editing
One of the things I didn’t anticipate about moving from an apartment into a brownstone was how many things would come with me.
For years, I collected pieces I loved. Art. Books. Vases I bubble wrapped in a hotel in Venice for a return trip home. Small treasures from flea markets and antique stores. Many of them lived with me in my apartment in Harlem. When I bought my home, I thought most of them would reappear in how I decorated in this new space.
In the past years since moving in, a lot of them ended up staying stored in the basement. Not because they aren’t beautiful. Not because I’ve stopped appreciating them. But because decorating a home has taught me that choosing what comes into a space is really a process of deciding what stays behind.
Recently, I hung a piece of art near the staircase on the parlor floor, just outside the powder room. It was the first piece of art I ever purchased for myself. At the time, I was living in Harlem and homeownership still felt like a distant dream. Every time I pass it now, I think about that version of myself. The woman who was imagining a future she couldn’t yet see. The woman who hoped there might one day be a house to hang it in.
Nearby is a shell I picked up on a beach in Jamaica the year my grandfather passed away. It isn’t valuable. Most people probably wouldn’t notice it. But I do. It carries a memory I want close. Not because I’m holding onto grief, but because it reminds me of love, family, and a moment in time before someone I loved floated on to another plane.
Those pieces made the journey upstairs. Others didn’t.
Some of the things stored in the basement are objectively beautiful. If I saw them in someone else’s home, I would probably admire them. But I haven’t brought them upstairs and usually it’s because they belong to a chapter I’ve already lived. And it’s an energy I can feel when they are in the space. They bring in with them something different. A version of myself I’ve grown beyond. Or they simply carry an energy that no longer feels aligned with the life I’m creating here.
I’ve come to realize that decorating is less about acquiring and more about editing. Not editing for perfection. Editing for clarity.
Every object we choose to live alongside becomes part of the story our homes tell us. They remind us who we’ve been, what we’ve valued, where we’ve traveled, and who we’ve loved. The question isn’t whether something is beautiful enough to keep. The question is whether it’s a memory you want in conversation with your present.
More soon,
L