Becoming a good steward of your home

there are 10 people living under this roof which means that there's a lot of wear and tear a lot of messes a lot of meals I need to constantly re-evaluate my routines and systems to keep this place running [Music] efficiently I think as modern people with a lot input that comes through social media YouTube videos like this we get a lot of benefits by looking into other people's lives and seeing how they get things done that can really be helpful for us to implement in our own homes but sometimes we tend to think me included that there is some kind of system or easy way out to keep the kitchen clean to keep the meals coming to keep the laundry done the kids happy and healthy in the house decluttered when a lot of times it's just going through and doing the same things over and over again sure there are definitely habits that can be implemented for the whole entire family that can make things easier but there are these daily things that no matter how you slice it they can just be a bit challenging and [Music] repetitive I have been asked by commenters how I cook from scratch without getting the kitchen messy now there are a few maybe tips I could share but really there's just no way the only way that you're going to be able to cook from scratch is by making a mess and then cleaning it back up again I probably clean this little spot here on the stove not this diligently but at least the part that you can take out once a day maybe once every other day and it still looks bad a lot of the times I don't clean the grates near as often but every once in a while I like to do a deep clean with some barkeeper friend that really helps to shine them up but as far as keeping the kitchen clean while cooking from scratch I try to and I try to train my daughters too because they're not so naturally good at this but after I add each thing to the dish that is no longer needed putting it away because whenever you leave out an open container after you already added the sugar the chances that a toddler is going to maybe knock it over or you're going to splash some tomato sauce into your sugar or knock over the spice jar whatever it may be is very high so that is one of my best practices is to always clear the workspace so if you are using the mixer and there's a container sitting next to it a flow or anything on the counter clearing that off before mixing up something in the mixer like dough anything that could fly out and get on something else that you then have to clean I always try to clear my workspace before and then put each item away as I'm working recently I had on my podcast the simple Farmhouse Life podcast if you aren't familiar you can find it here on YouTube as well as your favorite podcast player Andrea from Pine and Prospect home and we talked about homemaking some of our thoughts on the deeper things like the purpose behind it and the joy found in it but also some more practical things like getting it all done and organizing and structuring your day so that it can be and prioritizing and I made the Bold statement that I thought could possibly be controversial and I still don't know for sure that there is enough time in your day for basic homemaking tasks I think one of the most discouraging things that can happen for a homemaker is to feel like there is no possible way you can get ahead there are not enough hours in the day just to get the basic things done with no extra that's a common question I get how do you have time for your self-care and time to get time alone and keep your home and make meals and all of that and it's not perfect by any stretch but I do believe and I've shifted my mindset in the past couple years to believe that there is enough time in the day when I don't have other certain distractions and priorities so let me explain as Homemakers the basic tasks that have to happen to keep everything running are laundry basic cleanliness so maybe maybe not deep cleaning baseboards and making sure they're completely smudge and Spot Free and with laundry making sure the clothes are clean don't smell bad but maybe they're not perfectly laundered lights sorted darks sorted meals of course is a priority that does not mean elaborate meals it doesn't even mean sourdough bread it doesn't necessarily mean a whiteboard in your kitchen that has every meal for every breakfast lunch and dinner a menu put up or recipes carefully clipped or organized on Pinterest with elaborate ingredients we have our basic things laundry cleanliness caring for children usually will fall in there somewhere food I'm probably missing something but within those very essential tasks there's a wide variety of ways that you can take that and I challenge you if you feel like there's not enough time in your day to get all of those things done maybe there are a few ways that you are over complicating or making something more perfect you could be a perfectionist than they need to be so let's break it down laundry if you're in a very overwhelmed season and there isn't enough time to stay on it my very simple laundry system is to not sort by person or color I will do some very basic spot cleaning with an oxygen cleaner maybe a laundry boost powder but mostly not as items are dirty I throw them straight into the washer and then I run it whenever it is full sometimes we'll have some overflow in the bathtub next to the washer but pretty much that's how it works we don't have any hampers we just throw clothes straight into the washer run it when it's full throw it in the dryer and then put it in the couple of sorting baskets on top and keep repeating that cycle every time something is dirty we just keep the the laundry going that's a way that I have simplified something that honestly when you look at a lot of different ways to do it online or you know different people's strategies can really sound very complicated and whenever you're in a season where you don't feel like there's enough time it can feel overwhelming to do anything more than just keeping it going it's not any more complicated than that in our house as I take control of this drawer that I have let get way out of hand let's talk a bit about decluttering sometimes the reason why you might feel like there isn't enough time in your day to do it all is simply that there are way too many things to manage in your home this is probably thing number one I listened to Dawn from the minimal mom Robin Buchanan from minimalist home and cast from clutterbug they all help me so much to realize how over complicated your life can be and how literally less time can be in your day when you have too many things to manage this is something I'm constantly re-evaluating in my home there's a spot here in our kitchen where when we get new towels we just kind of throw them in I don't really full them and now I can see that it is become over complicated I can't hardly fit anything in there so I'm going to manage that drawer today and it's only really going to take me an extra 5 or 10 minutes now I'm also going to do a bleach load I don't do this much because I don't like using bleach it's definitely not natural it's not in my simple natural life but it is extremely effective and we're having an unseasonably warm day so I can leave open the windows and the front door and air out the house while I am making these slip covers and my towel drawer white again because they are all looking so dingy I'm always amazed at how fast I can get these chairs that look Beyond repair back to beautiful again with just some soaking and bleach and washing and hanging them to [Music] dry one aspect of homem making I love is sourcing quality products to keep our home comfortable and safe and today's video is sponsored by Birch living Birch makes mattresses that are crafted with organic materials that have been sustainably sourced which is very important because we spend a third of our lives in bed and there is some serious off gassing that can happen in the conventional manufacturing process of mattresses that aren't made in this way it makes sense that when we are trying to live a more healthy from scratch lifestyle in the kitchen and with our beauty products and our skin products that we also don't neglect the sleeping environment we have three Birch mattresses here in our home we have two of the twin size they're the regular well- Lov natural Birch mattresses and then we also have the Luxe which is an upgrade it is comprised of eight different layers of organic Kashmere organic wool organic cotton and 100% natural latex it also features an added quilted organic cotton pillow Euro Top has natural non-toxic latex that relieves pressure points and targeted Zone lumbar support that provides enhanced contouring it has over 1,000 individually wrapped steel coils to cradle your body in limit motion transfer Birch offers a 100 night sleep trial and a 25-year warranty so you can be confident that what you are investing in will last you in your family a really long time and that you'll be completely happy with your purchase I love my Birch mattress and I know that you will too if you're looking for a new bed make sure to check out Birch Early Access to their President Day Sale is live now it's the perfect time to upgrade your sleep with 20% off a birch mattress plus two free Eco rest pillows visit Birch living.com Farmhouse to find out more about this limited time offer there's also a QR code right here that you can grab and head straight to the website again thank you so much to Burch for sponsoring today's video another place to look when you feel like there isn't enough time to get it all done is to social media usage I know I talk about this all the time but that's because it can be a personal struggle of mine and I can have days where I feel like there is an overwhelming amount of stuff to get done and really my brain just been cluttered with a few random things and ideas and strategies and inspiration and recipes and beautiful things from the internet a lot of these are good things and they may be okay for someone in a less busy season but sometimes you have to analyze and dig into your patterns and routines to find why you're overwhelmed when we stick to the basics we lower our inventory when we assess what unnecessary things we're spending our time on there should be enough time to get done the basic necessities speaking of inventory this sock bin is something that I have to address so often there are so many different tasks in my home that I just have to do a lot with 10 people's hands and things there's just a lot of wear and tear on items and some things get out of order no matter how hard I try there is no oneandone with a household and that okay my solution is just to visit it often and keep inventory as low as possible which is actually still pretty high with 10 people I was thinking about this the other day with the bar stools in our kitchen I have six of them really quick if you're wondering what I'm doing we keep different trampoline park socks in a separate location so we can pull them out whenever we go there in the winter but with six bar stools I find them all over the kitchen kids pull them out they get knocked over and that just really reiterates how each item in our home creates a little job for us we have to clean each bar stool we have to put each bar stool back under the island we have to sweep around each bar stool but with that being said the bar stools are very necessary in our home we have a lot of kids and we need a lot of seating and it's hard for us to all fit around our table so the goal is to make your house not harder than it needs to be sometimes you have things that are necessary but what things are just making your life harder the solution with the bar stools for now for me is I put one of them at least and I think I probably should put two but currently one of the six is down in the basement because we really don't need all six unless we have guests over but also as our kids grow I know I will eventually want them so again we can't get rid of everything that would sure make our lives really easy now when it comes to kids toys I am pretty minimalist on on this and my kids really thrive in that environment we do keep blocks we keep Duplo and Legos and Nerf as you can see I keep Nerf in a high spot so that way it only gets out whenever the kids really want to do some kind of Nerf battle and then I have them put it back in the basket and it goes up high again I'm leaving the front door wide open to create a draft for the bleach smell after I just decluttered the toys a bit more that's another task that I do all the time like the drawer like the sock bin there are certain things that somehow we continue to add stuff to it and I try to stay on top of going through them so it never gets super overwhelming when I was a new Homemaker it really frustrated me that there were certain things that happened again after I already completed them now I accept that that is normal wear and tear of Life another example would be these cabinets that we had repainted there is no paint that is IND destructible enough for our family of 10 so I have a little touchup paint and occasionally I go over it with the beadboard and our kitchen my solution for a long time was to wash it with a rag and then paint over the spots that I just couldn't get out I recently discovered how useful a little dish brush is with some soap it was something I discovered I guess I'd say by accident because who really uses soap on a wall but I was doing dishes and I went to a little spot right next to me next to the stove that I couldn't get off before with my brush and my soap and it looked so perfect so if you have beadboard and you really struggle to get in the grooves it's a perfect solution it also works really great for flat walls as well because the bristles are stiff I try to reserve one brush that is just for shining up my sink shining up my walls the stiffness of the brush works better than any rag I've tried I also will use my sourdough bench scraper to get off something that's really stuck on which we have a lot another area of the home that Homemakers could be wasting a lot of time on and make it feel like there isn't enough time to keep up with the Necessities is of course food and meal planning it will depend on your skill level how long you've been cooking as to how elaborate you can make meals the less that you have to reference a recipe the faster everything will go now of course when you're first start you're just going to have to probably go buy the book because you're getting used to how everything works so my encouragement to you is that it'll get easier but when you're in this stage of life where cooking is new you have maybe small children and you can't figure out how to get it all done just rely on very simple meals the simple formula of meat root vegetable starch like bread or potatoes maybe something greened and fresh like sauerkraut or broccoli or a fresh salad if it's springtime there is nothing wrong with that formula and it doesn't require you any thought except for to stock up veggies and fruits and some high quality meat recently I had on the podcast Tara from the Discover a podcast and we talked about this just our favorite meal formula as busy moms that we tend to fall back on all the time another guest I recently had on Camy from tidbits we discussed our favorite meals to make whenever we have thought nothing out just those fast meals that whenever there's nothing planned or thought in the refrigerator you really drop the ball on thinking about dinner you can still pull something out really easily again both of those episodes are over on the simple Farmhouse Life podcast but this is probably the place where Homemakers end up wasting a lot of time now of course I don't think it's a waste of time to learn to cook this is for when you are feeling overwhelmed that's what this advice is for whenever you are able to get everything done maybe you're in a less busy season with your children or your demands of homeschooling or whatever it may be you can take the time to sort all your laundry and iron your clothing and make your bed every single day and come up with an elaborate meal plan and make things that you're not used to making try out a new recipe but when you are in the trenches and you're just trying to keep your head above water my encouragement to you is to look into your schedule see where you're may be wasting time on some obvious things I know we always bring up social media um watching Netflix all of that kind of stuff but where are you maybe even in good ways wasting time there are tasks around your house that you might be overdoing like a deep clean of the house I don't really find that that needs to be done regularly in my home it doesn't need to be done once a week it doesn't need to be done even once every other week it's okay if things are left imperfect you wouldn't believe how many spots I had on these slip covers before washing them and that's totally okay other things took priority we have those basic things and then whenever there's time to step outside of those I can do things like organize the sock drawer bleach my slip covers and take care of some lower priority homem making tasks well thank you so much for following along as I took care of some of those things in our home I love being able to spend a little extra time shining up the things I own and adding Beauty in our home and using videos like this to encourage you to do the [Music] same

Channel: Farmhouse on Boone

Views: 276,736

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Id: 4PzIBa3ED4Q

Length: 19min 56sec (1196 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 09 2024