At various times in my life, I've exhibited an unhealthy attachment to "stuff," associating distinct memories with inanimate objects and assuming that, as they leave my life, so too will the warm and fuzzy feelings attributed to them. Two particular pieces from my childhood immediately spring to mind: an oh-so-70s sofa upholstered in a chartreuse floral chenille fabric and my family's 1976 VW Westfalia Camper, which was interestingly similarly hued.

The old sofa's replacement had a more "sophisticated" silhouette (i.e., not ideal for lounging) and embroidered chinoiserie upholstery that my sister and I felt nervous to sit on. Despite almost hanging onto the bumper of the VW after attempting to salvage stickers that we had applied to the windows in commemoration of all the places we'd been as a family in that van, it was traded in, to my absolute horror, for a brown conversion van, the height of 1980s family transport. And while I refused to acknowledge that the plush captain's chairs in the new ride were more comfortable than the scratchy plaid upholstery on the bench seat of the VW, I couldn't refuse a ride home as I'd threatened, as Uber or a cell phone weren't an option.

 In my adult life, such junctions with "junque" have been few and far between; that was until I purchased my current home almost a decade ago. Since then, I have worked room by room—often with the help of my parents and my now-husband, Matthew—to bring my maximalist vision to life, indulging nearly every crazy design decision that sprang to mind and creating an overwhelming amount of closet space. Countless outfit-check selfies taken in my foyer's trumeau mirror, often intended for my daughter in France, and curiously frequently in costume, have also captured the myriad color changes made in this area (and to my hair!) alone.

 "If someone wrote a novel about your life, your home would be its own character," remarked Jake Cypress, a quirky independent contractor I came across on NextDoor who helped me knock out a laundry list of projects, most notably taking down a second-floor wall that made the circa 1870s structure a single-family residence again for the first time in many decades.

Text: Bridget Cottrell