Once in a blue moon, I pick it out and get it done. But it requires a number of things for that to happen Â

1) having an idea or a project that IÂm 100% certain about and know itÂs absolutely the direction I want to go

2) itÂs something that I can either do 100% on my own or know the extra hands or muscle will be ready, willing and able at precisely the right moment

3) my mental to-do list is relatively empty, meaning the house is clean, the refrig is full, meals are planned  I allow the damndest things to sabotage my plans  why is that?

4) all the necessary components (paint, tarps, ladders, fabric, thread  whatever) are here, organized and ready to go

5) all my neurons are firing at the same time (you have no idea how rare that is!)

6) somehow IÂve managed not to get sucked into the vortex which is the internet (thatÂs it, I can blame all of YOU for what I donÂt get done!)

More often than not, though, even the simplest of projects gets drawn out beyond all reason. ThatÂs just the way I roll  call it life or call it Deb canÂt get her sh*t together  same thing.

Almost everything is a "work in progress".

I hung half the interior shutters that I carefully excavated, had stripped, restored, painted, (and duplicated for one incomplete pair)--less than 24 hours before the new owner signed the papers. I lived there for years and never got to really enjoy them all installed.

I laughed at this topic as I gave myself until April 15th to have my interior painted. Well.... like the taxes I am not quite done. I really thought after work I would come home & paint. Nope -hasn't happened. It is now 2 days till the due date ( mine) & I still have border to strip & prep the area & paint the kitchen. My kids are wondering if it will ever get done. I had just re done my sons room & was feeling gung ho-now I'm feeling droopy about it everytime I look at the border & know what is ahead in removing it LOL ! So far no notice of a Presidental visit so it will get done when I get to it!

Decorating is a hobby for me, and it's something I enjoy incorporating into my life as time and money and interest allow. Occasionally I'll become extremely focused (on painting a room, for instance). Other times, I'm fixated on finding just the right "this or that" when an idea for something new pops into my head. And sometimes, as with any other hobby, I'll put it all on the back burner for awhile and focus more intently on other interests -- travel, fitness, gardening, writing.

As a lifelong interest, I can't imagine ever being truly "finished" when it comes to decorating. It ebbs and flows, just like everything else in my life.

I am totally........a Work in Progress. Once in a blue moon, when the dogs are good and the sun is shining, and I have money in the checking account...I can put a whole project together and get it done in just a day or two or three.
In 2007, my DH forgot to put our vacation on his work calender, so I had a week off in May.........by myself. (We did a weekend at the Coast but that was it.) So, I planned and bought paint, and got our garage cleaned and vacuumed and painted. I even bought a track system for brooms and mops and hanging stuff and got him to mount it that weekend. I think that's the last time I stayed focussed and didn't let anything get in the way of finishing as I wanted.

Red

Life is the important thing to me, home decor fills in when I have time. If the Queen of England were to drop by my house, she'd have to take it as it is....unfinished baseboards, window trim partially stripped, etc etc, and I'd probably be wearing my work jeans with holes in the knees!

I get a wild hair and start a project and then...well sometimes it gets completed and then other times...like the mantle in the LR...it is still half stripped after 3 years. I claim that I "lose my vision" at least that sounds creative. I guess I just have impulses and sometimes they come out so great that I get carried away. I don't think of it so much as decorating per se but more a movement towards creative outlets. I dunno...c

I'm really good at "planning", not quite so good at "executing" especially if problems arise. Fortunately my DH is better at that so projects where I need his help are done fairly quickly. The projects which are 100% mine are sometimes a lot slower.

I see the solution here, involve DH in more projects and they'll all be done! ;-)

It's almost always drawn out with pauses for life. The end of February was my 'deadline' for finishing my living room redecorating projects. I was so committed to that deadline that I got somewhat melodramatic with DH re: why I absolutely could and would NOT spread out the decorating expenses over a few months and fold them into our monthly budget, instead of dipping into one of our savings accounts. It had to be done "now" because I was oh so tired of the unfinished projects and we could afford it. Fast forward...Last month I pushed the deadline out to my birthday (this Friday), hoping that having out of town guests and inviting friends over for a small party would motivate me to finish. Needless to say, I'm not done. ;-)Some of it is because things are taking longer than expected, like the 12 week delivery time for an inexpensive upholstered chair, delayed an extra 3 weeks because I changed my mind about the color of the fabric and couldn't find time to drive back to the furniture store (an hour away without traffic) to go through more samples. But some of it is just because I get sidetracked with life, work, and other projects. Now that it's gardening season and I spend as much time outdoors as possible, all bets are off re: when I will finish. Sigh...

I like things finished...but then once finished, they are open to perfection, as it comes along.

Once I start a project that involves disrupting the serenity of the house, such as painting, I don't do anything else until it is done.

nothing is more important than family..and decorating for me is more about comfort and finding the best way to live in my home..even though i am a designer (garden and interior)..even for them it is for comfort and the best way to use their home..not about how pretty it can be..that comes with time

Life comes first, always... regarding the house, maintenance and repairs are a much higher priority than the decorating part. But if we get the chance to go spend the day having a barbecue with some very dear friends, unless we have something going that absolutely must be done we're going to jump for the chance to have fun with our friends. Life is too short and I'm not going to get any extra points in the afterlife for having a perfect house, but I know I will for loving and being loved.

I have decided to try not to set specific-date deadlines for projects anymore, because I am invariably brutal on myself if I don't "measure up" to the standard I have thus set. (I am a hundred times harder on myself than I am on anyone else. I am also well aware this is not a healthy way of thinking and I am working on it.)

DH just broke open a fortune cookie from some Chinese takeout we had a few days ago. It read: "Your home is a pleasant place from which you draw happiness." Very interesting.

Decorating....what's that? Three years of working on our fixer as weekend warriors and I've only been able to decorate 1 room, the guest room for my Mom and a closet that we converted to a mud room. Sometimes it feels like there is no end in site. I would love to finally get the structural work out of the way so I can finally do some of the fun stuff.

I think "my" home is a work of art on it's own, it just lets me live there. :0) ie...high ceilings, great room wall of windows that look at the mountains, square holes cut above the beams in the structure, 3 fireplaces, granite counters, lots of wood....etc..

I usually don't seek decorating change unless something is broken. :0) Otherwise......my leather couch is 18 years old! Well, then 2 years ago we were given several pallets of windsor stones, so we built a stargazing deck buying materials and tools as we went.There was "no" stopping us. The out of town company came over and watched us work, we talked as we hauled dirt!

Yes, absolutely, it's a stop-and-go, fiercely-focused and wandering-off, well-begun and half-done, barreling-along and screeching-halt, joyful, frustrating, and endless proposition.

I would submit that we wouldn't care so much about our surroundings and the life within them if we weren't so quick to put down the book and pick up the baby...

In the late 80's, Mary Catherine Bateson, daughter of Margaret Mead, wrote a book called "Composing a Life," in which she talked about five women who "have lived life as an improvisational art form." I remember this book because its premise that women's lives are, in her word, "discontinuous," was a revelation to me. One reviewer described those lives as ones "where energies are not narrowly focused toward a single ambition but rather are continually refocused and redefined."

Bateson's premise is that the demands of our complicated, responsive, and layered way of living can lead to deeply creative and successful lives. I think she was talking about us.