Renovating with Children and Tips for Survival

You may have caught up on our current status by watching our casual home tour on instagram. Insert our crazy kiddos and instantly you are watching a much more chaotic walkthrough of our home than we anticipated - bring wine, bring a seltzer, bring your cocktail of choice. Trust me ;)

I have been asked before on how we do projects with two toddlers, and flat out, it is not as easy as if we had a quiet home and our own agenda, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I have learned some ways that help us, and I will share them below, but I think embracing the long-haul is the best place to start. Realizing that nothing happens quickly is big for your overall expectations of a project, no matter how small it is, because life, maybe also children, will get in the way at some point. There will be a lot of mess, noise and impromptu schedule changes, but keep moving and you will get there!

At the end of the day, the boys' bedroom is our favorite interior transformation to date, and it took a lot of effort to finish during a work-from-home-with-your-kids saga, so we must still love them at least some.

So the pointers....

(1) Be flexible with your timeline. Sometimes having an end-goal tied to an event, like a party or holiday, when you want to show off your hard work can just add more stress and lead to doing overtime. Sure sometimes it is worth it, but unless it's a must, try and avoid the extra pressure you are ultimately putting on yourself only.

(2) Let the kids help (ugh, pain point). I know it's 1000x easier to do it yourself, but usually in our house it causes me to yell and no one wins there. I'd rather slow down and let them help a little and laugh at what silly things they do, than stress out about them messing something up. I lose the do it perfectly myself mentality and it avoids the agitation. Typically, they lose interest quickly anyways. Get them some plastic tools and it's actually a cute as heck photo opportunity.

(3) Work when its quiet at least some of the time. Ryan and I like to work on projects together, but sometimes we have to tag in and tag out. For example, many times I do the painting while they all play outside and it's a little more peaceful. Another way this can be done is finding time while the kids sleep, like mornings or nights. We mainly opted for the first way when we did this room, since it was literally where they sleep.

(4) Embrace the mess that will collect around you. This one might be tough, but it's temporary. When we go full force into a project on a particular weekend for example, switching between tasks like cutting wood planks and cooking lunch leaves you little to no time to clean up toys (or marker on the wall and chairs- it's happened). If you absolutely find a need to tidy up, sure, but to me I would rather live in the disarray state for less time and overall clean it less often. Welcoming the short lived "mania look" is my preference than losing my mind over beds not made, a sink of dishes and every toy known to man in our living room and kitchen. We can clean it once at the end of each day, or at the end of the project.

For the most part, the takeaways are to live in the moment, lower expectations, and sometimes try to isolate for some noise reduction. it's totally worth it in the end, to fall more in love with your home. the brief discomfort gets you to finding more comfort and relaxation in those everyday spaces. it can get hectic quick, so take breaks when needed, since you can easily start feeling like this.....

take care!!

-Ryan and Maddie