design, my scrapbook has shown me (in pictures, clips and even a few quotes pasted in the pages) a visualization of peaceful images and ideas I can incorporate in my own journey that brings peace to me, to my family, and hopefully others who enter our little place on this planet. So much of what makes my home a peaceful looking retreat was brought about by ideas found in my scrapbook.

On the inside cover of my book, I pasted an editorial written in a decorating magazine where the writer was talking about the most peaceful place she has ever known. It was the house where she had grown, where her mother had a gift of giving peace and beauty for her family. She could not figure out why her own home did not have that feeling of peace. She was a trained interior designer. She decided to write down those images from the rooms her mother had created and think of each color, each piece of art, the way each room was painted, etc. and see if she could find the secret of her mother's interior design.

The first thing she noted was the absence of clutter. The second was various places the eye could settle where there was the color green. She went on to remember certain pieces of artwork that brought peace when one gazed upon them. She remembered aromas from the kitchen. She remembered her mother's soft voice and neat appearance. There were places for everything and everything was in its' place. There was order... Her life was very different than her mothers but she was able to incorporate many of these ideas and her own home became a place of comfort and beauty. I pasted her editorial where I could see it whenever I opened my scrapbook because her words were my thoughts entirely.

I continue to add to my scrapbook. It is almost full so there will be a search to find another similar, inexpensive, old fashioned scrapbook and begin filling that one with new ideas. Yours will be different than mine. What makes your heart sing, what brings peace to you may be entirely different than me. You may prefer the sleek look of modern furniture and bold colors rather than my vintage decorating and your notebook will be filled with pictures of urban areas rather than country gardens but that is what brings you peace.

You may be the only person in your home who feels a priority to make it a place of beauty and peace. Everyone else will notice it but as the editor of the decorating magazine above, they may become adults without realizing that special person who took it upon herself (or himself!) to create a refuge in the midst of world lacking peace.

There are no perfect people and no homes that are always peaceful. We will not expect perfection, we will do only what we can given the opportunities and budget we have to work with. We can all do something to bring peace and beauty to our family.