Personalizing Your Home Decor

by Jenny Larsen | Photos by Eric Larsen

I’m looking around my living room as I write this. I’m looking at the objects that I have placed around the room. There’s the painting that hangs over our fireplace that my husband and I bought in Paris at a junk store on our honeymoon. I’ve spent many evenings sitting under a blanket looking at it and reliving that fun day. There are the Morrocan tea pitchers that came into our store a few years ago that remind me of the beauty and excitement of traveling overseas and of the adventures we’ve had in China and India. There’s the custom sofa that spans the length of our mid-century-style living room that, prepandemic, comfortably sat eight employees engrossed in conversation, chatting the night away. There are the coffee table books that scatter the room: a vintage Diana Vreeland book that a friend gave me, the art book of Natalia Goncharova we bought after seeing her exhibition on our ten-year wedding anniversary a few years ago, and the various decorating books that I’ve spent hours pouring over for insight and inspiration. Then, there are the mid-century chairs that launched our wholesale business—that’s a whole other story.

This exercise of looking around and focusing on these items highlights for me the importance of my job. Along with my husband, I’m a purveyor of objects like those found in my living room. I’m passionate about what I do because, fundamentally, I believe that decorating our homes and choosing those objects we wish to live among should not be an act of decorating as much as an act of self-expression. The goal should be to surround ourselves with objects that we enjoy, objects that remind ourselves of our past, and objects that share who we are with others.

When I thumb through a magazine or peruse Pinterest, it's common to see many amazing rooms that are beautifully decorated, but I think, “Who lives here?” It’s pretty, but it tells you nothing about the personality or lives of the people who call it home. They drained the room of themselves in order to be trendy. Don’t decorate just to decorate. Choose pieces and design your home so that your rooms envelop you with joy and warmth. Decorate your home in a way that allows you to revisit your experiences through the items that you surround yourself with. Sure, bringing things together in a way that is pleasing is important, but only to achieve the end product of creating your story— your autobiography of objects.

three stores—AO, Urban Renewal, and Having-BeenNess —all adjacent to each other in downtown St. George, Utah. If you haven’t been to our stores, Urban Renewal is a mix of vintage and new home accessories, furnishings, posters, and even vinyl records. Urban has been in business for 20 as of this summer. I can’t believe that!

Next door is Having-Been-Ness, our clothing store that also mixes vintage with new pieces. We pair designer apparel with name-brand and vintage clothing that is sourced in L.A. and New York.

Next door to Having-Been-Ness is Autobiography of Objects, our newly expanded lifestyle store that is a blend of clothing, gifts, and home furnishings that I carefully curate.

What all three stores have in common is that they exist for the sole purpose of capturing our customers’ imaginations and assisting them in expressing themselves with unique furnishings, decor, or apparel.

I live, eat, and breathe our businesses and the concept of making a home because I believe it adds to the value and quality of a person's life. When our customers find that piece that they fall in love with— the sofa that they can enjoy family movie nights on, or that vintage piece that comes to remind them of a time in their life, or that special item that they can look at in their home and feel joy from—I feel a great sense of gratification. I love it when I see customers choosing items that speak to their hearts and help them tell their stories.V

Visit our stores at 5 E. St.George Boulevard in St. George, Utah, or call (435) 236-3838 for more information. You can find us on Facebook by searching “Urban Renewal St. George Utah”.

Owners Jenny & Eric Larsen in India