Does your home look Waldorf inspired? - Page 2

[MamaFern]

my answer is yes. we have a very cozy waldorfy home.
i declutter unsightly things often, even if it's a gift. if i dont like looking at it, it rarely stays long. some people may think that this is mean, but i believe that my children value these beautiful things too...and know the difference. my son often asks idf something has lead paint on it or if its safe. the few exceptions in my home are playmobil & legos. my son loves both nd my 4 year old daughter is starting to really love playmobil. but i kind of enjoy playing with it as well, so its okay. we have a small tv which has a vcr and we like to watch movies from time to time. and my partner and i each have a laptop. but, we have mainly wooden furniture, &wooden toys and lots wooly things as well. i needle felt & knit a lot, as does my auntie, who loves to send little packages in the mail.

that said, my children do not go to waldorf school, and likely never will (there is none im my small town), though next year i plan to home-school with oak meadows curriculum. i grew up down the street from a waldorf school and was in the waldorf school (community) choir, and many of my friends attended, and i always felt that was my place.

[pbresolin]

I wanted to say thank you to everyone who posted. I enjoyed reading each and every one of them!

We rent our home but I love it because the whole thing has hardwood floors and a fireplace, windows that look out to the back woods and it's very cottage-y. Most of my furniture is wooden, or used, or old and I like it that way. The only things I have on the shelves are picture of family and books, baskets with the kids' toys in them and their books. I have to keep everything off the tables because my DS has autism and is object oriented and if I put anything on them it becomes a toy (not good with a plugged in lamp) so it's very minimally decorated. We do have one TV and a computer in the extra room that I would like to replace with a laptop but I've had a hard time convincing DH lol.

I recently got rid of all the plastic toys and all we have left are a wooden train track with trains, a Waldorf-inspired baby doll for each child that I handmade, books, play silks, and a few Playmobil. I have a small table I use as a nature table but can only leave a few things on it at a time. For Christmas they are getting a wooden kitchen which will go into our living room with the rest of the toys. I'm trying to gather up a few wooden accessories to go with it.

It's a work in progress to get it to where I really want it, which is a little bit vintage and a little bit Waldorf inspired and a bit little homemade

[onyxravnos]

not at the moment as we are in a very very very very small space for the winter. BUT normally i think it's not bad and this summer we are building with a waldorf-ish home in mind from he get go. Somewhere around here there is a thread with people who posted pictures of their waldorf play space / houses....

[anneandoreo]

I would say, yes our home is waldorf inspired, but probably not hardcore.
We have natural oak hard wood floors, show-home beige and taupe on the walls. Most of our furniture is also light oak. I know it's the trend to have the dark cherry wood, etc but I still prefer the blonder woods. It just seems more..."natural" to me. I am a quilter so I have a wall of quilts with a couple on the couch. We try to declutter all the time. I think keeping things simple is the key. We live in a 2 bedroom bungalow so we don't have a lot of room for things we don't need. I also try to have things that are multifunctional.
Even now at xmas time, I still use my 2 footer tree, and it is full of handmade ornaments. It's actually listing a bit. We have a few snowmen on top of the tv cabinet (with doors to shut the tv out).
DD's room is light-medium green with art prints on the walls, along with some felted artwork that i've done. She has a toy shelf in our living room with everything in baskets or fabric boxes. The top of the shelf is the nature table.
I love this thread!!! Great ideas and inspiration.

[brownay2]

With starting to think of plans of building a home out of wood and natural elements has anyone actually taken it to a higher level and conctruct their home with the rounded curves and arches of the waldorf inspired schools for their own home and are their any building plans that you know of I could attain?


Lurking and inspired!

[MamaFern]

Originally Posted by brownay2

With starting to think of plans of building a home out of wood and natural elements. has anyone actually taken it to a higher level and construct their home with the rounded curves and arches of the waldorf inspired schools for their own home? and are their any building plans that you know of I could attain?


Lurking and inspired!

. i have no ideas, but i imagine there is loads of resources out there!
good luck!

[accountclosed3]

for anyone building a home, my absolute favorite book is the Not So Big House. the woman's designs (and the movement in general) is amazing. a lot of the houses definitely have a waldorf feel, IMO.

but what i love about the book is how it asks questions about how *you* live to help you determine where to focus your time, energy, and money in the build. once you have that information in hand, whether looking at plans or talking to an architect, you'll know how to hone into the home you want to build.

[PNWmama]

Originally Posted by brownay2

With starting to think of plans of building a home out of wood and natural elements has anyone actually taken it to a higher level and conctruct their home with the rounded curves and arches of the waldorf inspired schools for their own home and are their any building plans that you know of I could attain?


Lurking and inspired!

Sounds much like a strawbale house. They have super thick walls, rounded edges, deep window frames. Our goal is to someday build a strawbale house...

[accountclosed3]

i do love cob/rammed earth/straw bale homes.

they are beautiful, environmentally friendly, etc etc. excellent choices.

[dharmama]

Originally Posted by boatbaby

Well since our play space is also our living room space is also our family room space is also our dining room space is also my office... yes

Our boat's main salon is where we spend most of our time so it's set up for my son primarily and the other functions work around play or come out when play is through and it's meal time or what have you.

I recently has somebody who doesn't know me come over, take one look inside, and said to me "This looks like a floating Steiner Kindergarten class!" I took that as a compliment.

what a lovely compliment!!!!

[racheleuphoria]

Originally Posted by Gunter

recently, i covered the bookcases with fabric to eliminate the visual clutter of book titles.

Do you have any pictures or a how-to inspiration on the covered bookcases. I think that sounds like a good idea for one room in our house. I have a LOT of books!

[EStraiton]

Yes everywhere except for the big flat screen that "Santa" delivered DH for Christmas. hmmmm... Luckily, it does not go on until after bedtime. LOL

[SageR]

Originally Posted by racheleuphoria

Do you have any pictures or a how-to inspiration on the covered bookcases. I think that sounds like a good idea for one room in our house. I have a LOT of books!

I'm not Gunter but I did this in our office nook, which is in our family room. I just took a rectangular piece of fabric and hemmed it to the inner dimensions of the bookcase plus about an inch in length. Then I just tacked the surplus to the inside bottom of the top. I used plain natural duck since that's what I had and our slipcovers are the same fabric. It looks nice with the natural wood, I think, but it's definitely more of a rustic-y look than modern.

[ecoteat]

Originally Posted by MommyKelly

Your home sounds amazing!

Originally Posted by waldorfknitmama

Where in the world do you live???? Your home sounds so amazing and wonderful!!! And 80 acres???? Unbelievable!!!!!

Originally Posted by kittywitty

Right now I am just dying of jealousy. Dying. Feel like selling around the $70k price range?

Thanks! We are in rural Maine on a really crunchy peninsula. Many of our friends have lots of land and live in off-the-grid houses they built themselves. We aren't off the grid, but we did RE-build our house (It used to be in Massachusetts; it was dismantled and we put it back together up here) on the land we bought cheap from an old back-to-the-lander. It's a pretty unusual area. The Waldorf school has a significant presence and lots of families homeschool. So most of our friends homes are quite Waldorfy. We love it here.

[PabloHoneySF]

a friend of mine lives in a gorgeous straw baled home with other Waldorf artisans... the rounded curves are amazing, I want to move in!

[honey-lilac]

Not really, unfortunately. We moved into this house thinking we were going to get hardwood floors put in but due to medical bills we won't be able to. So we're stuck with ugly carpet throughout. At least it's neutral colors. And although we have TONS of windows - we have to keep them curtained most of the time due to energy loss as well as the fact that the darn neighbors are like thirty feet away in any direction and can easily look in. (Which means we have darn little outside space too.) We kept the original paint colors except for DS's room which we painted a warm peach that he picked out. Some of the walls are neutral/beige but others are bright - the kitchen is a happy red, our bedroom is a deep ocean blue. The real estate agent fell over himself apologizing for the "bad taste" the previous owners had and said we could paint over it, but no, we love it. We'd also like more plants out - right now we have a few FAKE plants but that's cos the kiddos are still in the "ooh dirt I must eat it / play in it" stage. Maybe in another year or two we will be able to have more plants than just in out-of-the-way places. ANd maybe one day we'll be able to move Daddy's big-screen TV that he uses for gaming somewhere out of sight...

In the meantime what we DO have that is Waldorfy is a nature mantle (not a nature table because the kids would destroy it) that we decorate seasonally, some gnomes and window decorations here and there, and lots of free space and decluttered areas. We try to have a soothing atmosphere, with a candle lit at all times and just a slow pace. I think that although our house is not very Waldorfy in general we try to cultivate the same SORT of atmosphere, although we have different elements to work with.