Why We Care About Your Home

Purposeful, peaceful, inspiring and sacred - this is how we want your home to feel. As you begin and end each day within the same four walls, what does your home provide that is supportive and restorative? Shelter, yes. It holds space for your belongings, both functional and treasured. Home provides a place where you can nourish your body with food and sleep. These are the basics, as they say. 

And what about your spirit? What supports and restores you as a divine being, and what role does your home environment play in breathing life into you each day? All of us, no matter our occupation, are regularly contributing something to the world. If we want our contributions to be generative, meaningful, impactful, let us remember that our place of refuge has more potential to offer than the basics. 

We believe that the way your home sends you off into your life’s work and welcomes you back to rejuvenate each day is part of its purpose. The way you feel in your home matters. And the way we choose to construct our home environment is an empowering opportunity to cultivate whatever feelings you desire most. When we nourish our spirit, we bring our most powerful selves, ideas and creativity into the world. And we embody more joy in the process.

In addition to honoring our whole self in the home, we can honor the earth and humanity with our lifestyle. Yes, we are talking about consuming mindfully, sustainably, ethically, intentionally… sometimes slowing down if that’s what it takes. Just as we hope that the output of our own life’s work will be meaningful, may we consider that many of our choices have the power to either expand or diminish the life’s work of the people and the planet we collectively depend on. We are an ecosystem in every manner of the word. 

And so, why do we want to connect with you on all of this? Because our work, the work we strive to make generative, meaningful and impactful, is in helping you create the space that honors your spirit, the earth and humanity all at the same time. Our hope is that sharing this purpose and passion with all of you will inspire more of all of the good things we’ve just discussed, promoting peace, compassion, and vitality.

Here are the ways we know best how to serve our community in this mission… 

First, we talk about it. Thank you for reading this journal post, and we hope you will share your response in the comments. This space is for thinking and collaborating as a community about how to integrate sustainability into a lifestyle. We want to build a community rooted in taking care of the planet we share, and to learn new ways to do that in our lives and homes. We hope to inspire each other to live slowly and kindly, as neighbors. Keep reading, thinking, and doing along with us, please!

Next, we offer design services to collaborate more specifically about how your environment can best serve you. This is such a personal process. Our designer, Caroline Walkup, approaches each project with a genuine desire to hit that nail on the head. The ethos of our brand is what drives her creativity in helping you tap into the magic your space has to offer, so that it can support your whole self and your life’s work.

And finally, we channel our love for beautiful, meaningful pieces into our collection of sustainably made homewares from vendors who are devoted to minimizing their environmental impact, as well as vintage pieces, big and small, to reduce our footprint. We share this collection with you so that next time you need or desire to bring something special into your home, you can feel as though you are consuming mindfully, with the intention of supporting your whole self, and shopping amongst friends. 

What we hope you’ll take away from all of this is that your home likely has some untapped potential. You can probably already name one or two changes you could make in order to evoke a more supportive refuge for yourself. We’re here to talk about it, offer some creative ideas, and provide some resources for making those changes. But hear us when we say, you do not need to buy another product, from us or anyone else, to achieve the home you want. Yes we have goods for sale, but we do not encourage mindless consumption. We encourage you to wait until a light pings on that says “yes, this piece will serve my spirit in this way” or “this is a piece that will bring meaningful joy to me daily”. 

Thank you as always for being here. Let’s figure all of this out together! We look forward to reading your thoughts below and continuing the discussion. Lots of love.

Welcome to Fred & Mary’s,

Carolyn