We just moved 2 households into one. Moving gets move stressful as I get older and by the grace of God, we just happened to leave 2 days before Hurricane Harvey hit Houston: the largest recorded natural disaster in US History.

I had some guilt about putting a red Feng Shui envelope in the Brazos River again. The next day, a flood in Houston happens. This is twice now.

Sorry about that

At least I managed to label most boxes. The most helpful were the ones labeled in detail instead of just “kit”. I had about 50 of those it seems.

So now, all sorts of display items from 2 homes came together.

And my husband has traveled the world, and won many awards. If we put it all out at once it would be cluttered.

So what to do?

An Indoor “Store” where he gets to pick items to

*donate

*put out now

*put into our closets

I divided the table into 4 quarters and we started with the books.

I listened to the stories about each important one. There was no time pressure.

After books, we started in one quarter and I asked things like “So if we put this out at Xmas or when so and so visits that would be okay?”

Here are tips from designers who decorate shelves:

*rotate items every once in a while. What inspires you today may be different in a year or 2.

*empty shelves are ok

* groups of similar things in 3’s or 5’s is most appealing to the human eye.

*put books flat and stack largest on bottom. Put 1-3 items around them or 1big thing like a rock.