Dream This Home

Building and Maintaining your forever home.

The Quick Clean

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My girlfriend is living large in an AirBnB one block off the beach for a few months while her home is going through some renovations.  2 things we talked about today during my visit prompted me to write this post:

First Topic: The smaller rental in so easy to keep clean!  

Smaller Space = less areas that toys migrate to, making clean-up time shorter.

Smaller Space = overall weekly clean-up time has been cut by almost 1/2 the usual!?!

Don’t I know.  My less than 1,400 SF current house takes about 2 hours to scrub up from top to bottom.  This is if I don’t get distracted by the kids with “mommy, mommy, mommy…”  I kind of dread what clean-up will be like in a 3 story house.  I’m not necessarily complaining that it will take longer, but I’m just bracing for it now.  Mentally, because I. Like. Tidy.  Tidying things up is kind of my thing.  But so is using time wisely.  I know that doing a little each day and after each activity saves time later.  But life is so full of untidy activities that flow into one another.  I don’t know about you, but at the end of my day, the un-tidy can be overwhelming and consequently abandoned for tomorrow. With this said, I do have a few ground rules for myself so things don’t get too out of hand.

  1. Dishes get done.  I hate dishes in the sink and we live on an ant hill.  Sooo, the kitchen MUST get cleaned at the end of each day.
  2. Toys/books get put away before bed-time.  By the children! (but mostly by me at this point in our lives.)
  3. Stay on top of the endless piles of laundry.

I have promised myself that I will keep these 3 things in order no matter where we live.

Second Topic: It takes 21 days to create a habit.

My mommy friend runs a home business and understandably, the separation from work-life and home-life is tough.  Some activities do blend from one to the other, but this ’21 days to create a habit’ thing…  She announced quite matter-of-factly that she’s going to start on a few simple cleaning chores using this philosophy to make her home-life easier at the end of her work days.  This way, when she moves back into her newly renovated house, she’ll be on top of it.  I loved this bold declaration she made!  It was insightful and showed her gumption.  So I put a bit of thought into my own daily life.  21 days seems long, but I’m going to try it with a few things that eat up time when it comes to my kidlettes.  These I am willing to try for my own sanity!

  1. Set out clothes for the next day.  No more, “Did you remember to get a pair of socks?”  OR “You are NOT going out in public wearing that!” (aka: plaid shorts, horizontal striped shirt, black soccer socks (though kudos that in this scenario he remembered socks…), open-toed blinking star-wars sandals, topped off with a trucker baseball cap.  No, no, no, nohoho, and NO.
  2. Both kidlettes must attempt to make their beds before leaving the house in the morning.  Even the 2 yr old.  Actually, more importantly, blankies stay on the bed. No more dragging blankies into the living room and left wadded up on the couch all day, just to be dragged back to the bedroom at night.  And finally…
  3. This will probably take longer than 21 days, but…  LEGOs…  Pick those mini-figs up off the floor.  Stop changing their heads around and leaving their itty-bitty “accessories” all over every horizontal surface throughout the house.  And furthermore, on the LEGO front, build the damn set and keep it in tact.  Not to be Lord Business (The LEGO Movie) and all, and threaten the “KRAGLE” but yea… kind of…  Some nights, all I want to do is KRAGLE the $hit out of every set we own.  A set is a set. There is an entire tub of free-build bricks for creating masterpieces!  Learn the difference kiddos!!!main-qimg-2b1f6bee0dbf0d06ba6d5a57b343ea5b

I’ll report back on this in 21 days…

-K

Children’s Library

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Books are my favorite gift.  I read to my kids throughout the day and try to read a chapter or two from a non-picture book every night.  Because nothing is more relaxing than being transported into a story for a beat of time.  My younger one at the age of 2 usually falls asleep to my voice.  The kid’s library is important to me.  Always accessible, always offering a chance to teach them the importance of literacy.  No Dewey Decimal system in my house.  Just simple organization at their little fingertips.  Board books for the little one on one shelf.  Japanese books in one area, hardbound books on one shelf with paperbacks grouped together.  Yes, sometimes there are moments of, “that book again?”  I mean how many times can I possibly read about the frickin’ Pout Pout Fish or battle against the Four Leggers on Hoth?  But it’s ok.  I take a deep breath when the littles bring me a book to read.  If they willingly picked it and brought it to me, I oblige.  Every time.  Even when it means putting whatever I’m doing aside no matter how pressing it seems in that moment.  It’s just another way to show my love.  When a small body is nestled into my lap for a quick read, I’m theirs.  And they are mine.

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Keep reading with your kidlettes.

-K

Shared Bedrooms Build Character

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My husband and his two brothers grew up with their own bedrooms.  I shared a bedroom for over a decade with my little sis who is six years younger than I am.  So when it came to designing our own children’s spaces for the new house, the husband and I had “some discussions.”  Of course he wanted separate bedrooms for the kidlettes and I wanted a shared sleeping arrangement . In the end, I won.  Because shared bedrooms build character.  And… we didn’t have the space for separate bedrooms without chopping our already tiny footprint into a mess of  hallways and unnecessary closed doors.  We needed to be smart about our first floor layout.

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Children are adaptable.  They get what they get and they survive.  It’s a first world problem really.  Some families share one bedroom.  Heck we did it for 3 years!  Our kidlettes currently share a bedroom, they always have.  My older one at the age of 4 going on 5 cuddles in his brother’s bed almost on a nightly basis.  The younger one, who just turned two just graduated from his converted crib into a big boy bed and he loves having his big bro’s foot or butt in his face every night.  Ok, no he doesn’t like it and usually ends up curled up on the floor.  But again, building character.

Of all the rooms in the house, I designed the kidlette’s bedroom first.  (In my head.)  Theirs will be a small, yet perfectly curated room.  Black and White schemed.  Simple.  I know it will not always look perfect as our daily lives commence, but gosh darn, when it is made up for move in day,  it’s going to be amazing.  The beds will be made-up with crisp white sheets with perfect matching accent pillows.  All the toys will be concealed behind closed closet doors.  The walls will be smudge free and devoid of “artistic” crayon markings.  The curtains will hang effortlessly and the rug… (which I have guiltily already purchased – thank you Anthropologie!) will be devoid of sand and dirty footprints.  Soft and inviting for their little feet to plod upon.

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Dreams.  I know there may be a smirk on your face as reality is quite different from a magazine photo existance.  But I’m going to dream a bit longer, because as much as this new home is for our whole family, my children running through its spaces is the mental image that warms my heart the most.  So within their four shared walls, my children will grow, and build their individual characters, and dream side-by-side.

Just a bit longer.

-K