Molly at the Zoo

Envision a typical nester.

• A newlywed filling a new wedding-gift vase with flowers from her first garden.
• A pregnant lady folding and refolding tiny, freshly washed baby tee-shirts and stacks of cloth diapers.
• A business woman saving her precious funds for the future.
• Veteran housewives refining their home decor to create a sanctuary for their family.

What result does nesting show? Does a house magically turn into a home? Does a life automatically become a legacy? Something lies beyond the housewares and diapers. Curtains and bean counting can only go so far.

So here I am setting up my nest, searching for what will make my house a home and my life a legacy.

Love,

Jess

Home is where I host tea parties are for little hands and teddy bears.

Home is where I use our “good” linens and dishes just for play.

Home is where I serve chocolate spread and crackers for lunch.

Love,

Jess

Join Emily, at Chatting at the Sky, for her photo link party about Glimpses of Home.

photo credit

When life gets stressful, some people eat too much, spend too much or sleep too much. (or all three)

Me?

I scan the MLS too much.

Not because I am sad or malcontent, just because it is fun!

I could pour over house tours online with glee and imagination for hours. I look at tiny houses, out-of-state houses, big houses and local-maybe-someday houses. I do love a good realty listing. I am the worst looky-lu ever! I have been known to visit open houses for fun, even when I am not looking to buy. I am forever taking the color copy listing promos from the mailboxes on For Sale signs. {tsk, tsk}

As a kid, I read floor plan magazines, while other girlfriends drooled over Leo DiCaprio in Teen Beat. Hey, I drooled too, but I had my priorities. Plus, I don’t think I was aloud to read the “trashy” ones with articles like, 101 ways to kiss your boy toy.

I digress.

I had floor plan computer software, a subscription to House Beautiful and a weekly claim to the Sunday ‘Houses’ section of the classifieds…all before I was sixteen. In fact, during my 8th grade “shop class” business lesson, I created a company called Happy Homes. My company would color coordinate a house into pure happiness, uh…yeah. Reality happened, now what?

House Beautiful magazine circa 1990's-ish

While, I consider myself a product of a happy home, I have been searching for the secret ingredient to happiness in my own home.

What makes a house a home?

• Will a paint color really create joy?
• Can a crock-pot meal define my purpose?
• Is it pearls and aprons I am searching for? Is it high paying career with lots of benefits?
• A floor plan with a mudroom will certainly stitch together a ‘Happy Home’, right?
• How can my personality, faith, resources, dreams, children and glue gun all combine, to create my dream house/life/home/legacy?

Enter in Kimba from A Soft Place to Land. She has a knack for spray paint, family strengthening and keepin’ it real y’all.  Do-It-Yourself projects mixed with fun tips for making your home…what else? A Soft Place to Land! Are you with me? Say, Yes!

Okay, but even Kimba seems to acknowledge the struggle between cute picture frames and meaningful frames of mind. To start keepin’ really real, she has started a new series cleverly named, Building A Soft Place to Land. I am totally hooked!

Join Kimba and get hooked too, as she learns, along with us, how to build the foundation for joyful homes, spray paint and all.

See what other folks are getting hooked on over at Hooked on Houses on Friday.

But, what happens when home doesn’t feel warm? What if home feels like the fangs of  used books, junk piles and spoiled paint cans are ‘closing in’ for a bite?  Or what if it curiously smells like old coffee and sharpie marker ink in the laundry room, on a good day?

It can stay that way.

OR

I can do something.

What a unique place, our homes, where we can define, design, and dally in a space without reason or with a million reasons.  To me “doing something” simply means, taking a chance to make an impact while harnessing my behavior, teaching it to value what it is I am doing.

Here to Hoping…

Here is a photo taken in the middle of my “doing something” to the laundry room. I have been taking a chance, all day, amping up this room in time for The Masked Mommy’s first ever Laundry Room Pow-Wow that is on February 1st!

I am so excited to share at the Pow-Wow about my room, my hopes, and my first ever fabric mistreatments, with a bunch of other bloggers, that needed to “do something” with their own life direction (or maybe just a new decor ).

• Note: I’ll spare you the real before photo of our pre-attic closet disaster,  and go straight for the cute photos of how to make room for the play room. I know, it hurts my before-and-after loving gene, not to have documentation of my over burdened and buried craft table, and general dumping ground for stray belongings, but I will move on; mostly because I did this “transformation” on such a whim I forgot to take a photo. Most of you have already skipped to the rest of the blog post by now anyway.

1. Pile. Is it just my house or are your toys fertile and multiply? (kids’ room)

2. Sort. Plastic bins, plastic bins, plastic bins…oh sorry, I was busy rehearsing my organizing mantra. Isn’t my little helper so cute? Give, keep, sell…give, keep, sell…give, keep, sell…oops, there I go again!

3. Claim. This room is one 4 year old lying down by one 1 1/2 year old lying down. Nice square footage. I’ll take it; have my people talk to your people.

4. Gather. Move stuff around, aka fluff your nest, it is so much fun!

5. Conceal. Hi there attic! Wanna play hide-n-seek? Okay, you hide first. Good.

6. Learn. Making room for the play room includes making room for learning. The vintage ABC and 123 quilt was hung in my nursery when I was a wee one. Are the 70′s considered vintage yet? None-the-less, the vintage quilt, aka attic concealer, is a great tool for learning and general cheeriness.

7. Sit. {whimper, sigh!} Why did I let this a.dor.a.ble step bench be cluttered in old taxes and fall decor for waaaay too long? Well, no guilt, just pleasure now. I love the littleness of this space! Place a few books around to promote reading.

8. Add a family photo board in the playroom. It provides friendly faces to look at when Mommy  puts the baby-gate up outside her own room and instructs everyone it is now “Play Time” just so she can blog. er…I mean, because when kids look at the familiar faces, it encourages family connectivity, creativity and community.  Yeah, that’s it!

9. Relax and enjoy your hard work! Play!