For a long time, I thought home design was about decorating — about making a space look beautiful, stylish, or current. But somewhere along the way, I realized that what I’ve been doing inside my own house isn’t just decorating at all. It’s art. It’s storytelling. It’s restoration.
I used to think people updated their homes just for the aesthetics.
To make them prettier.
That was it.
When I first started making changes to my house, I didn’t think about resale value or market trends. I didn’t consider what a future buyer might want or how my choices might affect the “investment.” I just wanted to live somewhere beautiful. Somewhere that felt like us.
While I was creating art in my studio, I slowly realized I was also creating space.
This house has become another kind of canvas for me.
A forever project. A forever home.
It’s my other creative outlet.
A place where I get to experiment, play, and restore things to their original charm while adding pieces of my own story.
I’ve never approached it like a house flipper. I approach it like an artist who found a subject she can live inside of.
Sometimes I joke that I cosplay as an interior designer.
All I really have is an art degree, a lot of interest, and a bag of edibles.
But the truth is, I love it.
I love the process of learning as I go, making decisions by instinct, and finding beauty in the in-between stages — when the paint is drying, the light is shifting, and the room hasn’t quite figured out what it wants to be yet.
Lately I’ve noticed how connected everything is.
My art, my business, and my home all orbit around the same heartbeat: downtown Lafayette.
When downtown thrives, I thrive.
When people invest in this old part of town, they’re investing in the same story I’m a part of.
It wasn’t strategy that brought me here.
I didn’t choose this area for potential or market analysis.
I chose it because it felt cool.
We picked our house for its layout, its character, and the way it made us happy the first time we walked through the door.
As I’ve learned more about property values and development and all the grown-up things that come with homeownership, I’ve noticed how easy it is to let those things drain the joy out of creating. But the truth I keep coming back to is this: everything cool, everything worth restoring or visiting or loving, exists because a creative person believed in it first.
The world doesn’t get beautiful on its own.
It becomes beautiful because someone chooses to see it that way.
Artists, dreamers, designers, and everyday visionaries — we are the ones who keep the world interesting. We take on the inconvenient, impractical, pain-in-the-ass projects because they mean something.
That’s what makes a city worth living in.
That’s what makes a home worth staying in.
So yes, I’m creating art.
But I’m also creating home.
And both are acts of belief — that beauty, curiosity, and care still matter in a world that often forgets they do.
Thanks for reading.
If you’re new here, I’m Lindsey — a visual artist living and creating in Lafayette, Louisiana. I paint, restore, design, and occasionally spiral into home projects with a little too much enthusiasm.
If you’d like to follow along as I build both my art career and this forever home, join my email list at lemmepaintdat.com or follow along on Instagram @lemmepaintdat.
Here’s to building something beautiful, one paintbrush at a time.