Our lives are busy and few of us have a lot of spare time to fill with extra tasks. Between working and taking care of the house chores, raising a family, cooking and social activities, working out and anything else that takes up your day, it’s almost impossible to squeeze more hours out of your day or week for more things to do like making improvements to your house. Even if you know there are things you want to do, finding the motivation when you are already run down, can feel impossible. I’m here today to help you overcome your overwhelm and show you how to find the motivation you need to Improve your House.
When B and I bought our current home, we spent the first 3 years redoing everything from electrical and plumbing to renovating bathrooms and giving the rest of the rooms makeovers until we were able to fully renovate. We reached a point where we got burned out and then spent the next several years not doing much of anything while continuing to dislike many areas of our home. That’s not how you want to feel about your home but finding the motivation to start making progress again was hard.
It wasn’t until we dove into the kitchen renovation did we find motivation again to start improving our home again. Since then we’ve been slowly working on the areas that we haven’t been happy with. As we make progress, one question I get all the time is how we find time to not just start these projects but finish them. So today I’m sharing a few of the things we did to get us over the hump and back to doing things to make our house our home.
Identify the problem areas of your home.
Even if you aren’t living in your dream home, I’m sure if you really think about it, there are things you like about where you are living. Maybe it’s the natural light that floods into the rooms in the morning, or that great sofa you bought that you’d love to highlight more. Once you are feeling more positive, begin identifying the problem spots. Is the kitchen too cluttered? Does everything get dumped on the floor because you don’t have defined drop zones for everyone in the family. Is your bathroom hideous making you rush through your shower everyday?
The key here is to get real about what your home and be specific. I hate my house some days too but if I’m honest, there are specific reasons why, like the things I’ve listed above.
Prioritize and Pick One Thing at a Time
If your list of problem areas runs long, that’s OK. Look over your list and try to prioritize them in the order that makes the most sense. If doing a full kitchen remodel isn’t in the budget right now, consider starting with a smaller project or think of ways you can improve the space without a full renovation.
My favorite way to prioritize and pick a project to start with is picking the one thing that will make the most impact. For example, I have noticed our kitchen counters becoming more and more cluttered with keys, receipts, B’s wallet, etc. I find that I trip over his computer bag and lunch box because he comes into the house in the evening and plops his things down wherever.
While finding my kitchen countertops is a priority to making my life happier, the cause of this problem was actually that we didn’t have anywhere inside our back door to drop those things. That’s why I was motivated to start working on the mudroom project I’ve been sharing.
Start Small, but START
Whether it’s lack of time, a small budget or some other reason, the key to finding the motivation you need to improve your house is to not get overwhelmed and burned out. Even if you only have 30 minutes to spare each day, over the course of a week that is 2.5 hours which is plenty of time to paint a small room or do a small DIY project both of which will contribute to improving a room or area of your home. By starting small, you aren’t trying to tackle too much right away and you aren’t getting burned out. The key to this is to simply start. Whether you have minutes or hours, just start.
Build Momentum
Once you start completing small tasks that are contributing to a larger improvement, and you begin to see the results of your efforts momentum will start to build and you will slowly feel motivated to keep going. You may even find yourself finding more time in each day to devote to your efforts which is actually the motivation you were craving.
Listen to Your Mind and Body
Finishing a space is always the best but if you find yourself starting to dread working on a home improvement project or you start feeling stressed out that life got in the way and you haven’t had time to work on your project, remind yourself that it’s OK. Whether you take a day, week or month-long break from the improvements, the key is to not burn yourself out.
If nothing else, just start.
Improving your home is bigger than just making your house pretty. It actually improves your life because as you begin to love your home more and more, your mind and body becomes more peaceful and relaxed at home. Sometimes getting yourself motivated to improve your home requires you to simply start because, as I’ve said before, as you begin to see the progress you will become more motivated to keep going.
No home is perfect and whether you are in your dream home or not, chances are there are rooms or areas in your home that could be improved. From fuction to aesthetics, finding th emotivation to make improvements whether big or small can be difficult but if you follow the points I’ve laid out for you here, I am confident you will find some motivation for starting to make your home happier for you and your family.
Leave a Reply