I’m working on like five different blog posts right now, and one of them is about some strange dreams and messages I’ve been having lately, but this is not that post…I’m still trying to figure out what it all means…is it possible to burn too much sage?

Either way, I woke up this morning with a message: “Share what you have with others.” And so I’m gonna trust it and share a little bit about a new sanctuary space in our home.

The first time Jen invited me over to the house, she gave me the grand tour. She started with the mission-style dining room, the kitchen was decorated with handmade ceramic bowls, through the laundry room into the backyard with a Beatles “Penny Lane” sign hanging from the wooden tomato castle in the garden.

Then she took me through the kiddo’s room. He had a homemade climbing wall, bright green paint, and his childhood twin bed.

Across the hall was her master bedroom, sparsely decorated with a big tv, more beautiful mission-style furniture she said she’d bought for herself at a good price, a large prism hung from the window and a pride flag was draped across the wall…

We peeked into the recently renovated bathroom with repurposed wood and a river rock mosaic she designed herself.

And then she pointed out the next room, mostly empty except for a mishmash of seemingly unrelated items: a Murphy bed for guests, a retro lamp from her grandparents home in Santa Barbara, a spin bike, a strand of Himalayan prayer flags on the beige walls, an old “dog” couch, a framed Bob Dylan album, a big ass Ikea picture of a lonely bridge…and, oddly, an autographed poster of this chick LP I used to know as a NYC bartender at Henrietta Hudson’s, my frequented lesbian watering hole from 2002-2005.

I knew sometimes LP left the bar early after hanging out and pouring SoCo and Lime shots to play late night gigs in the city, but I didn’t realize she’d made it big like that where she had her own poster and concert tours…and became Jen’s celebrity crush. She looked super famous now and I was really happy that she made it out from behind the bar. I may or may not have referred to her that night as “Super cool, but one of the worst bartenders in New York City”…her heart always seemed to be somewhere else. Clearly, her marketable talents were rooted in singing about thirsty lesbians rather than mixing drinks for them.

Maybe it was a sign.

The LP poster was the first of many such signs that Jen was someone I definitely wanted to know better. And she told me that this kinda nameless, faceless room that didn’t really match the vibe of the rest of the house actually used to be the master bedroom back when she was married. The kiddo was born in this room, she had him at home with the help of a midwife, and then her mom made her scrambled eggs after hours of labor and a successful delivery.

But now this room so full of memories stood kind of empty, she’d moved her room across the hall after her divorce…not wanting to be sleeping anymore with all that history, maybe some of it still too loud to be forgotten, hard conversations, sleepless nights with backs turned…Jen said she cried in there a lot. I definitely understand wanting to get some distance from haunted spaces.

When we started co-habitating and I moved in, I asked her if she might consider making the room into a little study. Ever since I saw Clue, I’ve wanted a study…we could get some candlesticks…or, maybe that’s too dark? And I’ve always dreamed of having a place to display all my books. Maybe we could get a cool bookcase and some comfortable chairs. Maybe it could be a place to sit and read or listen to music and chill.

She was so open to it, admitting she’s been wanting to reimagine this “junkyard” into something special, it has a lot of wonderful memories, but really hadn’t found inspiration for how to reclaim it.

So we started calling it “The Library” and found a vintage Danish bookcase for a great price and moved all our books in…and then we got caught up with life and other little projects around the house. We upgraded the kiddos room, our bedroom, and the dining room, but at least the books had a home for now.

Then a few months later, we found an old record player and had it restored. We thought maybe the design theme of The Library would be Midcentury Modern. Jen found a fun chandelier and installed it herself.

And then the room took a backseat again while we worked on the garage project.

Every once in awhile, I’d browse leather club chairs because finishing this room was kind of a nagging thing in the back of my mind…something about the history in there really inspired me to want to bring it back to life somehow, for Jen, for the kiddo.

Last spring, after the garage was done, I came across these purple velvet chairs on Offer Up. They were in perfect condition and extremely discounted. I’m no interior designer, but they gave me a vision of what to do with this room: Funky, weird, bright walls, artsy.

I sent a picture to Jen and she was like…”Um, purple is a bold choice.” And I told her about my vision and maybe some bright blue walls and she said nothing too dark, she wanted to bring light into this room.

Totally get it, we can work with that..to the drawing board about paint color.

The deal on the chairs was just too good to pass up, and I just freakin loved them! I went to pick them up and the seller was so sad to see them go…he’d found them at an estate sale and the daughter said they were in perfect condition because her mom covered them in plastic and never let anyone sit on them. He said they were worth twice what I paid for them, but he needed to make room in his shop and nobody seemed too interested in “bold choice” purple chairs. I told him I promised to give them a good home and figured I could always put em up for sale if they looked too crazy. Then I got a rug to bring in the purple and yellow and orange and a little blue. I found a funky mirror and had some fun posters from the apartment I set up when I was newly single and planning my “bachelor” era.

We hung my dad’s old bass guitar and tamborine on the wall and then the kiddo got an amp from Santa and his rockstar Uncle Jeff sent him one of his electric guitars for Christmas…so we hung that one up on the wall of fame too.

Jen started to dig the the funky vibe, she kept saying how much she liked it, the kiddo has been hanging out in the room he was born in almost every day, sitting on those purple chairs, tuning his guitar, teaching himself chords, rocking out, and watching videos of Uncle Jeff’s band.

Then, last weekend, Auntie Dawn mentioned finally painting the room before hanging anything else on the walls, now that we’re spending more time in there, and that inspired us to pull the trigger on the perfect paint color: Cut the Mustard.

And holy smokes, that once kinda empty, bland, tan room, abandoned with all those ghosts is finally feeling vibrant and exorcized! And the best part is, just like every other room in our house, every single piece of it has a story…Bob Dylan, LP, Grandma’s funky lamp, the fun chandelier, the record player, the guitars, the mirror, the books and bookcase, the posters on the wall, and those crazy cool purple chairs! We left plenty of floor space for dog beds and dancing and activities, should we feel inspired by all our new records and the kiddo’s future setlist. Let these fresh new memories start jamming with the old ones!

We still need blinds for the windows…and we’re talking about how to make the murphy bed a little more artsy and palatable for the space. We’ll keep making little adjustments as we feel inspired. But it’s really cool to walk by and look in remembering what it used to be and how it became what it is now.

I’m kinda sad we didn’t get many “before” pictures…the change was so gradual. It took a little time and commitment to really honor the history of this sacred room and reinvent it. But it was so worth it. We don’t have to be afraid of haunted spaces, we don’t have to avoid unpleasantries of the past, we can befriend old memories and redefine our relationship with them. Sometimes all we need to take our power back from the grip of remembered hard times is a little imagination, a fresh coat of paint, and maybe a dash of charismatic flair, something that feels a little spicy, a little rebellious and unpredictable…maybe treat ourselves to a pair of snazzy purple velvet chairs…ones that someone’s momma never let anyone sit on. And then go ahead and sit in them, feel luxurious, give them purpose…because life is too short to wrap beautiful things in plastic.