We all wear a lot of different titles – wife, mom, grandma, daughter, sister, friend – and for many of us, one of those titles is “employee” with a job outside the home. But at the end of the day, we all have a common destination we call home. A home may be a house, an apartment, a basement, or a bedroom. Wherever it is, it is your home and you get to decide if it is a place of peace and restoration or simply a place to exist between activities in your “real” life. You are the homemaker that gets to decide what homemaking is for you.
What Homemaking Is Not
Homemaking is not “Donna Reed” or “Carol Brady” (oh, I just really dated myself!) wearing pumps and pearls. It is not keeping an immaculate house, making sure kids look spiffy to welcome home the hubby, and having a hot, made-from-scratch dinner on the table. Nor is it creating a magazine-worthy decor that could be featured in House Beautiful with nothing ever out of place.
Homemaking is creating a place of comfort and rest where your heart feels at home, and that is going to look very different for each of us. Our home has gone through many locations and transformations throughout our almost forty years of marriage. Home has been apartments, town homes, duplexes, and houses. We have raised three sons and adapted through infancy, toddlerhood, childhood, teen years, and young adult stages. Now, we are empty-nesters living in a town home community.
A Peek Into Our Home
A peek into our home reveals what brings us comfort and rest. In our home a console piano with pictures of grandchildren is a place where my granddaughters play their scales for me, and we play and sing “Jesus Loves Me.”
An antique school desk tucked in a corner reminding me of my grandmother who taught in one-room school houses. Sitting atop the desk is my mother’s Bible in which she traced the hand prints of her children and grandchildren, and I have started to trace the hand prints of her great-grandchildren.
The living room focal point is a barn-door electronics cabinet with baskets for children’s toys and movies. The bookcases are fill with photos and special books. Above it is a sign saying “gather” because nothing is more important to us than having our family and friends together.
A quilt rack built by my dad holds the “Grandma” quilts made for each of my grandchildren so they all have their own snuggle blanket for movie time.
My dining room features a hutch with cream ware dishes. A platter made by my daughter-in-love and tiles with handprints of my youngest sons when they were eight highlight our love of family.
A side table holds a child’s tea set. Many tea and cocoa parties have been enjoyed from that little set. There is also a high chair so even the toddlers are able to join us at the dinner table.
Home is a Work-in-Progress
We love having our grandchildren (and their parents) in our home. So, our guest room will be changing to a multi-purpose room by installing a murphy bed for guests but when there are no guests, it will be a playroom for the kiddos.
Our third bedroom has recently become my office. As I sit at my desk and look around, a “to do” list forms in my mind because I still have boxes of photos, books, and memorabilia to sort through. But it is definitely starting to resemble an office/workroom where I can write and create.
Home for me often includes projects in-process on my office craft table or on the dryer in the garage, bread rising on the kitchen counter, and shelves of home-canned food. Right now, home includes a table in my bedroom that my husband works from during the pandemic.
What Brings You Comfort and Rest?
What does comfort and rest look like in your home? Is it a college throw stretched across the bed in a dorm room? Is it a trunk that hold quilts made by a grandmother or used for a coffee table? I would love to see how you have created places of comfort and rest in your home. Allow homemaking to be fun. Surround yourself and your family with things that you all love. Most importantly, remember that you are creating a home for you and your family. It doesn’t have to look like a magazine layout or the current designer trend.
Your home needs to provide comfort and rest for all who live there. My heart for home and family shows in the items that preserve memories and create cozy comfort. And, hopefully, all who enter will find comfort and rest!
Sharing my heart for my home and yours,
