Friday, May 24, 2013

Curate Vs. Create

In my years of blog reading (and in my brief time of blog-writing), I have noticed that there are two basic types of bloggers in the "home decor" sector: curators and creators.

Curators carefully shop for their homes and find the perfect items with which to style their homes. I also find curators tend to contract out any renovation jobs, but will still select materials on their own.

Creators, on the other hand, are all about the Do It Yourself. They are very crafty and most things in their homes are handmade and they are more likely to tackle a renovation themselves.

I find these blogs probably attract readers based on these qualities. But when I think to my own home and blog, I feel like I am more in the middle. I am not afraid to recover a pillow or try and make something by hand, but I have accepted that I am simply not a "crafty" person. I mean, I can wield a glue gun and sew some stitches, but I am just not super creative with coming up with my own stuff. When I started this blog, I thought DIY was what home blogging was all about. However, I think knowing your skills is important, and I am starting to think I am more of a curator. I love buying the perfect object for my home! And I do add in a bit of craftiness in that I am quite willing to paint to recover furniture to fit my home's style.

On another note:
I have also noticed that my style was not what I thought. I always thought my style was lots of colour, but looking at my condo?

It is neutral, neutral, neutral. I have a couple of bright accessories, like my yellow turtle, turquoise side table, or chevron throw pillow, but I generally stick to neutrals and metals when I decorate. I did paint the hallway navy, but I consider navy to be neutral so that doesn't count :). I wonder how much of this is because I am afraid of going bold, having a small space, or just I prefer light and bright! It will be interesting to see what I do when I one day own a whole house! I am hoping to go bold when I repaint the bathroom, but we shall see if I can pull the trigger on that.

I thick blogging has been such a good exercise for getting to know my style and what I am willing to do when it comes to decorating. It has made me focus on the choices I am making, and has encouraged me to make changes that I might otherwise have been to lazy to make. I have also learned what projects I find tedious (painting) and which I actually find fun (shopping!).

So tell me, are you are curator or a creator? Do you wish you were the other? What is your style?

6 comments:

  1. Good observation...I am not as crafty as some or as coordinated as I would like to be--but I don't like to dole out money to contractors either--so default creator! ha ha...happy Friday!

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  2. I think it's safe to say I'm a creator! I think....

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  3. I'm definitely a creator and not a curator, heck we didn't even have proper furniture for the 1st two years we lived in our house (and then built our table because I couldn't find anything I liked..).
    In a sense I'm a "default creator" or, do so out of necessity since our retail choices are incredibly limited and can only handle so many 7hr trips to Winnipeg for IKEA and Target goodies.
    I think it's really interesting to actually be able to "see" a personal style develop through a blog—but that doesn't mean style doesn't or won't change over time :)

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  4. I am not crafty at all :( I don't get the ideas flowing in and I can't sew or anything...sucks not getting the creative genes in the family lol

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  5. I'm sort of in the middle, too. Craft stores, glitter, glue, washi tape, and almost anything pink give me hives. Also my sharp-tongued fury around sewing machines would make a sailor blush. But I can brainstorm the hell out of how to make something out of wood (especially if R is there to double check my math). Sometimes I can even manage to cover things in batting & fabric without stapling my fingers. I pretty much refuse to sew pillow covers, quilts, but I will hem-tap the crap out of some fabric and call them curtains if nothing I like is within my budget (if unlined, hemtape curtains are wrong, I don't want to be right).

    Also, I think are walls are fairly colorful, but most of our furniture is super neutral. And I'm really drawn to Mid-Century or Danish modern these days. I'm trying to find the perfect (and perfectly priced) nightstands and it's driving me crazy.

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  6. I know I'm not a curator, but most of the time, I don't think I'm really a creator either! True... we do our renovations ourselves... but our walls are depressingly bare of artwork, I've only ever made two pillow covers in my life, and one was a disaster, I've bought furniture with the intent of painting it and never have... I suppose you could say I want to be a 'creator', but kind of fail anyway.

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