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I have such a treat for you all today!  I have invited my dear friend Sarah from She Holds Dearly to come and share her thoughts in regards to organizing and decorating when you have kids – a topic I know many of you would love to help with (me included)!  As I’ve grown to love everything Sarah does and stands for, I felt her perspective would be valued here.  She lives a genuine Farmhouse life and works hard to share with women how we can achieve balance in our lives, and find time to hold dearly the things that matter most to us.  Her course called “Finding Time to Hold Dearly” has impacted my life more than I ever thought possible.  I hope you will all give Sarah a warm and friendly welcome here!  She has much to offer!

Welcome, Sarah!!


I remember when that first baby came along, we had to rethink our entire house.

Safety first, folks.

Oh. my. goodness. and then the baby things started creeping into our space. Friends of friends of friends would give us gifts! Everybody wants to celebrate a new baby.

But just because I was now a mom did not mean the interior designer in me was going to just check out for the next 20 years. I had to put my creativity into fifth gear to keep up, but I was determined.

Now, three children later, I have learned some tricks for keeping a house pretty and I am here to say it is possible and well worth the effort for the entire family.

So take heart, mothers, and grandmothers, here are 5 very doable tricks to enjoying your space AND your littles at the same time.

One

Teach them to respect certain pieces

I think it’s healthy to have certain things in the house that are not for children. My kids know that mama has “decorative wood” near the wood stove and no one is ever supposed to burn that wood. It’s a decoration.

Before and After, Farmhouse Renovation

One of the first words I taught my children was “decoration”, I still remember them waving their little hands over something and saying, “No touch, it’s a decor-a-tion.” Haha, my poor kids!

Two

Containers. Containers. Containers!

Give them boundaries in the form of containers and a place for everything.

We used to keep all the toys in one huge toy box. . . . big mistake. Just to find one thing required that the entire contents of the trunk would be dumped all over the front room. The day I moved all the toys into bins by category and labeled them, the angels sang. Everything was moved into a closet and the kids had to ask permission to get a bin out.

This “contains the chaos” idea goes for shoes, art supplies, homework . . . .everything. We have rubber boots in wine crates, rollerblades in picnic baskets, and colored pencils in mason jars.

It is possible to have a beautiful home with children

collection of colorful crayons inside jar

I built this chicken wire bulletin board to corral my son’s papers that he was wallpapering his room with.

using kids drawing as wallpaper or decoration

I think most kids, by nature, are little collectors and anything can be a treasure. It is such a sweet characteristic of childhood, but it can get out of hand so easily.

When my youngest was a toddler she would go around finding anything pink or purple and hiding her little stashes behind furniture. Just like a little magpie! I wish I had taken a picture of some of those piles, they would always make me smile when I found them.

Eventually, I assigned a desk drawer to each of my girls as their “treasure drawer”. They can put anything in there, but when it gets full they need to purge it.

Three

Buy mostly thrifted decor

When my children break something that cost 50 cents versus $50, I can handle it much better than if I had paid the original price. I can just sigh, instead of cry. Our home is 90% thrifted and DIYed, so it’s a good place to let life play out with kiddos.

Dishes get broken a lot with kids and so I don’t have a matching set. I just look for white dishes anytime I am out thrifting.

close up of white ceramic plates

 

Four

Designate a cleanup time 1-3 times a day

We used to have to clean up at every meal, but it has gotten a little easier as time has gone on. Now we just put the day’s projects away and clean the floors right before my husband gets home from work each night.

Five

Carefully select which toys come into your home

My home is very vintage and I strategically decide which toys cross the threshold of my house. Because I know these things will most definitely be laying around, I prefer wooden, fabric, metal, and antique-style toys to compliment our decor.

children's miniature toys

children's miniature toys

And speaking of clutter, I have been offering a printable Decluttering Flowchart that I thought you might like. I designed it to simplify the thought processes we go through when we declutter. It is based on the Kon Marie Method and can be applied to the entire house.

decluttering flowchart

And if you are wanting to take your organization to the next level, I have an online course that you might like to be a part of, as well.

A comprehensive course intentional living and time management

Thank you so much for having me today, Cami!

Always know that your readers are welcome anytime over at She Holds Dearly.


Thank you so much, Sarah!

I feel motivated to teach my 2-year-old the word “dec-or-a-tion” 😉

If you want more help creating an environment at home that can be loved by yourself and your children, you may be interested in my FREE instant download where I walk you through a checklist of each room to create a kid and design-friendly home.

Just click the image below!

free kid friendly and design friendly home checklist

Thanks for being here today with us!!

XO – Cami and Sarah!

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10 Comments

  1. Your home is well furnished, looks so cool. Your tips and tricks are great. Thanks for sharing this great tips. Its really help me to renovate my home.

  2. Safe baby furniture and baby equipment will help to protect your child. You’ll still have to watch your child and teach her safe habits to make sure she doesn’t come up with creative and perhaps unsafe ways to use your baby furniture!

  3. I definitely think that it’s possible to have both a beautifully decorated home and a child-friendly home. Making and buying your furnishings and accessories in certain materials and colours will definitely help them stand up to little mess-makers!

  4. haha! I know, I never thought to teach my kids the word decoration. Just went about hoping they would get it 😉 I loved Sarahs thoughts as well. Glad you enjoyed them, and I’m sure it will all come in handy with the grandkids. My mom loves to buy the noisy, bulky, less than appealing toys for my kids, and keeps the lovely vintage collections for her home. Not cool mom, but I totally get it! So that is what you can do!!

  5. Thank you for sharing, Cami… I just subscribed to Sarah’s blog. 🙂 This was a great post, and I forwarded to my daughter who has a 19-month-old. 🙂

    1. I’m so glad to hear that. I know you will love Sarah. She is so genuine and helpful, more of what the internet needs. Enjoy!

  6. Cami, you are just the sweetest! Thank you for all your kind words, I am so honored to be your friend and I just loved working on this little post with you.
    xoxo