mirror, mirror…

{Note: from time to time I will have special guests contribute to “just a little rouge…”. This week’s blog is written by my very good friend, Tracy Bennett. Tracy and her husband, Julian, run a successful home-based business called Firefly Digital Media. Smart, creative, wonderful, and leading the busiest lifestyles of anyone I know – not to mention raising two amazing kids – their home is my favorite “training ground & test kitchen” when it comes to trying out new rouge ideas. Always willing to give me free reign of their space, Tracy shares her thoughts on what that’s like from her perspective.}

By Tracy Bennett

I’ve had the good fortune of being on the receiving end of many wonderful things in this life, the lucky gal that I am. It must be said however, that one of the most uplifting experiences I’ve ever had was working with a stager to de-clutter my home.







Okay, so this might sound like a gross exaggeration. I assure you, it is not. Please allow me to explain.

I am the kind of person who can become completely overwhelmed by the state of my home. I try to pick one room at a time to sort out but I panic and don’t know where to start. I find myself thinking that there must be too much wrong in the room. Is it shelves I need? A closet? More places to hide the mess? And where the hell does all this paper come from? Ack! Then, that’s it. I’m out. Can’t do it. Give up and exit the messy room in question.

Decorating magazines don’t help me at all. Am I the only one out there in this situation? They just make me feel even more inadequate about my inability to create a soothing, comfortable home. Looks so easy, I just don’t know where to start.

I’ve got clutter, chaos, children, pets, more neighborhood children and to top it all off I run a business with my husband and our office is in our house. There is an awful lot going on in one little dwelling.

They say what we see in our lives is a mirror of what we see in our minds. Well, I don’t know if you’ve ever felt this way, but when my brain is overloaded with life, my life gets overloaded with stuff. Then of course, all the stuff everywhere makes me feel worse. This mirror thing seems to be working against me.

I think you’ve got the messy, unorganized picture that is my home. So imagine with me (because I like to revisit the happy memory of this day) that one day, into my house walks a stager full of ideas, energy and a keen eye.

For some amazing reason, she seems to know exactly what to do with all the crap in my house that has been driving me crazy. She knows how to make all my stuff, some of it that I don’t even like, look much better. She took all my things, moved them around and made it feel brand new. It still looked like my house and my stuff but all the negative feelings towards my space were gone. I don’t think I’ve ever liked my house quite so much as that day. As she went from room to room I felt like I’d had lost weight, had a makeover and a new wardrobe all in one day. Now that’s saying something.

The only sad part is that old habits are hard to break. I’m still messy and when I buy something new I’m still not sure if I got the right thing and put it in the right place or not. Good thing I know a stager who loves tackling my design challenges. I think people like me require some kind of frequent flyer program.