Our house, right now

April 17, 2017

I had to laugh as I walked through our house yesterday afternoon...it seems that literally no matter what room I'm working on, the rest of the house goes to crap. 

I am simply unable to keep up with room makeover and keep the house somewhat picked up. Lately this is because of the upstairs bathroom redo. 

I've known this for years now. I thought it would be different when the room I'm working on is one of the smallest in our house and I can even close the door and totally ignore it all, but no. It hasn't made a difference at all. It's a phenomenon I can't explain. :) 

Because I know it can get discouraging at times to see all the totally put together spaces on blogs and social media, I decided to show you our house as it is right now. I only cleaned up trash, because gross. Otherwise this is how these spaces look right this second. I spared you the worst messes (the basement is a total disaster right now) but this gives you a taste of our house at the moment. 

I have to laugh when I see perfectly lovely nightstands because that's just not the norm in our master bedroom. I at least clear them off when I take photos: 
DIY tufted headboard

But this is the norm. Stacks of books and magazines and random stuff. Usually there's a few water bottles on there but I did clear those off: 
dark paneled accent wall

We bought that back massager (on the floor) at our local home show and it is AMAZING. It is perfect for my lower back. I'll have to find it online and share with you sometime. 

And of course...the bed isn't made. ;) But my excuse today is that I'm washing the sheets. (I have no excuse for all the other days.)

I've made it a goal for our home that every room is used. Our living room isn't a "fancy" room -- it actually has the comfiest couch in the house: 
neutral sofa in living room

Easter hit this weekend and it has stayed. And those eucalyptus leaves are at least three weeks old and quite crunchy: 
round glass and metal coffee table

Our stairs pretty much always have stuff on them so they rarely look like this:
Stained wood stairs

I bought this storage basket for the stairs last year and it really does help. Until you ignore it for the last 50 or so trips up the stairs: 
Black accent wall

You can see the pile on the basement stairs too. This is a constant, but usually it's at least contained to the basket. 😆 And you can fit a TON of stuff in there too, so this part is going to take longer to clean up.

Our office/craft room actually stays pretty organized most days: 
DIY tall desk with storage

That is till a renovation happens in a nearby room and taxes hit at the same time: 
DIY desk area real life

See those little pink paper flowers on the corner of the chalkboard? And how most of them are gone now? One of our cats picks a couple off a week, bats them around, I put them back up, she does it again and then they disappear. I'm sure I'll find 20 of them under a bed one day. 

The window seat in this room has become the drop zone for everything that was in our son's bathroom. This is how it usually looks: 
Window seat with storage inside

But this is it now. For only having one cabinet in that bathroom, we sure did have a lot of stuff in there: 
Real life messes

The giant Pikachu? He's just a bonus. My son moves him from room to room. :) 

And finally, we have the only space in our house I'd consider a hallway -- and it's tiny. Because you can't see what's on the floor when you come up the stairs it's become another dropping point for the bathroom stuff. Here is the book nook hallway on a good day: 
Book nook from closet

And here is is right now. You can see another pile of bathroom stuff in the guest room too: 
How to make a book nook

Seriously, where did all of it go in that room before? It's funny to see how much we actually had in such a small space. 

I know some of you will look at these and say these messes are nothing. But I didn't show you the basement. ;) And no, I don't think they're anything awful, but they are real life. 

I don't freak out about messes. The house has been like this for a few weeks now because we've been off living life and having fun. I do get to a point when I get annoyed with it though...and that point is now. 

I need to find a spot for the bathroom stuff (that little hallway will be where I put everything till the room is done), but otherwise the rest are fast clean ups. Although the stairs are intimidating me. I can tackle most of these messes quickly today. But we've let our garage get piled up lately so I've been working on that first. 

I love our home and think even with the messes it's pretty. A lot of them make them feel more like home to me -- I always want people to feel at home, relaxed and never be afraid to have fun in our home. Lately we've been doing a lot of that. :) I think it's important as a decor blogger to take a minute sometimes to share how things look away from the perfect shots.



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Comments

  1. I know the feeling! I'm not really. Renovating my house, but as I spring clean and completely fix up one room all the rest of the house seems to turn into a war zone. I don't get it either, but it is life. I love seeing the real life of people's houses. I love seeing gorgeous pictures of homes, too, but the real life makes me feel better about having random crap currently on my dining room table that doesn't seem to have a home anywhere else. Lol

    Http://aneducationindomestication.com

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  2. Glad you enjoyed a great Easter taking a break from DIY! I agree with you - you know you've got the perfect home decor when you feel comfortable even when your home is messy. Thank you for sharing your house in its genuine, day-to-day form!

    Charmaine Ng | Architecture & Lifestyle Blog
    http://charmainenyw.com

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  3. It's so nice to see that I'm 'normal'! Thanks being a real person. :) I know the only way my home will ever look 'blog perfect' on a daily basis is when my kids all move out, and I'm not really looking forward to that day...BTW, you've really done a lovely job on all of your projects and I really enjoy your blog!

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  4. Thank you for the "real" post! Too funny about your stair basket--I recently got one for each family member in hopes of helping with stair clutter and now we seem to wait until the basket overflows before taking it up as opposed to before when I cleared the stairs off every night haha!

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  5. Your home is still beautiful, irregardless of the everyday life messes. Your house is very reminiscent of mine. I have messes like that. I don't have the excuse of a reno job in the bathroom either. Mine is just from life... homeschooling the boy, so he has all of his creative messes. I am purging through things/rooms, so add that until I get all of that stuff out of here.

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  6. LOL. THANK YOU!!! Our home stays quite clean actually but my daughter's bedrooms (ages 14 and 17) look like a tornado hit as well as their bathrooms! My sewing room is understandably an organized mess but my little kitchen counter--oh, that thing is always junked up. And we are moving so I have it filled with tons of papers for sale/moving/movers/fixes. I can never seem to keep that thing clean!

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  7. I love seeing these. A well-loved, lived-in home, with projects going on. I am the same way. It's hard to keep up everything else when in the midst of a project that takes the majority of your time. And with a family. Something HAS to give. I just tell myself it won't last forever.

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  8. Thanks so much for sharing! All these bloggers with perfect houses and pictures of their perfectly dressed children nicely playing in a perfect room drive me crazy sometimes. I love seeing what it really looks like. You should have left the trash ; )

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  9. So nice of you to show the real house tour! I can never manage a pretty styled nightstand either - lots of books, water cups, and sometimes a make-up remover wipe! :)

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  10. Love, love, love the pics! Great for us women to give ourselves grace and build each other up. Beautiful home too!

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  11. Thank you for keeping it real! It's so easy to admire beautifully styled pics on a blog, then get depressed looking around our own home. Home is where you live:) Sure, the dirty socks that my guys leave on the stairs can be annoying at times, but truth be told, I probably wouldn't know with a showcase house.

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  12. THANK YOU!!! I needed this today! With a toddler and baby at home, I feel like all I do is clean but can NEVER keep it all together at the same time. Love the blog!

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  13. A sweet post. Thanks for a dose of reality. Social media is so full of gorgeous perfectly styled pictures, you know the ones of the entryways where a pair of shoes are sitting perfectly by the bench and a blanket is tossed with fringe laying neatly. It's so easy to think why doesn't my home look like this? Maybe it does for 3 minutes then life/reality happens and we live in our homes. I appreciate you showing the wilderness of a real home. It still looks amazing and I think even better. I wonder what Joanna Gaines home looks like on a real day? Your keeping it real posts are always my favorites. 😄

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  14. Super clean or a little messy just love your home!

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  15. I had to laugh. I KNOW the feeling. Our basement has been in RENO mode for a very long time. It's a full basement. Down there is the family room, workout area, my eBay area, laundry, storage, and my craft area (which is a gigantic space, about half the basement!). We are in the process of painting the unfinished ceiling with mildew resistant paint. (Walls were done with Drylok in 2014), and then floors have to be sealed with Drylok Clear. We had airborne mold down there and it made me very sick, so we got it professionally cleaned and are now sealing everything. (We added a 2nd dehumidifier and that helps GREATLY.) We got the family room area done, and have been working on the workout area....since last fall!!! NObody wants to paint anymore. It's total ag. (I have car accident injuries in my neck, back, shoulder, and arm, so it HURTS me after I paint.) So...EVERYTHING is in a heap on MY CRAFT TABLES and surrounding area!!! I call it "Mount Basement". So, since I have no room to DO anything, and can't get to anything...I am in the living room (and dining room). Looks like the hoarders had a convention and left half their stuff. ha! It's really bad. Piles of eBay "to list" stuff everywhere, along with my yarn and magazines (that I haven't had the chance to read). If someone is coming over I have to run around like a nut and take everything downstairs to Mt. Basement or into the garage. In my defense, I have Epstein Barr and am in the middle of a very trying "episode" of it right now, so I have no energy. But it stresses me out that the house is a mess. That doesn't help getting better. LOL I am a perfectionist. If I can't do it right I don't do it at all. So....one day at a time, as my husband says. He is wonderful...so patient with my crafty madness. If I had no crafty talent, the house would be spotless. LOL

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  16. THANK YOU. I feel so much better about my house's current situation (there are two 100-piece puzzles within five feet of me and I can see more).

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  17. Thanks for keeping it real!! I so appreciate your willingness to be honest and share!!

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  18. We have this phenomenon in my house too. I thought I was the only one. :) You made me feel normal today, thank you!

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  19. Your house is beautiful .. The pre and the post.. smile.
    love that you showed...it is not ALWAYS perfectly clean.. I think if all
    us bloggers are honest.............. We all have those piles of messy sometimes..
    Hugs.. Cant wait to see your new bathroom.

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  20. Real life! If you have kids, you know that nothing is ever going to be absolutely perfect as in a magazine.

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  21. Thank you! You have made me feel so much better about my house! I pick it up almost every night before bed, but within two hours the next morning, it has turned into a mss! And it's just us two retirees! (But really, it's mostly my hubs who creates the most clutter! Lol)

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  22. I agree!! I actually prefer to see peoples homes in 'real' life mode so I know that I'm not the only blogger out there who is not perfect! It's funny, when I'm taking photos of my bedroom, you see all the 'stuff' on my nightstands - the water bottles, the spotlight that stays plugged in for when the bear comes around, my iPad, the house phone, eyeglasses, chapstick, you name it, you see it!

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  23. Thanks for being real!! Your home is lovely!

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  24. love this post! love the realness and love your blog!

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  25. I absolutely love those blue print pillows on the couch in your living room. Please share where you purchased them.

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  26. I love that you did this! When I'm taking photos (for the blog or just for personal use), I NEVER don't have to move some crap out of the way. And as I'm getting into my 40's, I'm beginning to think, eh, maybe I'll leave said crap. Maybe. ;) P.S. I hope you are going to an NKOTB concert this year! I skipped a few years but am going with my crew to celebrate turning 40, tween style! ;)

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  27. I really appreciate this post! As a home-decorating blogger myself, I get overwhelmed with trying to make everything look perfect all the time when in reality, that just won't happen all the time. I go to school and I work, so chores aren't exactly on the top of my to do list most days. But with a blog, you kind of have to make that a priority. But it's so nice to read something like this to remind me that life doesn't always end up neat and organized, and that's okay! Thanks Sara 😀

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  28. I always love these "real life" posts its shows we are all human and all don't have "perfect" shots/homes all the time.

    Lauren | Lovely Decor

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THANKS so much for reading!