Akron Life October 2022

PAGES

U P F R O N T

[ Managing Editor | Kelly Petryszyn | kpetryszyn@bakermediagroup.com ]

Full Embrace

Love your space with help from our 330 Homes magazine.

issue comes with 330 Homes magazine. Inside, find tips to help you navigate your home projects, including how to apply feng shui principles to bliss out your house. In that story, certified feng shui practitioner Kate Troyer explains a guiding principle — your home is a reflection of you. “Whatever you got going on the inside,” she says, “that’s going to

your space personal to you is what feng shui is all about. “People get afraid of hanging things up. There’s just no need for it,” she says. “It should be fun. It’s more about getting in touch with yourself and using your intuition.” The perfect image of how our home should look feels unattainable. But Troyer says it’s empowering to let go of trends and what it seems you should do in your home and just do what you love. And if you change your mind, you can make changes! When I look around our house, I’m encour aged by the little marks of ownership we’ve made: calming light blue and green paints on the walls, custom light butter yellow curtains, a roomy gray sectional from Wayside Furniture in Akron. We are new parents busy with babyproofing and an increasingly mobile baby, so we have to accept that projects will get done slower. Improving our home is an ongoing process. As for the basement, we finished it shortly after she was born. I am proud that we built her a safe playroom. The payoff came when we took her there at 3 months old, and we saw her sit for the first time with support in her giraffe sit-me-up. She smiled so wide and played with her toys. Each room is a place where precious life moments happen, so don’t let the pressure of perfection stop you from taking owner ship of your home. As you read 330 Homes , take away what feels good to you — maybe it’s hip fall decor from Izzy P at Home in Canton or sustainable home tech. Whatever it is, we hope to help you better enjoy your home and love where you live.

show up in your space.” Around our house now there is a baby gate, a

Tony and Izzy, photo by Jessica Grace Photography

At nearly seven months pregnant, I climbed a stepladder, stretched overhead and teetered to fix uneven spots left after we used a paint sprayer to paint our exposed base ment ceiling white. When my hus band, Tony, saw me in this precari ous position, he encouraged me to get down and let the ceiling be. It felt like I had a ticking clock in my belly, and we were desperately scrambling to ready the house for her and finish a basement renovation that began as a casual pandemic project in February 2021. We started the project with my dad to add a bathroom and finish another portion into a game room. When we got news of our baby Izzy’s arrival, the game room became something meaning ful — a playroom for our first child. Home projects so often evolve beyond our original scope but are always an adventure. This month’s Akron Life fall food and fun

jumperoo, a playmat and toys scattered about the family room. A baby swing and high chair are overtaking our living room. Our house looks chaotic, and that’s a reflec tion of what life with a baby is like. We’ve struggled with completing home projects in the past, but there’s nothing like having a baby on the way to push you toward the finish line. Although we’ve lived in our house for a few years, the only fin ished room is Izzy’s nursery. It was a mara thon to complete — our Ikea furniture was back-ordered, Tony’s family had to drive far to pick it up and assembling it took a long time, with the dresser alone requiring over 40 steps! But it was fun to pick out pink, green and gray decor, including a pink tulle crib skirt and illustrated Etsy prints of our favorite animals — a hippo and a whale. This is our first house, so much of what we have is hand-me-downs, and I love her nursery because it’s the first room where we picked everything out. Troyer says making

[ Managing Editor Kelly Petryszyn is an adventure seeker, forever a dreamer and an avid supporter of #TeamFiona. ]

11

O C T O B E R 2 0 2 2 | a k r o n l i f e . c o m