“Home Ready”

Ever since I was a little girl, I have watched my mother and father (mostly mom) get the “house ready”. What this meant was a lot of chores, a lot of laundry, vacuuming, dust polish, rug shaking and tidying up. Most days my mother could be found doing normal routine household chores. My parents take that responsibility and put their heart into it. They taught my sister and I well to take pride in a tidy home.. I can remember though before a party, company, overnight guest or around a holiday, the phrase “I need to get the house ready” was used. This usually sparked some sort of stress on my mother, anxiety even. To me I viewed it as in order for us to present our home we have to make it in such a way for the guest, much of the time paying attention to details, even the most o.c.d. guest would probably overlook. My parents house is always “ready” so when I see her or my father going the extra mile to make things guest ready, I viewed it as a little pointless. Until I became a Adult. Until I became a Homeowner. I want to know how to balance this built in mentality and re-wire to my more living intentionally lifestyle.

My partner and I are hosting her father for the upcoming weekend to celebrate Christmas with him, his wife, and my partners sister, husband, brother and nephew and niece. We recently bought our little nest and have been spending the past few months on several renovation projects, making it our home. Fun. Messy and Expensive! Even with our “diy” spirit, owning a small older home comes with surprise costs, new furnace, plumbing etc.

In anticipation for their arrival in a few days I said to her maybe Friday evening we can “get the house ready”. As I said this phrase, she said to me “babe, did you hear yourself”? I laughed a little, hesitantly at first. I tried to backtrack. What did I just say? I had just spoke about our home like it was a living breathing thing. I spoke like it was someone who could not hang out with others until it was ready to play, after it finished it’s chores. My partner sweetly assured me that our house is always ready. Ready for us or guest because of our lifestyle, aesthetic, and feel of our home. It’s not something we should have to hide or cover up. Everything is pretty intentional, and tidy for the normal two of us. We have a home that feels safe, it’s cozy, calm, fun, warm and inviting for us. I want our home to reflect us, our personalities and allow others to see hints of what we like, our interest, and a personal reflection of our values and reflects what we bring to life. I realize that our home is perfectly imperfect, and I love it at all it’s stages, because life is happening inside it’s gracious greige colored walls. It’s ours, we are proud of it,  we hope to present our home as we present ourselves, genuine, flawed and perfectly imperfect.

The “getting ready” can still happen, I do want guest to feel like they are comfortable, but finding the simplicity and relaxed version of that is going to have to be my new normal hard wiring. I want to actually enjoy time with them. I am a hostess and server by nature and upbringing and I have my mother to thank for that. I will always appreciate the pride they took in inviting people into their personal space. I look forward to people meeting our house, and spending time with us and how we do home at Sunset Circle. I hope they can look past the flaws, the dated bathroom, the scratched hardwoods, the dust bunny in that one corner, the molding that’s incomplete and the fact that we only have 3 kitchen chairs… and see that we are getting to know ourselves as we get to know home.

Happy Home for the holidays.

Words of Advice, be gentle with yourself when you know company is coming, a lot of the things we think they will notice or judge us on, they will not. Embrace your home for exactly who it is. If you’re living a more minimal, intentional life, cleaning up shouldn’t take very long in the first place. The whole point of having a more paired down life is that you don’t spend all that time cleaning it.