Growing up, I dreamed about having a place of my own. I made countless floorplans for my dream house and fantasized about baking in my future kitchen. I knew homemaking would be a part of life I’d take tremendous joy in.

When my partner and I found our first home, we were over the moon. The interior was small—under 1000 square feet—but the yard was spacious and beautiful. Before we submitted our offer, my imagination was already running wild with interior design possibilities.

The move-in was exhilerating and stressful. My mind was not thinking about breadmaking and gardening, I was too busy trying to put dinner on the table each night and keep the place from looking like a wasteland.

And then I became completely overwhelmed.

It dawned on me just how little I knew about homemaking. And those interiors I drooled over? Well, I’d be lucky to afford even the wallpaper in those photos.

My enthusiasm quickly gave way to defeat. But I kept going, box by box, meal by meal, cleaning room by room.

Much to my surprise, it got easier after the first month. We furnished the house within our budget and it quickly started feeling like home. By our third month of living there, cooking and cleaning were more or less habitual.

Now, I’m taking action on many of the projects that previously overwhelmed me.

There is hope for burnt-out homemakers—whether you are new to home ownership or have decades of experience. In this post, I’ll explain how I went from completely overwhelmed to patient and persistent.

Let’s first start with understanding the heart of homemaking.

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What is homemaking?

You can distinguish between a house and a home the minute you enter a place. A house is a dwelling that protects one from the elements. A home is a cultivated abode. It’s a place that invokes comfort whenever you or your guests cross the threshold.

Homemaking is the art of making your house a home.

It’s more than just caring for your home and the people who reside in it. It’s exploring possibilities that bring light and warmth to your home.

When you see your home as a canvas, you can paint something completely your own. From its appearance, down to the activities you enjoy within the walls—anything is possible.

Why start homemaking?

Self-expression and self-sufficiency are the two main draws of homemaking. It’s a creative calling: You’re committing to cultivating a space that only you can make.

As for self-sufficiency, many homemakers add personal touches to their homes by making their own decor. Many don’t stop there. The DIY spirit follows them into the kitchen, the garden, and beyond.

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How to Convert Overwhelm to Calm Tenacity

When faced with possibilities, it’s easy to feel frozen and not know where to begin. We’ve all been there. But without stepping forward, our dreams remain the same distance away.

Your mindset during change is much more important than reaching the final destination. What good is a renovated living room if you dreaded the process the whole time?

Cultivating calmness during seasons of change empowers your creative decision-making. You can act decisively in the moment you’re in knowing the results will come in time.

Creating a home that reflects your unique interests and comforts is deeply fulfilling. It certainly requires more trial and error than having an interior designer do it for you. But if it wasn’t difficult, everyone would do it!

You can make your house a home, and you can certainly enjoy the process of doing so. Here’s how.

The Importance of Prioritization

With any big change, you must prioritize your most pressing needs first. While sewing throw pillows may still be on your to-do list, it would be poor timing to do it now while your items remain in boxes.

When I walked the first box through the threshold of our new home, the emptiness of the house took my breath away. I was both amazed by the fresh start and unsettled by it.

I recentered by focusing on the task at hand: Getting the boxes inside and out of the summer sun. No time to debate whether the wall color needs changing.

Next on the list: have our bed delivered. Then, unload boxes of kitchenware I’ll need to cook. Later in the week, we’ll plan on buying a dining table. The cardboard box table has seen better days.

The next month, our priority was furnishing our home. We found second-hand furniture on Offerup and bought a few items new from outlet stores. Piece by piece, the place transformed into our own. It finally felt like our house.

The Bare Domestic Necessities

After the moving phase, I was struck with a new challenge: maintaining the house and yard.

Prioritization once again came in handy here. I began with the home maintenance tasks that were most pressing until I got into a groove. Then, I began following a general schedule to keep on top of cooking and cleaning each week:

I encourage you, especially if you have a larger home, to enlist help in these tasks. Split the labor with your partner, roommate, family, or even hire help. Discard the idea that homemaking is a single-person job. Dividing the work keeps overwhelm at bay.

Remember, we care for our homes because they care for us. If you ever need swift motivation to clean, treat it as thanking your home for sheltering you and your loved ones.

We are fortunate to have our abodes of comfort and security in a world where that isn’t guaranteed. Making our homes shine is a way to offer thanks for the gift of home.

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Homemaking for Self-Expression

Once you have gotten the lay of the land, the fun can begin. You can start saving for desired decor items and get into the DIY spirit. Your work can finally be coupled with play as you bring your home dreams to life.

Before we dive into this, I want to briefly mention a roadblock I encountered in this step.

A Cautionary Word About Comparison

I am all for using the internet as a resource for interior design. However, I caught myself taking it a notch too far. I expected my home to mirror the carefully curated interiors I found immediately. It was disappointing when those dreams were thwarted by budget and time limitations.

My advice? Use photos for inspiration, but allow the results to flow naturally. There is no need to conform to an interior that already exists, especially if that result isn’t feasible for you.

Instead of letting limitations get you down, use your creativity to forge a solution for your space that works with your time and budget.

Our home looks nothing like the interiors I drooled over before. And now I look at those photos and just see someone else’s house. “Good for them,” I tell myself, “but my home is cute as a button as it is.”

Exercise: Let Yourself Dream

When you imagine a home that makes your heart sing, what makes it special? Is it the trumpet vines that grow on your porch? Or is it the sound of laughter in the living room?

Without holding back, write every hope and dream you have for your home. Audacity is encouraged. Knowing what you want is the first step in taking action.

• grapevine-covered trellis on the front porch
• a flower patch of butterfly and hummingbird favorites near the kitchen window
• a statement mirror for the mantle
• a cozy room dedicated to crafting and painting
• homemade soups and sourdough in the winter
• summer salads with ingredients from the garden
• curling up by a woodburning fireplace
• painting the bedroom a dark and moody teal
• dried floral arrangements
• clutter-free

Set Goals in Manageable Increments

The next step is to set realistic goals and deadlines. While you may be tempted to schedule “declutter the entire home” for next week, it may be wiser to stick to “declutter the bedroom” instead.

Take heart. It’s the small steps that eventually lead you to your goal.

Setting manageable goals is also a savvy way to make progress despite financial limitations. For example, you may not have cash to drop on a Kitchen Aid mixer, but you can start saving now while you learn easier baking recipes.

Time is only a limitation if the goals you set are too big. When in doubt, make the task smaller. A goal like baking a loaf of sourdough bread consists of many small steps over days. It requires consistency, not copious amounts of time.

Start by scheduling a small step in the day you’re in. What pressing task stands between you and your dream home? It may be as simple as the dirty dishes in the sink or the overgrown lawn.

Now set one task for today and complete it. Try to make it a task that takes less than half an hour.

Today: Clean the kitchen counters and do dishes

Now what about this week? What could you complete with consistent focus each day?

This week: Make and maintain a sourdough starter

In the same line of thinking, set a goal for this month.

This month: Bake my first loaf and a second to give to my parents

Go through this process for two other goals. The nice thing is that when goals are small enough, multiple can be pursued at once. It can be helpful to give yourself variety.

Goal 2: More family time

Today: Research meal prepping and choose a meal to make

This week: Grocery shop and make the meal

This month: Start weekly game nights with the family

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Goal 3: Start a garden

Today: Set a savings goal to buy gardening tools at the end of the month

This week: Watch videos on gardening methods

This month: pick an area for your garden and buy tools

It may help to revisit these goals weekly and set new daily and weekly tasks. You can make a whole ritual out of it if you wish. Start by celebrating your accomplishments in the past week before seeing the potential in the days ahead.

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Homemaking for Self-Sufficiency

Learn Some Homemaker Savvy

Homemaking differs from conventional homecare because it invites resourcefulness and meaning into the home.

There are plenty of ways to become more self-sufficient, decrease waste, and save money in many homemaking activities such as:

• composting food and yard waste
• growing fresh produce
• cooking and baking from scratch
• growing a flower garden
• home brewing
• baking bread
• furniture flipping
• making cleaning supplies
• sewing and mending
• knitting
• hosting get-togethers at home (instead of going out)
• handmaking gifts
• growing houseplants
• thrifting decor and furniture

Thrifting Home Decor

Creating a beautiful home does not entail breaking the bank on designer furniture. Especially with a mortgage, it is wiser to save than to spend willy-nilly.

With our home, I had a vision: mid-century simplicity meets warm and personable decor. Similar to the Scandinavian interior design.

What I was seeking had a hefty price tag. The first few furniture stores we visited crushed my spirits with how out of our budget they were.

I came to terms with having an empty house for a few months and gradually bringing in pieces when I could afford them. But then I found OfferUp (not sponsored).

We found beautiful and practical items for a third of their original price. Room by room, the house came together even better than I had imagined and for a fraction of the cost of new.

If you’re handy and see potential in old pieces, you might consider trying furniture flipping. There are plenty of tutorials on YouTube for good starter projects that can bring a personalized flare to your home.

In the same boat, you can transform basic IKEA furniture into one-of-a-kind pieces on a low budget, which saves you the hassle of thrifting. This YouTube channel has tons of IKEA transformations for a minimal and cozy interior.

Whether you personalize your home with second-hand items or flipped furniture, appreciate the fact that one less item is ending up in landfills because of your choice. Your wallet and your planet will thank you.

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A Final Word of Encouragement

In this post, we covered three skills to aid in your homemaking endeavors: prioritizing responsibilities, expressing yourself through your living space, and increasing your self-sufficiency.

There’s one more skill that is more necessary than anything else:

Patience.

It can take months to put a single room together, and that’s ok. Thoroughness is a good thing, after all. Often, our best creating happens when we aren’t in a rush.

Other times, it’s a skill that tries your patience. Even though you try to keep the house tidy every day, chaos always seems to win.

When homemaking, you’ll often find yourself in an awkward middle ground: better than you were previously but not where you hope to be. The key is to appreciate your steps forward with confidence that more will come with time.

In other words, you find patience through appreciation.

Appreciate the one decluttered corner of your room knowing you will work your way through the rest of it in time.

Appreciate that the dishwasher is loaded and running each night even if the living room is still a mess.

Give yourself time and space to grow. Celebrate each win. Learn and retry with each failure. You are capable of more than you can imagine. Everything comes in its time.

For now, focus on the single next to-do on your goals list. Task by task, you will move mountains.

Until next time,

O&K