Home Style Guide - Brought to you by Linden Street and JCPenney

When my husband and I were newly married, we furnished our tiny apartment with hand-me-down corduroy couches, $19 folding chairs we bought at an import store, and old pots and pans borrowed from our parents’ kitchens. Fifteen years later, I’m looking at a house full of furniture and belongings we gathered as we rolled along, had kids, and made a little more money. And, while our home certainly looks nicer and feels more comfortable than our humble newlywed apartment did, it also comes with a weight I don’t always feel like carrying.

We’re not super-acquirers, but we’ve got your average complement of “grownup house” trappings. Martini glasses we have no idea what to do with, tablecloths that sit, folded and unused, in a hallway drawer, a wine vacuum pump (?). All stuff we figured we’d need, or we’d gotten as gifts, or we’d collected during our travels. Problem is, sorting, cleaning, maintaining, and putting away this “stuff” takes up quite a bit of time, especially with two kids conspiring to undo my feeble attempts at order.

Stuff has a way of taking on a life of its own: demanding one’s attention and care but giving little in return. And so, a subtle turnaround has taken place in our home. We now get as excited about getting rid of stuff as we used to about getting it in the first place. Every trip to the resale shop or Goodwill yields a thrill. Every item sold on Craigslist feels like a triumph. Everything passed on to a friend (or stranger) in need regains a bit of its luster. And with each bag or box that leaves our house, life feels a bit more open. With the extra room in the closet comes room to breathe.

The homemaking guru Flylady calls decluttering “blessing the world” with your stuff. I used to scoff at her euphemism, but I’ve come to believe that she’s onto something. Not only am I setting my stuff free so it can help or delight someone else, I’m setting myself free as well.

by Asha Dornfest, Parent Hacks

A week after returning from my sister’s home in Austin (see above), my house is much farther along on the road to being clutter-free—well, unless you go upstairs to my kids’ rooms, and I haven’t even begun thinking about that trip through Purgatory. But the downstairs? The kitchen and living room area? It’s so clutter-free, it’s almost scary. I still can’t decide if it looks like mom and dad came and stripped my dormroom of all their furniture…or if it looks the way it should look. All I know is, it’s sparse. And I’ve never been happier in my life. Suddenly, a huge weight has been lifted.

We’re in the middle of a huge remodel project on the ranch—not in our own home but in The Lodge, an old guest house up the road from our place. We’re more than halfway through the remodel, and are about to finalize the kitchen plan. Soon we’ll begin thinking about wall colors, furniture, and accessories. Here’s what it looked like before we started the remodel:

My recent Clutter Revelation has got me thinking. While I want The Lodge to be comfortable, homey, warm, and inviting to guests (or Marlboro Man and me, when we escape the mile and a half there to go on an occasional “date”…but that’s another story for another time), I can’t help but shake the notion that I want things to be simple, clean, understated, sparse. It is, in fact, a “lodge”, though, so stark stainless steel and sleek, contemporary furniture and cabinetry would be completely out of place. But the way my mindset is right now, so would big, ornate leather sofas, Navajo throw pillows, and paintings everywhere you look. I don’t want the place to look highly contrived and decorated. I want people to walk in, kick off their shoes, and feel at peace.

Basically, I don’t know what I’m talking about. I want the Zen-type feel of sparseness and clean lines. But I want the warmth of a luxurious Colorado ski chalet. What approach am I after?

This is what’s been occupying my thoughts all week.

As I recently chronicled on my website, I just returned from Austin, where I spent a week visiting my sister, Betsy, her husband, Matt, and their new baby boy. I’d never seen their new house—the house they moved into over a year ago—and after spending an entire week there, I returned to my home having decided something important: We humans have too much stuff.

Betsy and Matt’s house is in a dicey area of Austin, so they were able to get a pretty cool house for less money than if they’d bought in a better area of town. You’d think this would mean they would have used the money they saved to fill their new house to the brim with tons of furniture, pillows, accessories, and velvet wall hangings of The King. But they didn’t. They just kept it simple, using the cleanlined furniture they already owned, and resisting the urge to accessorize-accessorize-accessorize.

As a result, the only clutter in the entire house was the stash of Central Market groceries I brought to their house every day: I had to put all the bread products on top of the fridge because I’d filled the fridge itself with sushi, grilled tilapia, gourmet soups, and Eggplant Parmigiano. I even cluttered up the island—which formerly housed only a plain glass bowl of fruit—with lotions, bath gels, and baby products. Before I showed up, however, except for the oft-used collection of Betsy’s cookbooks, the kitchen was as clutter-free as the rest of the house.

In a nutshell, everything in Matt and Betsy’s house is in its proper place, and sparseness reigns supreme. There aren’t stacks of magazines or baskets of stray junk to distract your eye; you only see clean.
The result? At the end of the week, even though I’d spent the majority of the time taking care of a newborn baby and helping my sister around the house, I felt relaxed, mellow, at peace. And I couldn’t help but think that spending all that time in a clutter-free environment played some role in that. And I resolved to go home and rid my house of every single item that wasn’t monumentally necessary to human life.

Wish me luck—I may not come out of it alive.

-Pioneer Woman

Ah, the home office. It’s a bit of euphemism around here because I tend to throw paperwork and “to-do” items into my cluttered office, close the door, and then haul my laptop to the kitchen table.

While my office may not be a squaky-clean picture of IKEA efficiency, I’ve learned a thing or two about integrating working at home into my family life. Home-office organizing tips abound, most of which are simple suggestions to get organized and reduce clutter. But I have found that the most important adjustments are psychological.

If you work at home, the first step is to decide that you deserve time and space to yourself. This can be tricky, especially for mothers, because we’re used to being on call for the kids. But working at home requires everyone to appreciate that, sometimes, Mom or Dad is busy with work. No guilt required.

Next, establish limits with your kids (and possibly your spouse) around who can come in to your office and when. You have permission to declare your office a “no kid zone” (assuming you have a door). At the very least, they must knock first. Sound impossible? Our kids have grown up with at least one parent working at home most of their lives, and they respect the idea of “grownup” space (and did even as toddlers). (And my kids aren’t always the best about respecting limits.) When they do get to hang out in the office (whiteboard art is a favorite activity) it feels like a real treat.

If you allow the kids in your office — and, for many of us, this feels more natural — consider making a space just for them. A small desk with a dummy keyboard and mouse, art supplies, or just-in-the-office toys can help them feel at home while you get to work.

If you’re able to, establish a few set working hours so everyone can plan around your unavailable times. Then again, the beauty of home-based work is the very flexibility that makes such advice, well, inadvisable. You want to be able to cut out during the middle of the day to play! In that case, create QUIET ZONE signs and post them on the door when you’re at work. I’ve even heard of people wearing a special “quiet hat” when they need to be left alone! Kids often need a visual cue to remind them you’re working. If they do need your attention, lay out the rules about how to let you know (a knock at the door? An “excuse me”?), and for what occasions (bloody limbs: yes, “I can’t find my Game Boy!”: no).

When it comes to your home office space, whether it’s an entire room or a corner of the kitchen, try to keep it free of the inevitable kid- and household clutter than seems to spread over everything. It’s easier to maintain psychological boundaries between work and home when there is a little physical separation as well. Create some simple filing systems, and claim a drawer or box for your supplies.

Finally, a wise piece of advice from Twitter friend gwalter: “I find that preloading my family with quality time, taking care of myself, and getting up [earlier] (or staying up later) helps.”

Resources:

How to manage kids in the home office at Web Worker Daily

Brandie Kajino’s Home Office Organizer blog

Lots of great office organization tips at Unclutterer

Work-and-family-at-home inspiration at Sparkplugging

Excellent writing (and attitude) at Buttoned Up.

As always, thanks go out to my Twitter buddies for great feedback and ideas.