Faith & FamilySimple, Purposeful Living at Home November 21, 2018 I’ve been so excited for this week of our series because y’all know, HOME is my thing. But as it’s approached and I’ve tried to put into words how we do simple and purpose at home, I realize what a vast category this is. I’ve debated, do I just share what my home looks like? Where we store things? How we use our spaces? I’ll likely touch on those and cover them more in future posts once our addition is completely done and the house is settled (and I’ve actually re-organized). But this series has been so good for me because it’s kept me going back to the deeper goal for our life and all of these very interwoven and important categories. Y’all may be tired of reading that quote, but I love it and need the reminder. I need to post this somewhere in our home! Simple living is not, at its’ core, about stuff. It’s much deeper and stuff is an outflow. And with home, that’s so true. Home is our business. My husband and I stumbled into a love of renovating and design eight years ago on our first house (an old frat house) that was all we could afford, but needed so much work. I fell absolutely in love with creating a home that was beautiful for our family. The purpose in the beauty of homemaking continued to unfold over time for me, but traces were there in the beginning. Even as a 23 year-old newlywed grad student trying to thrift to fill her house, I felt that there was something here. Something deep and soul-filling, though I wasn’t seeing the full picture or grasping the weight of it yet. The dream of that first house we thought would be our “family home” where we’d raise our little blond-headed babies quickly shattered as we realized we were drowning in debt and our beautifully renovated home was the only asset we had. With God’s leading and inspiration, my entrepreneur husband realized we could leverage that asset we’d made more valuable by renovating to chunk off some debt. Then what if we did it again? And we did. And we did it again. And we did it again. And, now here we are sitting in our fourth house. Renovating and flipping has become our passion, a big piece of our family business, and an adventure we could’ve never written ourselves. What’s been really neat about this journey is that each renovation was a house we were making for ourselves, for our family, and to meet our current needs. So we’ve learned a lot about how to make a home beautiful, but also functional and purposeful for real people. God has used these gifts we didn’t even know we had when we said “I do,” and this idea of home, to bring us freedom from the bondage of debt. If you’re curious about our story or haven’t listened to it yet, you can check out the video series by clicking below. In it, I go into a lot more detail about this reno and debt journey and all of the crazy, amazingness that God has done. CHECK OUT OUR DEBT AND RENO STORY HERE I realize our journey of HOME isn’t for everyone and it shouldn’t be! All of our journeys are created different to meet different needs in the world. But it always cracks me up when I get the questions, “Oh you must just like moving?” or “You don’t feel the need for a real, settled home?” I get it. Until you’re in it, you may not see it. For us, we don’t love moving, but we also don’t mind it because the vision for our family is worth it. The freedom from debt and what that allows is more important to us than the discomfort of moving. And now, we do long for a family home where we’ll settle and our kids will spend the bulk of their life there and hopefully bring their babies back to one day. That dream of the more normal, true sense of home is there. But we also realize we aren’t quite there yet and when we do get there, what an adventure that will be…one we will treasure. But we also don’t mind it because it’s shown us that HOME is so much more than house. The four walls and what they’re filled with count and affect us. We’ve loved each house we’ve lived in, even though they’ve all felt different. But there’s been a constant piece that’s flowed with us, this over-arching sense of the home we’ve made, to each new house. Our journey has shown us that HOME is the heartbeat, the pulse that flows throughout your four walls. It’s the life that’s lived there. Moving so much and creating so many different homes has shown me that your environment plays such a role in either affirming and supporting the purpose of your family or in working against it. It’s more about the memories made here with family, the conversations happening around the table, and the environment created FOR THE PURPOSE of supporting that vs. the throw pillows or color schemes. And our journey has shown me one very important truth that I hope empowers and inspires you today. You may be thinking, “Ummm…no I’m not. I work a full-time job,” or “Nope, don’t have kids yet.” But here’s the thing, all of us who live somewhere in this world are making a home. The question is just whether or not we are doing it with intention. We may be doing it intentionally with vision and purpose for what we hope it achieves. Or we may not see this role or have vision for it and our lack of that intention is creating our environment. A spirit and culture of home is present where you are. The question is was it done on purpose? And is it in line with the vision you have for your family? The traditional sense of “homemaking” is present here: making or planning meals, cleaning, decorating, planning special occasions. But there is also a deeper thread that runs through it all. My view of making home has continued to shift throughout my journey, but one powerful resource that really summed it up was the book, The Lifegiving Home by mother and daughter: Sally and Sarah Clarkson. Turn on your JavaScript to view content When asked as an adult what made her believe in God, Sarah immediately and without hesitation said that it was the sense of home growing up. Yes, the spaces were crafted with beauty, care, and meaning. But it was the rhythms, the traditions, all of the things that made up of their culture of home that showed her God’s love every single day. It was woven into the fabric of her life and environment with intention. I read this and thought “Oh that one day Rosie and Dax would say something similar about our home….that it shaped the core of who they are.” And then it hit me….THEY WILL. For better or worse, they will. Because the home and culture we grow up with has power. And that sparked in me a new inspiration to cultivate our home environment and its’ spirit on purpose. Yes, the spaces. I want them beautiful, inspiring, meaningful, and functional. But also how we live life here: our traditions, our rhythms, what makes up our days. I’ll talk about some of our rhythms and routines next week, but for today, I’ll close this out by focusing on a few thoughts we have about our home environment. But I hope if you all get nothing else from this post, that you grasp this big idea: The making of home matters and we need to do it on purpose. Many of you have noticed, but how I design spaces has changed over the years. While I still plan out a renovation with color and finishes in mind, I’m much less focused on all of the decor and details that come later. And the reason for that is this: EACH PIECE SHOULD BE BEAUTIFUL, MEANINGFUL, & (or) FUNCTIONAL I want the “stuff” of our home to have weight. I want to choose it wisely. I want to collect it and let it evolve over time. I no longer want to go buy a bunch of decor on day one just to “fill” our home because #1: I don’t need to spend that money, but #2: I want to do it on purpose. I want our home to inspire us, to remind us of our family vision. I want it to evoke a sense of who we’re created to be. This can mean using pieces owned by family members that have meaning to you. It can mean finding pieces that remind you of a very special time in your life or trip. It can mean putting kids’ art around. But I believe it definitely means taking your time and decorating your home with grace and ease as you seek out meaningful things. For example, our living room (as most of this house) has been a slow build. The old decorator Lindsay would’ve already bought four different sets of seasonal throw pillows and I would’ve crammed this space with “just stuff” trying to make it feel cozy and beautiful and right in an instant. And instead, I’m taking my time and I’m finding beauty in the sparseness and letting the pieces I have decided on shine for awhile. I get so many questions about this orange garland and it’s become one of my very favorite things in our home…but it’s not just because it’s pretty. It’s because Rosie and I made it together last Christmas and she still talks about the memory of making it together and that we’ll make another one this coming Christmas. It’s beautiful, but it evokes a memory, a meaning. STREAMLINE YOUR STUFF (INCLUDING DECOR): Now, I’m not saying you have to become a minimalist. But looking back, I filled every nook and cranny of my home with so much just trying to make it pretty and it was visually overwhelming. Like I talked about in the kids’ week, I’ve come to see that a cluttered environment does something to our minds. That doesn’t mean we never have toys strewn across the floor. But it does mean we’ve streamlined (and continue to) our stuff enough so that there is less to manage and so the beautiful things we do have can be seen. And when you’re filling your home with things you find beautiful like I said above, the clutter is pretty clutter. We’re moving more and more toward making the functional things in our life something we find beautiful (again, give yourself time – not a one day complete expensive overhaul). And in doing that, even our messes feel pretty to me. LOOK CRITICALLY AT THE PURPOSE AND FUNCTION OF YOUR HOME This has been a big shift for me to move from just what is pretty to designing a space around how we want it to function with relationships in mind. I talked about this recently in my living room changes and new family room posts. But if the goal of our home is to foster relationships and nurture people and souls, spaces need to be designed with that in mind FIRST. The pretty comes next. Our family room is a perfect example of this. It’s put together to give us the function we needed and I’ll keep honing the decorative details later. GIVE YOURSELF TIME I’ve said this above, but I cannot say it enough. Give yourself time. Crafting a purposeful home that’s intentionally simple and beautiful takes time. It takes hunting the right things. It takes time of rest and reflection. It takes time to get to know yourself and define your family culture and vision. This is not a sprint toward a room reveal. This is a lifelong making of home that has immense value for the people who inhabit it. So take a deep breath, and give yourself a lifetime. Now, make sure you head over and check out my sweet friends post about making home! Eileen from Eileen & Co. Amber from Amber Tysl Jessica from Grace While We Wait
Chris Horne says November 21, 2018 at 11:09 am I absolutely loved your post. I am a different generation than you, I’m 65, but I can’t tell you how much this resonated with me. When I got married in 1975 my husband was in the Air Force and our first place was base housing. Small, ugly and not what most people would consider worthy of the title “home”. But I loved that place and made it mine with no money to speak of and filled it with yard sale furniture that I refurbished and decor that I often found in the woods. I was a homemaker, and with women’s liberation in the 70’s that was considered basically nothing. I raised 2 great kids and 43 years later we are retired and I treasure all my time with my family. I still take in cast offs for decor and keep things simple and it’s why I love your posts. Happy Thanksgiving. Reply
Lindsay says November 28, 2018 at 6:18 am OH this is such a beautiful story and testament to home!!! Thank you for sharing that, I can’t tell you how it encouraged me to read! How special to remember that heart and intention is what makes a home, not money or stuff. Thank you for sharing! Reply
Oona says November 21, 2018 at 7:13 pm I’m feeling thankful for you and your philosophy/theology of home, Lindsay! Two things spring to mind… One is how the daily aromas create a sense of home. For me, it will always be baking bread, Ivory soap, and clean sheets from a cupboard stocked with lavender sachets my mother made. Simple things, healthy things, things that sustain life. And secondly, a question. How to unclutter when inherited treasures begin to take more space and care than they should? I love to see things my mother gave me in our home, but it’s our home now, and our own personalities and callings need to shine here. Just a little something I’m puzzling over, how to figure out the best balance. Meanwhile, wishing you and yours the sweetest of Thanksgivings! Reply
Lindsay says November 28, 2018 at 6:16 am Oona, those are the most beautiful thoughts and memories! That is so special and it’s so sweet to me to think of what my kids might remember one day. I want the baking of bread to be one….I’ve got to learn to bake bread haha! And inherited things are tough because they are so so special to have, but they also can take up a lot of space depending on how much you’re given. What I’ve stuck to (but I don’t have all that much passed down yet) is really special things that resonate with me stay and I find a place for them. But everything can’t. I can’t keep something JUST because it belonged to someone else unless it evokes a memory and means something to me and is useful in my home. That’s easier said that done when it comes down to specific items, but that’s what I try to follow by. Reply
Austin says November 26, 2018 at 10:41 am Thank you for this! As a new(-ish) wife, I feel really passionate about creating a home for us that is warm and welcoming. Sometimes it feels a little silly, given that we don’t have children yet, and for some reason that makes my passion seem a little trivial, like it only has meaning once we’re a “real” family, not just a couple. Thank you for using your beautiful words to shut that mess down! God has put that passion in me for a purpose, and I don’t have to demean it or pretend it isn’t important. Reply
Lindsay says November 28, 2018 at 6:13 am OH Austin, I love this!!! Love that this resonated with you and you are feeling exactly what I felt as a new wife without kids at home yet. I had such passion for creating that home, but it did feel a little silly! Like making home, traditions, etc. didn’t matter as much for the two of us! But you’re so right IT DOES! Reply