Over the last several months there’s been some big shifts for Coley Kuyper Art (more on that soon) and through it all, something has been resurfacing over and over again for me.

Home.

Not necessarily how a home looks, but how it feels. Why certain homes stay with us long after we've left them. Why seeing a room from an old movie we've watched a hundred times can make us feel something we can't quite put into words.

You know the ones that instantly come to mind? The kitchen in Father of the Bride. Kathleen Kelly's apartment in You've Got Mail. The house in Home Alone. Those cozy, layered rooms in the movies we watched over and over growing up.

And It has made me wonder: what is it that makes a home memorable?

We have seven kids and live in a little 1,400-square-foot house, and as our family has grown in number (and in size!)—we've rearranged this house more times than I can count.!

Maybe I've been thinking about this because over the summer we shuffled the kid’s bedrooms around for what feels like the hundredth time, trying to make our little house keep working for our family. Or maybe it's because, as my kids get older, I find myself thinking more and more about what they'll remember about their childhood here someday. What will they picture when they think of home?

And the more I've thought about it, the more I realize it probably won't be whether everything was perfectly matched, or if the baseboards were dust-free (cuz trust me, they aren’t), or if the beds had neatly pressed linens.

I think (and hope) what they'll remember most are the piles of their artwork I saved on the kitchen counter and framed in the hallway, the scribbles on the wall left behind by a toddler who is now a middle schooler, the piles of blankets pulled out for an afternoon of fort making, the obnoxious oversized poster in their bedroom I hung up because my son loves Star Wars.

Or the stack of books beside my bed…some I've read more than once and some I'm still convinced I'll get to someday, the lamps I've collected simply because I thought they were pretty, the coffee table handed down from my in-laws that has become a stage for singing and couch gymnastics. And the artwork that has hung on our walls for so long it has quietly become part of the backdrop of our family's life.

These are the things that make up our home right now and have slowly been collected over the 12 years we’ve been here. And as I’ve written this post it’s what I’m realizing more that these might be the very things that make it memorable.

The Homes We Remember

It's easy, especially in the age of Instagram and Pinterest, to feel like our homes need to be perfectly styled and curated and matching to feel like a “home”--I’m guilty of stressing over this far more than I’d like to admit.

And I love beautiful things. I love decorating and rearranging rooms and finding the perfect little lamp for a corner. I make art for a living, after all! But I don't think beauty and perfection are the same thing.

When I think about the homes I remember most—from childhood, from people I've loved, even from the movies I grew up watching—they weren't memorable because everything was perfectly put together.

They were memorable because they had life in them.

Books and art and lamps and patterns. Things passed down, collected, made, chosen because someone simply loved them. Evidence of kids and hobbies and holidays and ordinary Tuesdays.

They felt like someone lived there and maybe that's what so many of us have been trying to create or at least longing for all along. I don’t know about you, but I think I've come along a bit from trying to make our house feel perfect and finished and more and more I want to make a house, a home, that feels like ours.

(living room scene from Kathleen Kelly's apartment in You've Got Mail)

A Home You Live Into

Because the more I think about it, the more I believe a memorable home isn't something you ever finish. It's something you live into. You can't buy it all at once or perfectly style it on a weekend...it happens slowly.

A painting hung on the wall or thrifted blanket you couldn't leave behind. The cute chair that doens’t really match but your grandma sat in it every time you visited her. A ridiculous poster that your child loves so much. A fridge full of artwork, sports pictures, and handwritten notes.

And then there are the things you can't decorate at all...the breakfast mornings before school, scrapped together dinners, blanket forts, homework at the counter, cuddles and tears on the couch, living room dance parties, late-night conversations, and ordinary afternoons that happen around all of it.  (I'm gettin teary-eyed now)

Over time, those things layer themselves together in the most beautiful ways. And somewhere along the way, you’re making a home all who enter will remember when they’re grown and making one of their own. This idea has been changing the way I think about my own home, but it's also helped me put words to something I've always felt about the art I create. I don't just want to make pretty things to hang on walls.

I want to make things that can become part of the story happening inside them.

The artwork your kids grow up seeing in the hallway because it means something to your family. The wallpaper they remember from their childhood bedroom because it’s their favorite color. The little painting above the kitchen table that quietly becomes part of breakfasts and homework in the afternoons.

Things that don't make a home perfect, but only help make it yours.

That's the kind of home I want to keep exploring here—a little layered, colorful, forever creative and imperfect. Filled with things we love and evidence of the people you loved who live there. A home meant to be lived in and someday, remembered.

(living room scene from Father of the Bride)

So maybe instead of asking, How do I make my home look better?

We start asking ourselves:

What do I want it to feel like to live here?

What do I want my children to remember?

What things tell the story of us?

Because someday the piles will disappear, the toys will move out, the posters will come down, the fingerprints won't cover every surface quite so quickly. (Okay, yes I'm really crying now). And I know those things are not only what we’ll miss deeply someday, they’re also the things that are making your home memorable right now.

If you find yourself longing for a home that feels collected, creative, cozy and full of life too, I'd love to have you stay a while. Sign up and join me for The Creative Home Letter—a little note from me each week about art, home, creativity, and the small things that make the places we live feel like ours.