I love
HGTV as much as the next girl. The design shows are particular favorites. But I
fear they’ve done us a disservice. There’s now an entire generation of us with
the belief that our houses need to look HGTV-ready. All the time. Despite the
fact there are no hunky carpenters or camera crews lurking in our kitchens.
In
HGTV’s mania for clean and orderly, I think they’ve taken some of the fun out
of our houses. Remember kindergarten and finger painting? How about the last
time you baked cookies with a kiddo?
Fun is
messy. Fun is disorganized. Fun is unrestrained. That’s kind of the whole
point.
I went
to a girls’ night out last weekend hosted by a gal from school whom I hadn’t
met before. She has a great house, an even greater margarita machine and guess
what else?
She has
a crafts room. Yes. An entire room devoted to crafts. It was bright and cheerful
and filled with crafts stuff. I was struck by how excited we all were about it.
We were a diverse group, united by only a few common things: our love for our
first graders, our love for the margarita machine and our love for this crafts
room!
Most of
us have a creative impulse. Maybe it takes different forms (quilting, jewelry
making, decorating, baking, scrap booking etc.), but it’s there. Maybe we don’t
all have enough space to deck out a crafts room. (The party host laughed that
she decided to have a crafts room instead of a guest room!) But we need to make
the space in our lives and our houses to indulge the creative impulse.
Carve
out a corner in the family room for it. Make peace with the fact this is part
of your house that is messy and disorganized. Don’t frantically clean it up at
the end of every creative session. Tell yourself this is a sign of life in your
house. Because that’s what houses are for. They aren’t supposed to be sterile
set pieces. Houses are where you live your life. The happiest ones show that.
If
creative clutter on display is an absolute deal breaker for you, try this
instead: You know that formal dining room you rarely use? Repurpose it. Put
your creative gear in some heavy duty baskets (make sure you get the kind that
have lids). Store the baskets in the dining room on the floor and bust out your
creative gear when time allows. (Make sure you put a plastic table cloth in too
to protect your table.)
The act
of creating takes us out of ourselves. In that moment we’re not about our jobs
or our kids or our efficient life managing strategies. We’re lost in the
moment. And sometimes getting lost is the best way to find an important part of
yourself.
If you
have a crafting area part of your house or ideas to share, send me a pic. I’ll
share them in a future post. Keep up the creativity, guru girls & guys!
Photo credits:
Pic 1: Actual photo of my sink, after the 2012 Gingerbread House Debacle
Pic 2: The crafting corner at our house. Yes, I have OCD about stuff being put away. But not in this corner.
Pic 3: The formal dining room that we use 3 times a year. Look at how unobtrusive those crafts baskets are at the bottom of the frame. This would totally work as a crafting area too.
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