One of the things I had intended to do this year was make our home more… well… homely. When we first moved here we were all of a dither with big stuff that had been going on. The move was a rush job anyway, one that certainly took the then 18 month old Josie by surprise. She and I were here when the first of our furniture arrived; we’d been in the house an umber of times as it’s a new build and so you can roam about before purchasing. She liked it empty. The a big burly man appeared carrying HER sofa and added it to all the beige carpet and magnolia and she went MENTAL. Josie is certainly one of the people in the Puddle family who rather resents change and bringing furniture into the previously neutral and uncluttered place with lots of stairs was not on her make-me-happy list.
There is a picture somewhere of her screaming hysterically into my lap. Yes, I’m that sort of mother. I take photographic evidence before I comfort. There is a similar one of toddler Fran upside down in a toy box. She was howling admittedly, but it was still worth the photo-opportunity 😆 I should probably have done some work on reducing the stress levels this move would give Josie; I didn’t learn though as a few years later we went to a holiday park for a break and half way through the week she rather pathetically told us she liked our new house but wished we had brought a few of our things to it. We’d forgotten to mention it was only a holiday and she thought we had moved!
The house suffered next from the fact that not only was I in post trauma apathy, something I have since discovered I do with considerable aplomb, but I was a bit busy. Our shops got busier, the child were a lot of work and we had really very little money. The beige carpets (not our choice, got lumbered with them) and the creepily bland walls gained nothing more than the marks of considerable wear. Compared to many of the houses in our street, this one has probably lived 26 years for the 6 it has been built for. Maybe there is such a thing as the human:dog years thing for wear on a house with 4 home educated children in it. I damn well hope so to be honest, otherwise I just have to own up to being a rubbish housewife!
Things improved when we had a brief spell with some actual money; a lick of paint went up and Max and I managed to go furniture shopping somewhere that wasn’t Swedish. After looking about for an interesting coffee table for a while, we ended up being seduced by a rather lovely dark wood one due to it being half price in a clearance sale, which in turn led to some more lounge furniture and some very grown up looking sofas. In fact, our living room is probably still considerably more grown up that we are, but hopefully we’ll get to age into it! 😆 But I’m permanently disappointed with myself. I’m messy – and so are my children to the power of 10 – and I’ve lost the knack of making a house feel like a home. I keep meaning to somehow add homely touches, decorate corners with nice things and hang curtains I made from fabric I chose, like I did in the olden days. Somehow I still feel like I camp in this house and we might be here for a while, so I really would rather not feel like that.
So if you have hints and tips for making a house feel more like a home without spending too much, please feel free to suggest them. Somehow I need to get cosy and inviting back into the atmosphere here; if nothing else it might encourage me and the reprobates children, to take a bit more care of the place.
I’m decorating today! (and moaning about it on my blog.) I think larger than average families do add age to a home rather quickly. Nothing lasts long in our house, things get worn out. I suppose the gymnastics that regularly happens indoors doesn’t help though.
Woody and I were discussing earlier how we feel so differently about our home since Florence was born. Firstly, there was the apathy, who cares what a house looks like when they are in the depths of depair? Then a few months ago we started to notice how we had let things go, and everywhere was starting to look really shabby. Out of a sense of duty more than anything else, we’ve begun the slow (nothing is quick with a lot of children around) process of catching up with the chores, but it feels different. We have a lovely new kitchen, but although we appreciate it, we just don’t get the same joy out of these things that we once did. Neither of us can really pinpoint exactly why, but we both think it stems back to grief, and all that we’ve lost, if that makes any sense?
eeek, sorry for the ramble!
God yes, the gym! I’m definitely much less ‘thing’ orientated than I was before Freddie. I love my gadgets but I have a very strong “it’s just stuff, no one died” element to possessions now. And now you’ve said this, I wonder if some of the urge is actually a subconscious effort to overcome the sense of “nothing really matters” and re-feather the nest in some new way?
Will be watching the comments with interest! To us swedish furniture’s a nice step up from… errrm….. Argosian (!) furniture so I do dream of making this place a little nicer 🙂
LOL!
I used to be more than a bit obsessed with decorating and renovating. (Luckily the husband was willing to work with me, although I many times wished that he didn’t have so many opinions of his own and would just let me do what I wanted as long as it didn’t cost too much.) Since becoming parents our home improvement efforts have dwindled down to adding more storage units. (all Swedish of course) The last curtains I sewed were covered in butterflies and ladybugs so they don’t qualify as grown up either.
My current favorite cheap decorating idea is using fabric I like as art by putting it inside big frames with white mat.(thoughtfully provided by the Swedes of course). Although you might already be flooded with art work waiting to be framed by you very talented girls.
What a nice idea. I think my girls would love some pics like that actually. One of my problems with art on walls is it has to ‘mean’ something to me or I just can’t be bothered somehow. I’ve got some framed fimo pics up but I’m a pissy perfectionist and somehow none of the girls have done something I deem GOOD ENOUGH. These are not good mummy thoughts 😀
homey to me means lots of home made touches and probably a good degree of messiness which is not what you are asking is it!!! We have crocheted/knitted blankets strewn round the place, they are untidy, they are usually a bit grubby but they are comforting and that’s quite important round here. Stuff on the walls helps too – buy some cheap frames and put up some of the girls’ artwork? Do a big photo collage in the biggest frame you can find? Fimo flowers? erm, could you buy cheap plain cotton and print onto it with fabric paints to make not quite real curtains but decorative boarders to your windows? oh, and rugs – pain in the neck because they always end up ruckled up but break up beige carpets nicely and can always be taken outside to beat/scrub etc when disasters happen
Hm. You know I think half my problem is we’ve fallen into this slightly weird hole of having quite a formal house with some quite nice furniture, overlaid with a lot of general living crud. Half of me wants a house like my friend Kate, where the kid life goes away at night and her house is classy but family, and half of me wants a house filled with everything the girls ever did. I think it is new house itis; when we arrived it was all very clinical and minimal and anything that isn’t neat and smart seems to feel like it messes it up :/
A fireplace makes a home. So do handmade blankets. Why not go on Pinterest and do an inspiration board of things you’d like your homely home to be and then see how many could be replicated with minimal consumerism.
For my furniture, apart from the NEW sofa I bought as a result of my Dad dying and bequeathing and all that, I have bought most of it from charity shops. If you are prepared to wait and pounce you can nab some very decent pieces at decent prices, and by my reckoning if something has stood the test of time for fifty years it might just make it to the end of Genghis Khan’s reign in my house. PLus I love things that remind me of my granny – that is home to me. The smell of my nana baking whilst I sat in front of the fire with a blanket reading.
Now yes, our lounge, which is the room that predominantly upsets me, doesn’t have one and actually the centre wall that we look at from the sofa, has a door. It’s an odd room and I agree, it doesn’t make it feel like it has a focus. We’ve tried several configurations of room and never found one that really works. Kate built a fireplace, which was fab, but our room won’t fit one. Somehow what it needs is more ‘cosiness’ and depth. The furniture elements are fine but it needs pulling together somehow. I suspect the curtains and weird windows don’t help.
You can get those ‘hanging’ fires now. Not real but they do add an element of cosy when the lights are dimmed… tried switching your lounge into you diner? Hm… perhaps taking everyone’s dinner upstairs wouldn’t work. …
I just googled those. 😯 Price. idea… i hardly know where to start! Like some slightly barmy Hogwarts fire.
(You don’t have one, do you?)
No. But I do really hanker after a stove. If we werent renting i;d open up the chimney again and put a Jotul in… you know, after I was given loads of money…
Really? not homey? the pictures look like a home should be, maybe you have mistaken yourself for someone whose kids are all older and have less crap around??? Fraser has hardly anything in his room, some knex and books, computer and ds stuff also 4/5 small crates of kids stuff saved for ‘whenever’ (grandchildren? gulp) Missy has some clothes music ipod ds and maybe 2 crates of stuff saved, hair stuff and a few gifts from friends, Kristian still has lego and train sets and cars that take up room but they are all in a big cupboard or set out under his bed. He also has 4/5 small crates of saved stuff hidden away.I think the big difference was putting the house on the market, that really made us tidy up which makes the house look nice and is easier to keep up but not much fun when you have to order a book from the library because it is in a box, because we sold all the furniture already!
hope to see you soon! (I LOVE saying that)
xx
I know what you mean, but although it feels like a space people live in, it genuinely doesn’t feel like a place people have settled comfortably into and love. It feels like a rented house. I need to personalize it with more than heaps of crud!
And – yes – sooooooooon!
Don’t know the answer but would love too. Am hopefully to move house in the next couple of weeks (yay finally out of a rented shoebox which was the six month stop gap…..three years and one less child ago). Am taking over from a couple with no children who basically live in a show home. We will undoubtably do more damage in 8 days than they have in the 8 years they have been there. I am not the tidiest and the children less so. Unfortunately husband is a bit of a tidy freak which leads to the inevitable daily run ins.
Sadly as I am generally crap at craft stuff (always looks great in my minds eye but hands don’t seem to be able to make it how I see it) and appreciate highly designed clutter but am completely unable to reproduce it, I tend to head to John Lewis for most stuff and shut my eyes and ears at the till. Am also relishing being able to properly shop at Burley horse trials this year as have only been able to look longingly the past few years as no point buying anything unless you have a place other than an overflowing storage unit to put it.
Would consider trying to make curtains for children but after husband has stopped laughing hysterically at the idea I guess will be back to buying / paying someone else as my ability to sew in a straight line is minimal.
Big families always seem to create mess. Not sure how you get round that. Add in the spread of ages of the children and you have stuff ranging through several age groups.
Looking out for the answer when you get it.
Oh that will be so nice 🙂 I think I lost my home making knack in 5 years of renting somehow. And beige carpets and pass remarkable curtains put up by developers encourage apathy! Hope the move goes okay – we really MUST meet up!
There are lots of lovely blogs (e.g. soulemama, indietutes, sew liberated), and other such places where I have seen some lovely ideas for home making and celebrating/incorporating children’s work/art into the home. How about a corner/wall for the girls art? I think soulemama (and others) have used a sort of wire hanger (from ikea?) to which you can clip your current favourites. And, you can change it as often as you like!
I think the thing with this (and all things, really) is to do a little at a time. Start in one corner…
I’d like a hippy show home and 12 children but I don’t think either will happen.
“Half of me wants a house like my friend Kate, where the kid life goes away at night and her house is classy but family, and half of me wants a house filled with everything the girls ever did. ”
this kind of summarises it for me, but I’d settle for not finding odd socks and banana skins on the living room floor. bad parenting in my case. sigh.
Cushions do it for me! But we moved here 16 years ago ‘for a few months’. We were renting till we found the right house. Then Hannah got ill, the owners wanted us to move so they could sell, we bought it simply as we couldn’t manage to move in the midst of the crisis. 16 years later….still feels temporary.