Does Your Home Have Mojo?

If I have not been all together blogging much, do forgive me. I’ve been tied up with website projects and recently with all manner of stuff related to our new apartment.
Well, it’s not exactly new as in brand new but it’s finally some place we can call Home. Which is very surprising to most friends who’ve visited our present place – they think we own it because we spent a lot of time decorating this apartment as if it weren’t rented. Even the postman had to get a closer look the first time he delivered our registered mail to us!
I must say that no matter where we are, rented apartment or not, Nic and I strive to make each place as cosy and comfortable as we can even when we were on a limited budget in the early years of our marriage (let’s see, that was about 10 years ago!).
Especially when I know I married an Artist-Geek-Designer-DIY-Hobbyist.
It’s easy to take things for granted when I have had so much decor fun with the art we have at home, the knick-knacks we’ve collected from our trips abroad, our diverse hobbies and our sense of what we like, rather than what convention or styles dictate.
Nic’s art hangs on most of the walls of our current place. His Sarawak bric-a-brac and native craft (dayak parang, dayak war shield, sarawak pottery, sarawak lamps) inhabit nooks and crannies. It’s very Sarawakian, and the very ethnic look is a testament to how much he loves his home state!
On the other hand, we both love our Chinese and Buddhist roots which account for most of the Oriental leanings in the apartment – from our Kwan Kung figurine (love his fierceness!) to our very special Buddhas (one was handcarried back from Bangkok a decade ago and the other was from Burma, also handcarried by a good friend!).
We used to have a skull of a cow (a real one!) hanging above our aquarium! Yes, it scared half our friends to death. We have realistic looking plastic geckos on the wall which again scares half my gecko-fearing friends. I don’t mean to scare people but they’re crazy fun additions to an otherwise regular apartment, though rented!
But what I am getting at is this – a lot of house redesigning is about accommodating personal tastes. And since Nic and I have been poring over decor magazines, I see that half or most of the homes featured are too contemporary for our eclectic tastes! One exception though – pick up DWELL – it’s fantastic! Chockfull of practical, simple, easy home design ideas.
Like fashion togs, a home must reflect the owners and their likes. Mixing and matching is a must, something new, something old, something inherited maybe.
I don’t want my home to look like a showroom apartment! They’re too cold and clinical, too lifeless. A home must have some oomph, some pizzazz, some mojo. It has to have a soul of its own. It has to be an extension of the owners.
More to come in the next few weeks on our new home! Even Margaret’s excited!