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About a year and a half ago, my husband and I decided it was time to buy a new home.
My husband is a realtor and he always tells people that I am his worst client, and let me assure you — I am. House hunting for us was an arduous process. Every house we looked at… I hated.
I would find something wrong with every bathroom, every layout, every backyard. Nothing was good enough. So – it should come as no surprise that when we first walked through the house that eventually would become our home, I … yes… hated it.
I actually told him – there was no way – come hell or high water – that I would live in it. I didn’t like the part of town it was in, the décor was gross… the whole feeling of the house – to me – was just yucky.
So I kicked… I screamed… and my poor husband dealt with all of it.
After months of looking, and finding nothing, we came back to the house. He just kept telling me to keep an open mind. When we walked through it again – it did make sense. The price was right, and it did have good bones… but aesthetically the house was not my style – at all.
You see, I am from Connecticut. I tend towards anything with an Eastern Seaboard, coastal, light and airy feel. Well this house was quite the opposite. All the walls were painted a dark mustard yellow. It was very Tuscan feeling – or like it was trying to be Tuscan… but failing… miserably. Every bathroom had this horrible mismatched mosaic tile – and the kitchen — oh lawwwddd the kitchen— it made me feel like I was in a bad Mexican restaurant.
Like I said, I like things very bright and airy. So I told my husband we could buy the house, on one condition — well lots of conditions actually — but the first two, and most pressing, were that we redo the kitchen and paint all the walls white.
Marriage is all about compromise BRUTE FORCE– right?
Anyhow- two months later, we had our dream kitchen and our dream home. What was once a Tuscan palace was transformed into our very own little slice of heaven. It was perfect.
Perfect… but….
Now we had these perfect. bare. white. walls. AND lots of them.
So we talked it over. We decided that we wanted to add to our art collection meaningfully and slowly. Rather than decorate our house all at once with items we might not love down the road, we wanted to wait to find items that were perfect. Slow and steady wins the race, right?
We decided that we would collect a piece of art from every trip we went on. In theory it was a great idea, but in practice it has proved to be much more difficult than we anticipated. It has been a wonderful way to find smaller eclectic pieces, but our walls are expansive. We really needed a couple of large statement prints, and I hadn’t found anything that I really loved – anywhere.
So… when Minted approached Ashley and I about their Art Marketplace I knew it was meant to be or “mint to be” if you will. <<<Bad joke — I know.
Anyhow – if you didn’t see Ashley’s post here, Minted’s Art Marketplace is a place where independent artists can sell and share their work. As I was browsing the marketplace, I came across Stephanie Nowotarski’s work that you see pictured above, and it was love at first sight. I have much more modern taste than Joe, so when I selected “Calculation” for a huge wall in our bedroom, he was skeptical. But as soon as I arranged everything and mixed in some treasured photographs, he was sold.
In fact, he was online looking for our next Minted purchase that very night.
The thing I love most about the Minted Art Marketplace is that you can purchase not only small scale artwork (see the “work hard and be nice” print), but large scale artwork also – and all at affordable prices. Not to mention, their in house framing services are amazing and I was so happy with the quality of the pieces that we received.
I am such a huge fan of minted now… I could peruse the Art Marketplace for hours and I know you will love it too.
Also – be sure to check out #mintedart on Instagram to see how others are using Minted to transform their houses into their homes. So much interior design inspo there!
FYI — Other pieces we are coveting in my house – here, and here.
Also – Minted pieces make great gifts! I am so excited to gift this to a friend who is expecting a baby girl!
*** Thank you to Minted for being wonderful and sponsoring this post. All opinions are my own.
