It’s Spring! Past The Blahs Into The Blues

As the seasons change and we shed the winter wools it’s time to step outside our inoculated online I-Pad world and breathe!

With the new season comes another opportunity to contemplate our lives. I'm not saying that we should all follow in Madonna's dramatic footsteps and reinvent ourselves. However, one idea key for this transformation: family. Over the winter months we've forgotten there's more to life than work, than surfing the internet and checking Facebook. We've forgotten how to simply... breathe.

More often than not, it's the simple moments with family that can inspire and catalyst the most profound changes in our lives. For me, given on a particular day, this feeling can be discovered by an afternoon at the beach. The first spring day excites all of the senses with freshness in the air, recharging my exhausted and thinly spread life.


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Stepping into the warm spring sun motivated me to repaint the living room wall, buying a spontaneous bucket of paint, with my daughter and together we brought the outdoors in. Whatever the case may be, the time has come to make home the center of your life again. The time has come to take charge, turn up the music, and get to it!

Capturing this sense of relaxation and ultimate content may sound as impossible as catching lightening in a bottle. Yet, it's not only vital for your mental health, but it's as simple as deciding what to wear in the morning. No matter what outfit you end up choosing, it's completely and utterly you. With that in mind, reflect on what graces your home. Do the walls and rooms truly reflect the ideas and moments that you cherish the most?

Personally, the color blue has followed my family for decades. It's always let itself be prominent in the memories that I hold most dear. From my brother's desire to become a member of the Air Force, planes contrasting against the sky, to my daughter teaching our Portuguese waterdog not to be afraid of the waves that hit the shore line- blue has always been a part of the story.  And with my desire to continue that legacy, I place hints of the playful color in almost every room. It's become a permanent guest in my home.

So, we must return the basics, there we'll uncover what inspires and motivates. Don't complicate the idea by over thinking every little decision. Follow your instincts. It's time to frame that old photo of grandma, repaint the office, reupholster that family heirloom that's been sitting around, and emphasize those little family quirks that make a house a home. After all, we shouldn't feel like guests in our own home. We should always have the time to breathe, celebrate family, home and a new season of springtime memories!

For more about Michael Ryan Designs visit him via this link: http://www.michaelryandesign.com 

About Michael Ryan

Being raised in Colorado and later transplanted to the Chicago lakefront, I am influenced by both coastal and mountainous lifestyles. I'm drawn to colors and textures with a history behind them. During my walks around town, I seek items such as metals with patina or weathered barn doors with its former layers of paint appearing through its cracks and chips. The quality of a hand sewn stitch has the ability to unknowingly carry a room. In my contemporary settings, I'm drawn to orderly and functional layouts, minimal furnishings with maximum impact.


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With degrees in design, I've been able to incorporate my ideals as an award winning product developer, trend forecaster and have managed large corporate design teams.  In the beginning of my career, I was on a product development team; there were twelve of us sitting at large conference table. At the time, we were all pitching ideas, which were all small failures until the team leader came in and threw river rock on the table and told us to design a line around them.  To this day, I think of that moment and realize how design manifests into something greater than one item; it creates a lifestyle.

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