Making space for the things that make your life enjoyable
In part one of Finding Your Flow, we tackled all the problem areas that get in the way of an easy home life. In this post, we are going to break down the steps to help you optimize your home space to make room for the fun in life!
We’ve established that there are no rules when it comes to creating the living spaces that work for you and your family. The only criteria we need to meet are the ones that allow you to function at a high level and live your most intentional, joyful life.
Dream up your ideal space
What does your ideal space look like? If you had your way, what do you enjoy doing that you wish you had room for in your home? How can you take under-utilized areas in your home and make them work for you? Put these questions out to the members of your family as well. Your children may be yearning for ping pong table and a space to play. Your husband may want a place of his own to work out. You might want a dedicated area for reading. It’s up to you to figure out what you want to make space for.
Remember, there are no rules so don’t be afraid to think outside the box.
To take an example from my own life, I love doing yoga and wanted an area to practice uninterrupted. In an ideal dream world, I’d have a gorgeous studio with floor to ceiling mirrors, gleaming wood flooring and gauzy curtains. In order to bring my dream into the real world, I designed a corner of my bedroom as a yoga space. I keep my mat out, candles, a small altar and some yoga decorations. It makes me enormously happy and uses an otherwise wasted corner.
Another example comes from my sister-in-law. She took her seldom-used dining room and turned it into a play area for her three girls. She didn’t need a dining room, she needed an additional space for her children to play. I can only imagine her dream home would include a separate playroom and dining room (along with a maid and a chef) but you have to work within the space you have. Now the room isn’t for dinner parties, it’s for playing dress up and building with Legos, which is much more fun, if you ask me!
Create systems that work RIGHT NOW
When I say ‘RIGHT NOW’, I mean consider where your life is in this exact moment.
Turning your dining room into a play area is a thing to do at a specific time in your children’s lives. It’s not a forever decision. However, it solves a problem RIGHT NOW– your kids need a place to play, and you have an unused room. It makes sense. I want you to do the same thing for your home.
Remember that nothing is permanent, things can always be changed, and we go through stages of life so quickly. It’s imperative that you stay focused on what your needs are now. Don’t be afraid of doing something a little out of the norm if it makes sense for your family.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, we turned our garage into a hang-out space for the kids. We could have a few select neighborhood friends over and still be semi-outside with the garage doors open and the fans on. My husband built a bar area, we added an old couch and a TV for video games. We already had refrigerator in there, so we stocked it with drinks & snacks.
It’s a great set-up that still exists to this day. We don’t have a basement or separate hang-out space for the teens, so the garage it is. One day, those teens will be off to college. Then, we’ll be able to use the garage for its intended purpose (boring!). In the meantime, I’ll take the extra space for the kids that keeps them out of my house and playing outside.
Speaking of the pandemic, when the kids were home and learning virtually, everyone was scrambling to configure the proper working space for children and parents working from home. That is a perfect example of a ‘RIGHT NOW’ situation.
All of a sudden, spaces had to be repurposed for quiet learning and working areas. It didn’t matter if there were desks in the kitchen if that is where the quiet space existed. People had to think outside the box and repurpose areas of their homes for optimizing both remote learning and working.
This doesn’t fall into the category of ‘fun’, of course, but it illustrates my point perfectly. That was a RIGHT NOW situation that has since passed. A large portion of those workstations are most likely no longer in use, with the rooms they were in reverted back to their original purpose.
As your needs change and children grow, reassess and reevaluate your systems. Create functional and fun spaces for whatever your RIGHT NOW is.
Scout out your locations
Everyone put in their two cents of areas in the home they’d like to see. Now it’s time to figure out if it’s feasible to do and where those spaces are in your home.
To take the example of the ping pong table, here are some possible solutions:
- Put the table in the garage, basement or den.
- Purchase a table topper that sits on top of the dining room or kitchen table for play.
- Purchase an outdoor use table that can be used in the driveway, deck, patio or backyard.
- Turn an unused room into a gaming area (dining room, office, extra bedroom).
The easiest one of my examples above has to be the reading nook. All you need is a chair, a lamp and a small side table to create a cozy reading nook in any corner of your home. It may take some rearranging of furniture or cleaning out a room to make the space. Yet if it’s something you would like to see in your home, it’s totally attainable. Especially if you repurpose items you already own to create the space.
Creating a home gym sounds like a daunting task but it doesn’t have to be.
For a bare-bones home gym example, my husband bought some weights, a mat and a folding weight bench. The bench stores nicely under our bed when not in use. If you want some larger exercise equipment like a treadmill or stationary bike, there are ways to make space in rooms for that. Garages, basements, dens, guest rooms, offices…all these spaces should be able to accommodate a piece of equipment with a little rearranging and clearing of clutter.
Execution
Once you’ve decided on your projects and scouted out the locations, it’s time to do the work. Prioritize your projects, make a list of tasks and work through it one by one. Dedicate time to work on your projects, have a deadline for completion and have the whole family pitch in. Do as much as you can yourself. If time or skill is an issue, don’t be afraid to call in some professional help. If money is a problem, see if you can redo your space with underutilized items you already own, search garage sales, online resources like Facebook Marketplace or free neighborhood swap sites.
Really think about all possible solutions before deciding that you can’t execute on an idea. If it’s important enough for your family, there has to be some way to incorporate it into your home.
How’s it Flowing?
After a few weeks or months, see how everything is flowing. Now that you created a space for ping pong, reading and working out, do the spaces have all the things they need to function properly? Are there ways to improve? Is something not working at all and it’s time to go back to the drawing board?
By taking the time to revisit your areas and reassess you can be sure that your house has space for all the fun things that your family needs RIGHT NOW. If after a few months, the ping pong table is collecting dust and you find your children have moved on to another hobby, it might be time to retire the table and make space for their new interests.
Life changes and we need to change along with it. By keeping up with our current lifestyle, we can ensure our home is working for us the way it needs to be and meets us where we are at the current moment. Finding your flow at home happens when we first address problem areas and then make space for the things we love to do.
Recommendations
Note: The links below are my Amazon Affiliate links. I receive a small commission for any purchases made from these links. However, I will never recommend items I have not personally used myself or had experience with in some capacity.
I love the look of this screen room divider. It would be great to separate a space that you don’t want seen such as unsightly exercise equipment.
This yoga mat holder and shelf combo is not only extremely cute, its functional and has great ratings. If you are lacking space for a yoga area, this could hang on a small spot on your wall, and you’ll be ready for yoga at a moment’s notice.
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