Design Post | The Placeholder

dwell

Sep 27

Black porcelain doorknobs with unlacquered brass rosettes arrived in the mail last week. So did an achingly beautiful faucet. Various hardwood samples have been scattered across the workbench in the shed, rubbed with finishes to see what they’d become. Finally, the right one emerged: walnut.

These are a few of the things that are making their way into our house this fall. Yes, it’s all very exciting and you can imagine how my fingers are tingling to share it with you, but I can’t talk about all the new just yet, because there’s something behind the new that’s key in all this, and so important to bring up and out and into the conversation.

The placeholder.

It’s a bridge, of sorts, from here to there; a way to arrive where we want to be. Often in life, it’s easy to name our first choice, our wildest dream, our ultimate. But just as often there are factors that seem to set our reality and our dream out of step with each other. Perhaps it’s finances and time that aren’t meeting in the middle. Or maybe it’s simply taking extra long to find what we’re looking for, that hoped-for piece playing hard-to-get. For whatever reason, there are limitations aplenty.

That’s when you find your placeholder. Right there inside the framework of home, a humble piece holds place. For now. In the meantime. Until then. When time and money give their best, when you give yours, and the placeholder follows suit.

Loves, can I say this? It’s okay to be in the placeholder phase. It’s good, in fact. There’s beauty and contentment there. There’s life and learning there. If it lasts years, that’s okay. Go ahead and live there. Really live there. Don’t wait, or hover, or pause.

But also, loves? Don’t lose sight of where you’re going. Keep the vision alive, the outlook beyond, the eyes peeled. Let the dream continually draw you. Because life has things for you there, as well. Beautiful, necessary, surprising things.