5 Simple Ways I Keep A Home I Want To Spend Time In

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Summertime is abundant.  Fresh vegetables from the farmer’s market have already found their way into our home even early in the season.  Fresh basil and lettuce adorn pizza and salads.  Local strawberries are sliced on top of cake, tossed into salads, and infused into water.  Yolks from the neighbors eggs are so nutrient rich they are almost orange.  And far beyond the fresh foods summer is abundant with gatherings, sunshine, and life.  

A place that isn’t so abundant in the summer is the home.  Our summer home really takes a beating.  Dirty feet run across the floors.  Laundry and other tidying doesn’t get done when we’re traveling and enjoying the warm weather. The kitchen remains a mess while I preserve the abundance of summer food in the way of salsas, soups, and canned goodies.

To help me find the balance between keeping a tidy, nice home and having time to enjoy my other summer priorities I focus on these 5 simple ways to keep a home I want to spend time in. 

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I. I keep a home I want to spend time in by making my bed

The first thing I do when I get up in the morning is make our bed. And sometimes that’s really the only tidying that gets done besides dishes.  It feels really nice to start my day with something that encourages tidiness.

Our bed is the first thing you see when you walk into our bedroom.  Our bedroom is right off the kitchen so I can see our bed when I’m in the kitchen. When I glance over and see a made bed it makes me feel happy and like I kind of have it together.  Even when the rest of the room is a mess, it gives me the feeling that things are in their place.  It’s a simple something I can do that moves the needle a lot for me in keeping a home I want to spend time in.

Making my bed first thing in the morning has become something I don’t even have to think about anymore.  It’s become part of my morning ritual.  I also really enjoy the ritual of turning down the bed at the end of the night.  I try to do this after the kitchen is clean and before I put my son to bed.  I’ll turn down the bed and turn on my dim lamp light.  It makes our room feel so cozy and nice.  Making and unmaking my bed is a really simple and nice way to bookend the day.  

2. I keep a home I want to spend time in by keeping surfaces clear

Ideally, all the table and counter surfaces would be clear all the time.  In reality, there are few surfaces that stay clear and those are a great effort for me to keep tidy.  The first is our dining table.  This is where we eat our meals when we’re sitting down as a family.  It’s a place I look at a lot because its in the center of our house. When it’s clear it really can make the whole house feel tidy.  When it’s covered in clutter and laundry it can make the whole house feel like a mess. 

The second surface I try to keep clear is my kitchen island where I do all of my food prep. Every time I’m leaving the kitchen I try to have it clear and wiped down.  Having this space clean makes such a difference in how I feel in our home.  So much so that I will even just pile all the dishes up next to the sink without washing them to prioritize having the island clear and wiped down.

The last place I try to keep clear is our hutch where we keep paperwork and electronics.  This is a place that becomes a shove space which can be really overwhelming.  It’s the hardest of the three places for me to keep clear so it’s usually the last one I prioritize and really only gets tidied when I’m looking for something or when guests are coming over. 

3. I keep a home I want to spend time in by decorating our outdoor spaces

We have a huge wrap around deck that goes around half of the outside of the house.  We’ve created a really nice outdoor living space right outside the sliding door.  We have four chairs with the table and then backed up to two of the chairs is a bench and a dining table with more chairs around it.  Instead of trying to fill the whole deck it made so much sense to have a focused area right next to the door which creates an indoor/outdoor living feel.  The sitting area is adorned with galvanized steel planters filled with Dahlias and Violas.  Planters of various sizes and heights wrap around the deck to the area I can see from outside of my kitchen window.  I love being able to stare at the beautiful arrangements while I do the dishes. Having my outdoor space look inviting and nice really makes a difference in how I feel in the home.

4. I keep a home I want to spend time in my picking up the floor

I try pick all the toys up off the floor twice a day.  I’ll try to do it when the kids go down for naps because it really feels nice to have like a reset for the afternoon once they wake up. I will also do it when they go to bed so it feels like we have a reset when we wake up for the next day. This is some thing that I don’t always do but I wish I would because it takes only a few minutes and it really makes a difference when I’m going about my day in our home to look around and feel like things are kind of picked up. If I can be good about regularly picking up the floor then it really never gets too messy that it takes a super long time to clean up.

5. I keep a home I want to spend time in by diffusing essential oils and play good music

 I really like to defuse essential oils.  Diffusing oils helps me create a welcoming and comfortable environment in our home.  I will diffuse oils when I want to transition the day after we have a relaxing morning and it’s time to get out of our jammies and start to be productive.  This is where I’ll turn on some good music and turn of the diffuser and get to work or play with the kids.  I really like these oil blends from primally pure. 

It kind of makes me laugh to write about keeping my home because so often I’m not keeping any of my spaces tidy.  When it comes to tidiness and decorating in the home I’m really learning that it’s all about how I feel as the homemaker.  That’s really the only thing that matters.  There aren’t a set of rules I need to follow about how often I should be scrubbing my toilets or cleaning my floors.  I try to find the balance between keeping a tidy, nice home and having time for my other priorities.  

I want a home that makes me feel peaceful and that I feel proud to share with my family and guests but I also have a lot of other things on my plate besides keeping the home looking nice.  That’s why having this list of areas to focus on when it feels like the home is getting out of control is really helpful for me.  It helps me keep my home a place that I actually want to spend time in without taking too much of my capacity that I need for other areas of homemaking and motherhood.