This is not the house I would have chosen to be my forever home, but over the years I have come to terms with us staying here – but how to reconcile with the dissatisfaction of this home not being exactly what I want.
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Acknowledging our home dissatisfaction
- Recognizing that deep desire to create a space that FEELS like home
- Addressing the longing we have to change our homes
- How we handle our dissatisfaction
Working with a partner to build a home together
- Having different ideas on what a home should be
- Looking for the ways we both want to create a great place
- Owning where we think the grass is greener
Are we entitled when it comes to having an upgraded/ideal home?
- Addressing the concept of what is ‘normal’ for how our homes should look
- Getting overwhelmed to just ‘get there already’
- Asking about what we want, why we want it
- Can we consider the costs of having this ‘ideal’ home
Appreciating the home you have
- The one question that helped me see the resent I was looking at my home with
- Looking at my space with appreciation over the days/weeks/months and the things that I have put on my list that I didn’t expect
- Old decks, small closets, dated kitchens, lack of storage cul-de-sacs
Why do we want to change our home?
- We think when our home is ‘ideal’ then we can feel different
- Seeing how you don’t have to wait for the perfect home in order to feel that
- Getting stuck in the either/or mentality
Stop waiting for the perfect home
- Your home should be a place that reflects YOU and is a space you love to be and nobody else will do this work for you
- Do the work of removing what you don’t want in your home and letting the things you love shine and be used
- Know what you LOVE and focus on those things more than the latest trends
- Make a point to USE your space for the way you want your home to be used (gather, create, make, relax)
- Creating spaces you use and enjoy
Loving your home and wishing it were different
- This is not an either/or situation, hold space for both of these
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Mentioned:
Love The House Your Are In by Page Rein
No Demo Reno on HGTV
Table Topics Question cards to start dinner conversation
How to Hygge When You Are a Busy Mom (Episode 75)
Join the Facebook Simple on Purpose Community
Be the mom you are (blog post)
Simple Pleasure of the week:
Warm blankets out of the dryer.
Full transcript
Hey friends it’s Shawna, your nerdy girlfriend life coach from simple and purpose.ca Welcome to the simple on purpose podcast. For those of you who are new welcome. I am Shawna, I am a mom of three kids. I’m a trained life coach, a retired health inspector and your nerdy girlfriend, I am here to talk to you each week about the things that we moms we women face in our lives. And how do we approach the different aspects of our lives by first reducing all of the distractions, the noise, whether it’s in the form of busyness, comparison clutter, so we want to simplify these areas of our life. And we want to get clear on what we want here, how to be purposeful and intentional in each of the areas of our life. So welcome to the podcast. For the past few episodes, we’ve been talking about emotional intelligence. So I wanted to bring in another topic and change it up. And what I love to do is talk to you guys about something that I talk with my girlfriends on. And this is a conversation I’ve had over the years, with my girlfriends, the topic of loving your home, how do you feel about your home? Do you wish it were different? I recently was looking through some old notebooks I haven’t I came across a couple lists I had made about what I love about my home. And what I don’t love about my home, I was reading a book at the time called love the house, you’re in by Paige rain. And there’s different prompts in that. And that was one of the prompts. So I had this list. And I was just looking through the list of the things that I hadn’t loved about my home over the years. And we’ve lived in our home for 10 years, the longest we’ve ever lived anywhere. When we moved to this town, 10 years ago, we had a lot of trouble finding a home for sale, it was a hot market, we put close to eight offers on different places, and just happened to come across this one, it was listed privately. And it just worked, right like I was ready to have a baby, we were moving to a new town, new jobs, all that. So we just needed to get a house. And we told ourselves at the time, we’ll move to some property later, like we’ll just live here for now. And over the years that changed. This isn’t the house that I would have chosen to be my forever home. I wanted to change too much about it for that. But as the years have gone on, I’ve just realized we’re staying here, this makes the most financial sense. And I know that’s the sensible choice, right to make a good financial decision with the home that you’re in. But the problem for me is that I’d always been telling myself It should be different. And I’ve been preparing myself for decades of this idea that my house should be different. Because even like as a teenager, I was watching house in home with Linda Reeves, we only had two channels for a lot of years. And that was one of them. How is the new home, my love for home started so young. Even as a teenager, I would draw floor layouts of my dream home. And over the decades, I would keep drawing these floor plans and notebooks, I would buy books of floor plans. Like this is just the way that I love to look at space and and imagine how the space could feel and be used of the three homes that Connor and I have lived in together over the years. We have renovated them all. And I love the idea of renovation, I love to look at the space and reimagine it and my husband, not so much. He’s practical. He does boring things like ease drops in Windows, and I’m pinning on Pinterest, all these unrealistic things. But I think I’ve learned to acknowledge that deep down inside. I long for that space that feels like home. And if you have a faith background, I think we can acknowledge that we all long for that perfect Eden, we long for that we long for that beauty around us. But maybe you’re like me and you grew up feeling like you didn’t have a space that felt like home. And your desire might come from this place of giving that inner child in you what it always belongs for. and hang in with me here guys. I’m not gonna talk about the inner child, but the inner child is real. We are all carrying around an eight year old version of us who was just trying to feel safe and seen and supported. Okay, but that’s as much as I’ll say right now. Over the years, I have put a lot of proposals together on what I think our home should be and how I want to change it and maybe we should just buy a new home. I mean, this is was often my solution over the years to feeling dissatisfied in my home, especially when my home was cluttered with to move. And I was always sending Connor my husband, these listings and MLS listings. And he was like, but we’re happy here and we can afford here and try to tell me like 17 different ways that this is our home and we need
to make the best of it. But to me, the grass was always greener. And I can see how that’s really defeating to a partner that you live with that’s trying to build a home with you and give it a solid foundation and think about chimneys and water tanks and all that stuff. And I’m just like, I saw this on Pinterest though. Let’s Make the magic happen. So we both have different ideas on how to create a home for our family. And I think, really, we’re both right. But I keep holding on to these dreams of what my home should be. And I realized over the years, it pulls me further away from all that my home can be and like, just stick with me. It’s not like, just think great and your house will be great. Like I just want to tell you how I got there personally. So we’ve been in this home for 10 years, and I look around at our home and we have done so much over the years. We’ve replaced floors we’ve painted we’ve taken down walls, we’ve built new ones. One year, we renovated the basement for our kids Christmas present for them. That was their playroom now. So every time I’m dissatisfied in my home, I’m dismissing that vision that I had that hard work, that money that desire and that effort that we’ve already poured into our home. As a family we’ve been watching HGTV we just got this channel on our amazon prime. And we’ve been watching no demo Rana which is super cute. She does these renovations with without like tearing down walls and all that stuff. And I’ve noticed that a lot of these homes, I think they’re in Texas, they’re huge homes, they’re like 400,000 square feet. They’re massive homes, the people who are doing this, they have massive budgets, in my view, I don’t know if it’s different in America than it is in Canada. But they’ve got these big budgets, and they’re upgrading their homes. They’re upgrading what feels outdated. And this is nothing new, right? Like people have done it for centuries. But it makes me just kind of start to think about what I see online and like on HGTV and on Instagram and Pinterest and everyone’s making their whole home, inside and out this beautiful little jewel. And I don’t know about you, but I started to think it’s normal. Like it’s normal to have the brand new kitchen, the beautiful headboard, the patio furniture, the cute tiled floor, and it all starts to blend together. To me. It’s like white on white and raw wood and fixtures and rugs. And I start to feel the pressure to just get there already. But how much money do we have for all these projects on my list? How do other people pay for this? And I know there’s like DIY is and all this but still it’s it’s money. It’s experience, it’s time. And I just I just start to wonder, are we becoming entitled, when it comes to what we expect out of our homes and when we expect it and how we expect it? Because I get antsy asking myself this question. I love home decor. And it’s not like I’m awesome at it. But I just love thinking about how a space can make you feel I love the power in that. And I think that expressing who you are, and your values and what you and your family like to do. I think that doing that in your home makes it feel like a home. And I’m just constantly wrestling with this, like we’ll watch these shows, and my kids watch them and they love them. And they’re like, Oh, we should rent all this. And we should move this here. And I’m like, we already did renovate. Like, I’ll show you the pictures. Our house works. This is TV. It’s not real life. But there’s still that part of me that agrees with them. There’s still that wrestling me of the woman who’s like, now I’m 38 I deserve to have an adult home. And then there’s another ways because we just have like all these voices in our heads it’s like, but at what cost? And why? Why do you want all that? Because everyone else does.
And I’m just saying this because I know it’s a philosophical journey. And for some of it’s a spiritual journey as well, I don’t really have the answer. These are just things that I think about as I look at my relationship to home renovations, and this real desire in my heart to want this picture perfect home. Okay, but here we are. We’re in our homes are in perfect homes with layouts that totally don’t work and places we want to upgrade. And how do we make peace with that gap of where we are and what we wish could be? I’ll tell you one question that changed it all for me. And this was a few years ago, we were sitting around the table. And we had like these question cards. They’re called table topics. We were doing those at the time. And this question was, what would you miss about your home if you moved, and my kids started answering what they would miss. And I could see if suddenly through their eyes, the things they love about our space, and our home and our neighborhood. And I couldn’t see like it was like this big spotlight was on my resentment that I had for my home. And like Connor kind of gave me the side eye when it was my turn to answer this question because he’s like, does she even have anything to say? But seeing it through my kids eyes was like Actually, this is a great place. And I started to really ask myself that question going through my days, my weeks my month so what would I miss about this home? Like I love our location, it’s close to town. We have a really great neighborhood. My kids are friends here that just keep us busy and I love having them over. I don’t want to lose this neighborhood. I love our yard. The kids playing it. My husband makes it beaut Before we had this cool like swing that we put up years ago, I love our deck. It’s old, we’re constantly replacing boards on it. But it’s been such a gathering place over the years. I love my small closet. And I used to want a huge closet, maybe one day, I could have one. But this small closet keeps me accountable to what we bring in. Here’s one thing I’ve never thought I would have appreciation for is my kitchen. It’s really dated, I mean, we’ve painted at an all white, so it looks like fresh. But it’s all there’s pink laminate countertops that have probably been there since like the 70s. When it was built, it’s got this tile backsplash that looks like bathroom tile, it’s like white and pink. And it’s missing some edging on the sides of the counters like but the thing is, I’m not precious about it. But I’ve got three kids, and they’re bringing glue guns up to the counter and, and then we’re scraping the glue off the counter and you know, things fit enough? And if they don’t, then they need to store them or let them go. So I am making so much more peace with my home. That question has changed for me. What would you miss about your home if you had to leave? Like really sit with not just the flow of it and what it looks like, but what your home is doing for you right now. We want our home to be a certain way we want to change our home because we think that will feel different when we do I have this dream of having a cabin one day and I asked myself why do I want a cabin? Like why would that be something I spend our family money on? Why is that a dream for me. And I think all the things that I would love about it, we would be outside a lot more, we would just be together as a family, we would slow down we’d play games. Like there’s not much to do in a cabin. So you like hang out and play games together. But sometimes I’ll be in my kitchen, and I’ll look over at my kids in the living space, or kind of they’re in the kitchen as well. It’s all open. And I see now that’s already happening. Like I didn’t, I don’t need to buy a cabin to get that to happen. It’s I just didn’t see it that it’s already possible here. So when we’re thinking like when I have a bigger bedroom, it’s going to be my Oasis to go into when I have the living room that has new furniture, then it’s going to be so much easier to gather. When this bathroom is updated. Like I’ll just love going in there. It’ll feel like a spa. And I think we should love our home for sure it should be a source of comfort and enjoyment. But I think we get stuck in this either or mentality. Either it looks like this and meets all these criteria and I feel good, or it stays the same and I’m unsatisfied. But there’s always more than option A or B, right? How about I bring in some lamps to my room, my bedroom and I’ll clean it up really nice and clear off that dresser that’s always cluttered. And I’ll make the bed. This is what I’ve done. I hang out in my bed. Most afternoons when dinner simmering on the stove, and the kids have the TV on, I’ll go sit in my bedroom. And it’s not like this dreamy, private oasis. But I actually enjoy being in there like I like it now it’s tidy, it’s clean. It’s simple. Or how about I go into the living room and I rearrange some furniture, I take out the things that aren’t working, try a few new things from around the house, bring in a lamp, I think every room should have a lamp there. So who got and I just love having lamps on if you want to hear an episode about who the
which is that Dean is a word that embodies a sense of connection and contentment, and coziness. I mean, a lot of us really crave that in our home. So that’s Episode 75 if you want to go and listen to that, but what I want you to take away here is to stop waiting to stop looking at your home as either it’s this or or I’m not happy and start trying new things. And they don’t have to be expensive, or what everyone else is doing. Because your home your home should be a place that reflects you and feels like a space that you enjoy being and nobody else is going to do that work for you. Remember when you were a kid and you decided like, Oh, I found this note underneath some bushes, and you drag in random things from the yard like you have a plastic plate and an old pop bottle and like a pillow and you’re like, I live here now. This is my home. I live here and everything has a little place and a little purpose. I mean, please, I can’t be the only one doing that as a kid. But we need to keep doing that in our actual homes. We need to keep looking for ways to clear the space a big part of your satisfaction and satisfaction dissatisfaction can come from you treating your home like a storage unit. So make decluttering a regular routine in your week. And keep what you love, start to phase out things you don’t love. I mean if it has a use then keep it but if you can get rid of that old dresser you don’t like by decluttering some things and letting that go. If you can get rid of the bookshelf from college that you don’t really want anymore by decluttering some things or moving them around and start to do that. This is the long game right? And the most important thing stop comparing your house to what everyone else looks like because you are Not everyone else. And it’s just like with personal style, knowing what you are drawn to what you what feels timeless to you will always be more satisfying to bring into your home and more useful, then what’s the newest trend that’s gonna last for two years. And I see this knowing it’s a struggle to stop comparing your home. Because we love ideas. I love to get ideas, I love to see what’s possible, what other people are doing. But I have to limit that for myself. Because I know when I let too much of that into my heart, it gets overwhelmed by all the things I want and don’t have. And they need to question my wants. And I need to look at what I already do have and make the most out of it. So when you look at other accounts online, and Pinterest and Instagram, a powerful question to ask yourself can be, is this something I would love, love love in my home? And how can I take this concept that they’re showing me and try it in my own space. And I don’t say all this, that we need to be throwing money at our problems. Because the ultimate goal of our home is to use it, what your home looks like will matter less than how you use it. If you have people over your people don’t care about your patio furniture, they just want to hang out with your friend. Can you set up board games or crafting or whatever activity you want to be doing in your space, and be doing those things with your kids or your spouse, whatever? Can you stop and enjoy your home? Can you turn on a lamp and sit on that one chair that looks out the window or, or it’s just a cozy spot with a blanket to sit and read. And doing this doing this all the while holding space for what you longed for holding space that one day, I would love my home to be like this. I love my home now because of how we use it because of what it does for us. And yeah, if there was like a small electrical fire that took out our kitchen, and we had to replace it, I wouldn’t be mad. In fact, I have some long term plans to replace our kitchen. But here’s what I want you to know. You can love your home and wish it were different. It’s not an either or situation, you can hold space for both of them. And you can start to look around and do the work of creating the spaces in your home that you enjoy looking at that you love to use. And a big part of that really is getting rid of what’s not working, making space for what you already own. Because you probably only things that you do like you’re just being distracted by all of the clutter. So making space for those things to start shining through. I hope this has been helpful for you like it has for me over the years of approaching my home. If you have questions about that, if you are learning something new about your home, if you want to bring in questions about simplifying your space, bring them into the Facebook group that says place I have set up for you guys to be a community where you can bring all these questions. And most Tuesdays Tuesday ish. We do simple Tip Tuesday, where I share something that has been working for me to simplify and be more purposeful in my life. And I offer that to you guys each week as kind of a mini challenge that you can try out for yourself.
Let’s wrap up with a simple pleasure. And we’ve been talking a little bit about Hygge In this episode, that coziness and connectedness. And here’s one of my simple Hygge pleasures is blankets or towels fresh out of the dryer. Fresh out of the dryer. They’re so good. And you know what I do? I’m like kids come downstairs quick. And they run downstairs because they know and I wrap them up in a big blanket and they just like fall to the floor, cozy and warm and lay in there until that heat dissipates. Sometimes I get in there with them because that is something that their mom does that they are going to remember, be the mom that you are and men go wrap yourself in that hot blanket out of the dryer. It’s so cozy. Alright guys, thank you so much for joining me again today. As always, I love to hear from you in the Facebook group find me there. And if you haven’t done so yet, I would love you to leave a review of the podcast, especially if you’re in Canada. I don’t have very many Canadian reviews. You can’t see them. If you’re in America, you’re on the American platform. Either way, no matter what platform you listen on. I just love to hear your views. See your names on there and see your words. Have a great week.