This post has been sponsored by DHP Furniture through City Moms Blog Network. All opinions are 100% our own.
When my husband and I were house shopping 10 years ago (pre-children), we had just a few requirements. At the top of the list was a minimum of 4 bedrooms so we’d have room to grow a large family AND still have room to make room for out of town guests. After a few months of searching, we found the perfect home in one of our favorite neighborhoods. As a newly married couple, it was the type of home we could see growing old in and was plenty of space for our “future family.”
Fast forward 10 years and 3 rowdy toddler boys later, and our once large home began to feel very small. Quickly, the bedrooms were filled with bunk beds and cribs and that guest room filled with furniture and guest amenities for in-laws and friends was sold on Craig’s List to make way for toy storage, Lego tables, and Elmo videos. One morning I stopped, looked around, and realized our home (and our lives) had been taken over by our children.
We’d spent a lot of money on trying to create and recreate and recreate storage, organizational systems, and learning environments for every stage our children grew into that before we knew it, we were drowning in toys, crafts, and one-purpose furniture. I knew something needed to change, but I wasn’t sure what.
This past summer when our family made our first real (and hopefully last) move, and I swore to myself that this time, our house wouldn’t just feel like my husband and I were living in a children’s catalog.
It’s been a process, but with a little moxie (and a lot of donation bags), I’ve slowly begun to reclaim my vision for what our home should look like and it includes reinstating that guest room & office!
Your home is living space, not storage space. ~Francine Jay
If you’re looking to do something similar, and reclaim some of your adult space from your children, here’s a few tips I learned along the way.
1) Clean & Organize!
Moving was one of the easiest ways I’ve ever cleaned my home. We spent almost 5 months between packing, staging, moving out, and moving in without 70% of our belongings. When it was time to bring our items out of PODS and into our new home, it was so easy to identify what we could live with and live without. This made the purging processes so much easier and a lot less emotional.
If you don’t plan to move anytime soon, I promise the whole process is still possible – even with little ones living and playing in your home.
- Spend a weekend cleaning your house from top to bottom.
- Organize and put as much as you can into drawers or cubbies.
- If it is missing a part or broken, toss it! If you’re unsure if it stays or goes, place it with like-objects.
- Put as much as you can into the rooms you want them to “live”. (You’ll worry about the real purging process at a later date. This is just about finding a home for the clutter.)
2) Create Your Vision and Then Recreate Your Vision
It sounds contradictory to plan out the vision for your home after cleaning, but here’s why I recommend it.
I started with a “Pinterest-like” vision for each of the rooms in my home but then realized that some of my ideas of separating the adult spaces from the kids’ spaces just didn’t make sense. For example, while I wanted to keep all kids’ items out of my office/guest room, I realized items like art supplies really fit best in that room. With a few minor adjustments to my plan, I found ways of creating the adult spaces I needed AND adding to the room in ways I hadn’t thought of before that didn’t compromise my mission.
3) Fill The Space with Functional Pieces
Be prepared once everything is off the floor and put away to adjust your vision to what works best for your family — not necessarily what looks awesome on Pinterest or Instagram. A beautiful wooden desk with a full-sized guest bed would be lovely in our extra bedroom, but in reality, for our family, that’s not needed or necessary.
If it doesn’t add to your life, it doesn’t belong in your life ~Emily Ley
The reality was, our family lives in town, and while a guest bed in a guest bedroom is nice, it might only get used a few times a year. That’s a lot of space to take up for such a short use time. After some research, I came across exactly what my space needed – DHP Furniture.
Within minutes and little effort, my new office space can be transformed into a comfortable room for guests (or if I need to retreat for me when my husband has the flu!)
Forget that lumpy couch you slept on in college, DHP Furniture has transformed the futon and made it desirable for families who are looking to treat guests with a comfortable night’s rest and also a functional, fashionable piece of furniture when not in use as a bed.
I received the Paxson Linen Futon to use in my office/guest room, and it literally fit like a glove into my space. It’s created with high-quality, black linen and is supported on solid wood legs. I added a few throw pillows from Target and it makes the perfect designer couch for lounging while working on my laptop on days when my boys are at preschool. It’s split back design allows me to freely move the back from a more vertical position to reclined with ease and when needed, can quickly be converted into a sleeper for quick catnaps. (Ha. Yeah right!)
As an added bonus, it’s about the same size as a Twin XL mattress (78.5″ x 44″) which is great for someone my husband’s height who may need a little additional leg room.
DHP Furniture has also created microfiber sheets designed to fit their Futons and Sleepers that doesn’t leave you providing your guests with ill-fitting, poor quality sheets. The DHP Futon and Twin Sleeper Sofa Microfiber Sheet Set comes in 2 neutral colors and includes 1 flat sheet, 1 fitted sheet and 2 pillowcases — just like a real bed!
As Emily Ley said in A Simplied Life, “Not only does clutter vie for our attention, it makes up the general atmosphere of our spaes – leaving us feeling uninspired or overwhlemed.” Since taking back over some of my adult spaces, it’s amazing how much of a difference it’s made on my everyday routines; from feeling more productive to just general calmness. I hope these tips inspire you to get creative and reclaim some of the spaces in your home when you’re ready!
If you’d like to explore DHP Furniture for your custom space, be sure to check out authorized retailers such as Target, Walmart, Nebraska Furniture Mart, and Amazon! And through the end of February 2018, DHP Furniture and The Novogratz are giving away TEN futon and twin sleeper sofa sheet sets. Be sure to enter to win here!
Website :: Facebook :: Pinterest :: Instagram
