You ARE worthy of a nice organized home!

11 years ago

I've been doing a ton of work to my house in the last 6 months since I got exDH's name off the deed. I thought it strange that least a dozen friends have asked, "When are you listing the house?" They then express amazement when I tell them I'm fixing it up for me, and my kids, not to sell.

I had a conversation about this with a very wise friend this weekend. She said, "Isn't it amazing that most people only fix up their house to sell it? I thin deep inside they don't feel worthy to fix it up for themselves."

Isn't that an amazing insight? We are ALL worthy of having nice, clean, beautiful, organized homes! I know when things were going down the drain with exDH the last thin I had energy for was cleaning and organizing. I realize now that height of us felt worthy of a nice home. Now that I'm getting life on track for myself and my kids, I want our home to be beautiful - and we are WORTHY of it!

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Comments (28)

cupofkindness
11 years ago
That is a very good insight. I remember when we moved to our current city the housing market was drepressed. I will never forget the home we looked at where the husband was renovating an under-stairs closet into a half bath powder room. This was in a middle class neighborhood, so nothing fancy but still nice. It struck me then that the wife probably had wanted that half bath for years and years, but it took a depressed housing market and a move to get it.... and then it would never be hers to enjoy.

So we are constantly, slowly renovating.... It would sadden me to no end to change something substantially in order to sell my house that I had always wanted, but would never really enjoy or benefit from.

Good for you, Mommabird, for realizing that you and your children deserve better right now.
cupofkindness
11 years ago
For some reason, the web page loaded slowly so I clicked again hoping to save my post. Sorry for the double post!

By while I'm here, I'll quote this from Flylady:

"Your attitidue has to change from 'Why do I have to do this?!' to 'This is my home and I deserve to have a wonderful place to live. This blesses my home and my family, and most of all, me!' Do you feel the difference that these two staments make in your heart?"
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Your foyer is absolutely beautiful! I'm assuming the rest of the interior is as much or more so. And I understand your wife feeling like this "The furniture and furnishings I can't touch!" So she'll need to decide if she'd rather have your home on the market longer or sell faster and "stage" it. For staging, I'd take all the furnishings out of the foyer except for the mirror and something on the mantel that would compliment your railing color and something that would compliment your wall color and that's it. And I'd put them together arranged in the middle of your mantel. You want the buyer to focus on the beauty of your house, not the beauty of your furnishings. You want them to be able to imagine their furnishings and pictures in your house. I'd do the same (stage) with the other rooms. Minimal furniture, minimal art. Nothing that is personal (such as family pictures, religious, etc.) It is a hard thing to do to stage your home for others. But it also helps with the separation of it not being your home soon. Think of someplace impersonal (like a model home). They have the furniture, pictures that compliment the color scheme, and a few well placed items that go with the overall effect of the room. That's it. That's so you can concentrate on the architecture of the house instead of how nice it was decorated. That's what you want. I'm sure you have the items in your home to bring about that effect. It might be worth talking to your wife about it or print out this thread and see what she thinks. Otherwise, like others have written, hopefully you will have a potential buyer come in that can visualize the house as their own regardless of what furnishings are in the rooms. Good luck!!
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Just this past weekend we installed the Rubbermaid Configurations organizers in our MBR closet and I can't get over how nice they are or how easy they were to install. Now for us, cost was a major factor. Our MBR closet is huge (by my standards) 11'x7' and I had wanted to outfit 2 1/2 walls (22') with organizers. Amazon was having a sale on the Configurations so that piqued my interest. The titanium finish is powder coated, not bare metal, and there was no cutting involved. It took maybe an hour to install it on the 11 foot wall and the majority of that time was spent finding studs & measuring. The system went up brainlessly & it's very easy to change things around. Configurations is a wire system but they do have some wooden components like drawers and shoe cubbies. The individual components seem to be expensive, though. But like I said, cost was a major factor with me. I like the look of the wire & the titanium finish is more of a smooth, brushed nickel. Below is a link to the Rubbermaid website. I got my 2 sets from Amazon last week when the 4-8 foot deluxe Tianum sets were 99$. If I can luck ito another sale I'll have done the whole closet for 300$ being able to borrow pieces from each set so that I can get exactly the look that I want. I'm sure that it's nowhere near as nice as the Elfa or the Easy Track but I love it. Nina Here is a link that might be useful: Rubbermaid closets
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Re.Magazine Worthy Homes& mmmbeer
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Thank you, Marti, for continuing the conversation. It seemed obvious that folks were trying to hijack the other thread because they disagreed with some of the opinions, and at the very end several were posting gibberish, in what looked to be and attempt to run the thread to 150 posts so that it would be frozen. besides being ever so childish, that is also a weirdly controlling thing to do. It's a shame. Posted by beverly27: "Don't you think that after 151 responses everything about this topic has been said and resaid? Why didn't you just let the topic die???" She explained why, she found the discussion "absolutely spot on." I doubt that there is any general topic in the world that is 'over' in 150 posts. What I find worrisome, though, is a vigilante attitude that questions why someone would wish to discuss a complicated topic further, and a topic with such a variety of opinions. If we are unimpressed with a topic, perhaps we should just ignore it (I do that all the time) or even start a new topic that we are interested in? In the origianal post, Is it just me or does everyone look to have a magazine home?, christyinco stated "As I scroll through the endless sites and images on the internet to get ideas for my home I am struck by how many homes look to be perfectly decorated - like out of a magazine. Fresh and up to date on all the latest trends." "I can get discouraged in my own home and ask myself if I've made the right decisions in decorating or why it is that after a year of living somewhere our DVR is still on a plant stand under the tv" "We just purchase a piece at a time and live in the "almost" finished spaces" "I suppose that one of the other things that I notice is how spaces have no personality anymore." Christy had touched on some contentions that every amateur designer has come across, and certainly that every professional has to address. 1. Discouragement at not achieving design goals quickly. 2. Trying to live up to perfectly decorated homes in magazines. 3. Having to build (as I call it) a design one piece at a time. 4. Lack of personality in modern design. 5. Trends. These are quite different but somehow related subjects, that all bring about a spectrum of views. But mentioning the word "trend" around here can be like pulling a mandrake from the roots, what with all the screaming. And I wonder if that is the issue that some folks find most painful, as if they had been pulled up by the roots? It has been suggested that in the Kitchens forums the 'trendy' and 'on trend' are aggressively promoted and any traditional design is squelched. Well, this isn't a kitchen forum, and I haven't visited there to read the posts. But I can imagine why folks would promote the trendy in a kitchen. The thing about kitchens is that they are expensive to rehab and they are where we make our food. People don't live in the same home as long as they used to and see upgrades as a possible investment -they don't want to spend $25,000 on a kitchen and have it bring the value of the house down. If they imagine moving in 5 years, their 'updated' kitchen should still look relatively fresh if it is on trend right now, people are looking for "newer" kitchens, not "older" kitchens when they buy a house and a traditional style kitchen often looks older the day it is installed. The other thing is that a new kitchen looks more hygienic. It just does. I didn't write that it is more or less hygienic than a traditional kitchen, just that perception is what counts. As far as design goes, I feel 'trendy' can be a neutral word, but I admit that I am ambiguous when it comes to trends. My design isn't what you would call trendy, and I do tend to move in a direction opposite of trends (or most likely, I feel that I have been there done that). But I think new trends have their place, especially if you are getting tired of your old decor, and want a little change, like a wall color, lamp shade, curtains, pillow or side chair. Updating is most important for a Traditional design which can easily look dated and quickly turn into a dusty exhibit at a local historical society. There is nothing worse, in my mind, than a beige and brown Traditional interior that looks like a very faded, old albumen photograph. On the issue of trying to live up to the perfectly decorated homes in magazines (2), I like what awm has to say about artistic talent, and her appreciation for it. Years ago my mother taught hobby painting. The students met each week and copied greeting card art, and calendar art, and if they were courageous, they copied a photograph from National Geographic. Time to time I dropped in on the classes to help or visit, and one thing I noticed was the students' general berating of Modern Art and Fine Art in general. (They did like the Impressionists, and when the students wanted to copy those mythical Kinkade Cottages with the rows of bright flower hedges, I tried to steer them toward something more Barbizon). As a whole the women made mediocre work that could be pretty or even have a decorative appeal. There was nothing wrong with the paintings, and a few of the students even showed a talent for this kind of work. But as artists, or art students, I never quite understood their constant need to ridicule Fine Art. Of course, it had to be insecurity, resentment and jealousy. I think the same emotions often play out in discussions on decorating with people who do it as a hobby or who lack the raw talent. Rather than appreciate those who are gifted or admired, they want to throw darts. I took the painting group on a field trip to a major museum to show and explain Modern art. An ethereal painting by Baziotes, caught their wrath and was deemed childish. I pointed out the subtle color changes and effects created with yellow glaze over pink, a technique that would work well for a sunset, and the fact that the coromandel brown in the Baziotes made the pink color glow even more. The point being that they hated that painting when they first saw it, which meant to me that they should study it in depth to reveal it's secrets. If they had no reaction to it, there might not have been anything to discover. Anyway, I do believe that if you design your own home, you have to find a way to make yourself happy, like making your own oil painting. It isn't going to be a museum piece (Magazine worthy), and comparing your work to a Museum Artist is going to make an amateur feel unworthy. However, looking at museum work might make any artist's own work better. You get ideas, pick up tips in the most unlikely places. And that's what the design magazines are good for, too. It might also help to look to blogs (Apartment Therapy) and magazines (World Of Interiors) who aren't afraid to show homes that are well lived in, shabby or even quirky, and realize that when you look at magazines that are written to show off wealth and sell Bentley cars (Architectural Digest) or push the latest garbage pumped out by the furniture industry (Elle Decor), you don't have to buy into what they are selling, but like visiting a museum or poster shop, like an artist, you should only be looking for inspiration not for personality, because those magazines won't provide it, (personality can distract from sales). But if one tries to impress others, or be something they are not, they will forever be on the unhappy carousel. 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JennaVaNowSC
11 years ago
Mommabird, this is so timely for me. We are in the process of getting our home ready to sell. DH has fixed things that I have wanted fixed for years, small things, but yes, I would have enjoyed having them done before now..........

But with us, I don't think it is because we did not feel worthy, life just got in the way. Life, work, serious illnesses and several surgeries for each of us, traveling, retirement (with the reduced financial issues that go with that), all had a hand in our delaying certain repairs. NOW, we are in a tizzy. We have rented a house near our DD2, 400 miles away, and are rushing to get the house ready so we can have the realtor in next Sunday.

I think it is wonderful that you are able to fix the house up for you and the kids. You truly deserve it. ENJOY!
talley_sue_nyc
11 years ago
I need to remind myself of this frequently. Your friend's insight--that people don't feel THEY deserve it--is really interesting.
jannie
11 years ago
Here are some real-life examples. My Grandmother always lived a spartan life. She and her second husband lived in a tiny one-story house. Every year I gave her frilly feminine gifts for her birthday and Christmas, clothing, perfume and the like. She always was happy to receive my gifts. After she died, we found all my gifts packed away in drawers. She never used or wore anything I gave her. My own Mother was very frugal. She overbought and hoarded things,yeah, like on those Hoarding TV shows. She had dozens of rolls of toilet paper stacked in the bathroom closet. One day I pulled one out and it had turned to dust. Paper goods don't last forever. My guess was it had sat there 30 years, give or take.
trancegemini_wa
11 years ago
Jannie, saving "nice" things like gifts in the cupboards was something I used to do too, and then as I started decluttering I started to question why I didn't use these things, it was as though I didn't deserve them but this realization was really big for me. Now I don't save or preserve anything!, the nice dishes get used daily, the pretty soaps and perfumes gets used instead of hoarding them etc, that's what they're for after all.

I also agree mommabird, we all deserve a nice clutter free home. It's our haven where we spend so much time and just making our homes nicer for ourselves is a way to really nurture ourselves. We all deserve it, no matter how large or small our homes are. Even buying some new sofa pillows or a fresh color of paint can really lift our mood IMO
jannie
11 years ago
I've never understood living with things broken and rushing around fixing things when you want to sell your house. If you know how to fix things, you should do it now and for yourself, not for the next people in your house. That motivates me to put up that closet shelf I bought about 6 momths ago...
mommabird
Original Author
11 years ago
Re saving nice things

This empowered me to wear a black blouse I always save for 'nice' to work today. It's been in my closet for two years and I've worn it once because I was always saving it for nice. It felt good to wear it!
talley_sue_nyc
11 years ago
yeah!

Today deserves "nice," too!
msmarieh
11 years ago
I am so sad when I see people thinking "this is too nice to use everyday" or "I'll save this for company." I really try not to think that way and I actively look for opportunities to use the things I own regularly. In the same way, when things get broken during use, I am very pragmatic about them and rarely get upset. They were used and had a happy life.

But with the fixing of things for the house, I'm inclined to agree with Jenna. It's not that my husband and I don't feel worthy (well with hubby suffering from depression, it could be a factor for him). It's just that real life interferes and it is low on the priority pole to do some of those house projects.
happyintexas
11 years ago
What a great thread! I, too, am trying to use stuff often and well. If it gets broken or stained, so be it. I'll mourn a minute and move on to something else wonderful.

I'm really struggling with decluttering today...and the words in this thread are really encouraging. I'm BLESSING my house, my family, and ME.
mommabird
Original Author
11 years ago
Guess who is using the good china for Thanksgiving? :)
leafy02
11 years ago
I think it's a great insight, too. I do feel like I deserve a home that is pleasant to look at and fully functional. When I repaired and staged my last home for sale, it really hit home for me that I should have done it all sooner. It was so much more pleasant and more functional with half the stuff gone.
LuAnn_in_PA
11 years ago
Hey mommabird, we used the good china too! Almost a century old.
JennaVaNowSC
11 years ago
I feel the same way leafy! I have been in our house by myself since we put it on the market on November 10th. So neat and organized, i just keep looking in all the closets and smiling! I was not a pack rat before, but after de-cluttering, it all feels much more serene. We are downsizing, and I am determined to start out, and keep, the new place more organized.

Oh, and we got a full price offer the day the sign went in the yard, even before it hit MLS. It pays to neaten up!!~
mommabird
Original Author
11 years ago
Well, I had to cancel Thanksgiving because my son had the flu. I'm having it this Saturday - with the good china!
happyintexas
11 years ago
Congrats, Jenna! I hope you have a solid contract on your house.

Yay for the GOOD china!

I keep coming back to read this thread. Very motivating...
mommabird
Original Author
11 years ago
Leafy02 said "...it was so much more pleasant and functional with half the stuff gone."

Thank you Leafy! I'm using that as my declutter inch mantra! I've taken 2 more trunk loads to Goodwill! It IS so much more pleasant with half the stuff!
leafy02
11 years ago
Yep. I've never been one to hang on to lots of old clothes or anything, but when I got my new job I went through my closet pretty ruthlessly and kept just the stuff I really can't get by without--I have ten days of work clothes (because of the heat in winter and AC in the summer, I wear the same light layers year round) and four days of "weekend clothes" and two sets of "going out in the evening clothes" and that.is.it.

I love going to my closet in the morning and having it be easy as pie to figure out what I will wear, and also everything looks so much fresher and crisper when it's not crammed in and piled high.
cozyfarmhouse
11 years ago
Hi Ladies,

I'm a lurker on this forum :) I've read every page in the archives and have purchased a few of the books talked about in past discussions. I started reading here after we moved into our new house one year ago.

Like Leafy02, when I prepped and staged our last house for sale I realized that I wanted to keep the new place just as simple and easy to clean. And, like Mommabird, I wanted to get all the little changes (paint, floor refinishing, fixture updates, etc.) done right away so WE could enjoy them.

I'm lucky that the new house has ample well planned storage. Finding a place for everything and keeping everything in it's place has been pretty easy. As I've unpacked I've used the "Is it Useful or Beautiful?" mantra and kept only what we really need and use.

My Mom, who keeps everything, thinks I'm a minimalist. I'm not. I just don't have a problem getting rid of stuff. Which is why she won't give me anything- I might not keep it forever. (I still have things from my childhood so I DO keep things, I'm just very selective, lol)

Leafy, about 20 years ago I came across a book at a thrift shop called Working Wardrobe by Janet Wallach. I've been using her Capsule Concept ever since. It's amazing how many looks you can come up with with a well chosen mini-wardrobe. When you buy less, you can splurge on better quality too.
talley_sue_nyc
11 years ago
Hi, CozyFarmhouse!!

You wrote: "I'm lucky that the new house has ample well planned storage. Finding a place for everything and keeping everything in it's place has been pretty easy."

I think this is the most important thing. It's not a secret that the first part of the famous organizing mantra is "a place for everything."

of course, a person has to be sure that she's keeping only the things that are needed (I count "it makes me feel happy when I look at it or use it" as a need) so that you aren't over-taxing your storage.

But still, you can't put it away if there isn't an "away" to put it in!
cozyfarmhouse
11 years ago
Very true, Talley_Sue!

I agree about keeping things purely because they make you happy. My family of fat little ceramic quail spring to mind: totally useless, but they make me smile every time I see them so they earn their keep. I think that is what keeping things that are beautiful to you is all about. (Although I see no reason why my functional things can't be beautiful to me as well...)

This post was edited by CozyFarmhouse on Fri, Dec 7, 12 at 19:53
plumfield
11 years ago
Good for you, mommabird! I remember when I had that revelation, too - it was like...why NOT live in a home that looks as inviting as a model home? Why NOT? Why NOT have food stacked invitingly in the refrigerator so it looks like an advertisement, at least sometimes? Why NOT keep my bathroom counter perfectly clear except for that pretty plant? Why not have coordinated clothes hangers holding a coordinated, simple wardrobe?

Why NOT have everything clean and delightful and fresh and uncluttered?

Why not, indeed?
mommabird
Original Author
11 years ago
Why not indeed! Plumfield, I love that thought! It really motivated me when incontinent feel like doing something. I will think to myself, "I don't feel like doing X (sweeping the floor, loading thebdishwasher, etc)" then I'll think, "Why NOT?" It really helps me get going
mommabird
Original Author
11 years ago
I forgot to add: a few weeks ago my dad was helping me install a new fireplace mantle. While we were working my 18 yo son came in and said, "Grandpa, our house is really legit now!"

I beamed all day. That's the highest praise I could receive from an 18 year old!
bspofford
11 years ago
Mommabird,
The praise from an 18 year old....and a male to boot! How proud and pleased you must be to know that not only are YOU happy, but your son is happy also!

You are the remarkable woman of the day.

Barbara
angela12345
11 years ago
You have been doing so much to fix up your home lately and get it organized and clean after clearing out all of the junk. Good for you !! I was wondering, what ever happened with the dishwasher ?
cupofkindnessgw
8 years ago
I've also thought that the same line of thinking is true of front and back yards, that the time and effort and money literally plowed into the earth is a small price to pay for a yard that is pleasing to the eye, or at least not neglected. We are worthy of attractive landscaping too.

You ARE worthy of a nice organized home!

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