Zoning Your Living Room – Episode 104

Creating boundaries in your living room is important to keep it how you want it. I am not saying your living room needs to be a specific way — but by creating the living room that YOU enjoy will make it easier to relax.

Big thanks to our sponsor The Organized Home — I want you to have the home YOU want, and with some simple steps you CAN get there. This course is for families to create a more organized home, and you can join for just a month or for a full year!

In this episode

Why boundaries are hard

How you keep boundaries in the living room.

Organizing media, and deciding if it’s important.

Other things that might interest you

Organizing your living room post

Cleaning Your Living Room

How to Organize your Home on a Budget

Producer: Drew Erickson

Check out my other household tips podcasts:

Check out all my podcasts:

Transcript

[00:00:01.090]

Hey, guys, welcome back to the Pulling Curls Podcast. Today on Episode 104, we are talking about boundaries, which is something not so good at. So let’s untangle it.

[00:00:22.360]

Hi, I’m Hilary Erickson, the curly head behind the Pulling Curls Podcast we untangle pregnancy, parenting, home and even travel. We know there’s no right answer for every family, but hopefully we can spark some ideas that will work for yours. Life’s tangled just like my hair.

[00:00:46.100]

OK, before we get started, I would really like to set up a boundary that you leave me a review. Can we leave that boundary? Can you do that boundary? OK. So really, we’re talking about the living room. And the living room for me is a lot about boundaries, because I really want my living room to be a fun, happy place where we enjoy lots of different activities. But I also want a super easy to clean up and I don’t want my kids crap all over the place all the time.

[00:01:11.690]

Is it just me? Feel free to comment on Instagram if it’s just me, because maybe it is. But I think it’s really hard for us to keep those boundaries because often it requires us reminding our kids possibly several times or making a consequence, you know, if the boundary isn’t withheld. So I just think that the living room can be a little bit difficult, especially for moms.

[00:01:33.470]

Do you ever just feel like it’s unfair that some people can have company over at a moment’s notice? Their house is just super easy to clean up and they can relax on the couch with Netflix where you feel like you always have things to do around your house. That can totally be you. The Organized Home is all new in 2021. We’re talking about de cluttering, zones, organization systems that actually work. We’ve got assignments and challenges. I hope you’ll join us. You can use coupon code untangled. Look for the organized home, link in the show notes.

[00:02:03.620]

Another thing that I think is important to think about is like my living room growing up, we didn’t go in unless somebody was visiting. Like my grandparents would come over and we would sit in that room. And I think we maybe did some birthdays in there, like with my grandparents. But it wasn’t an area that we, like, sat down to watch TV. The sofas weren’t particularly comfortable. You know, we had a family room, which is where we did all that.

[00:02:27.260]

But I didn’t want a room that our family wasn’t going to be using like that, didn’t support us. So we have kind of a living room that we all watch TV in. And then we have a playroom slash family room where like all the gaming consoles are and they game out. So that’s kind of how we set it up for our own family. So I would just encourage you to kind of look inside and see what you really want. If you want that formal living room, get it, knock yourself out.

[00:02:52.520]

But don’t just have it because your mom had it or because you think that’s the right thing to do. I would just much rather use my whole house personally. OK, and then you need to look inside and decide what kind of boundaries you want. Do you mind toys in the living room? You know, I didn’t mind toys coming into the living room. And when my kids were tiny, I totally had toys in the living room because I wanted them to be entertained while I was entertained by the TV.

[00:03:13.610]

Right. And I needed to watch them because, you know, babies. But as they grew up and they were able to put things away and have different spots to put things away, I had an expectation that they put things away after using them in the living room. But when I had babies, I just had a basket designated for kids stuff, baby stuff. And so that was fine, too. And again, I made it so that it was super easy to clean up.

[00:03:35.510]

This wasn’t a thing that had bajillions of pieces but had some fun items for the baby to enjoy. Another area that I think we need to look at is, our media items in the living room. Growing up it was a place for all our VHS’s. Right. And now it’s all of our DVDs and CDs and Blu ray. And what was that big thing that they used to have back in the day? I don’t… Laserdisc? Anyway. We have kept a place for all those different things.

[00:03:58.910]

But I will tell you that if I can find it free on pretty much any thing, I will much rather do that than go hunting through my DVD collection. And sometimes I can’t even find it. And then I end up buying it anyway. And then later I find it and I’m so ticked off, but I also already own it. So I’m just saying that I much prefer the services where we can get it, you know, wherever we are.

[00:04:19.910]

And I don’t have to organize it rather than thumbing through all the videos that we have. That being said, our car has a DVD player in it and our kids love bringing DVDs with them. So we still want the DVDs. I would just propose that maybe they don’t need to be as accessible as maybe they once needed to be or pared down to what you just really love instead of just what was kind of on sale and you bought for Christmas one year.

[00:04:41.840]

Just something to think about. I think media is changing and I don’t think we need to leave our living rooms or our media area the same with all of the changes that are going on also. So when you create your boundaries, I think it’s really important to tell your family why you created the boundaries. And for me it is. I want this room to represent our family well, and I want it to be really easy to clean up, because in general, I’m the one who just tidies it.

[00:05:05.720]

My kids clean up their own stuff, but I’m the one who kind of just makes it look OK. Or my husband actually does a great job, too, before company or whatever comes over company. Is that even a thing anymore? I don’t even know what company means, but when people come over, like, I just I like to be able to within 30 seconds have that room looking OK, which is why I have a lot of baskets to hide all the things right.

[00:05:24.500]

And by the way, this episode is called Inside the Living Room. Section of the organized home is coming out real soon and I would love to see you guys in there. You can use coupon code untangled like i mentioned before, and you can get fifteen percent off. You only have to join for a month. You can jump out after the month’s over and then join whenever you’re in the mood. So. I would love to see you as in there I have a whole video of my own living room and some of the boundaries that we have, and I show you some of the things that are in our living room that I don’t love, but I don’t live here alone.

[00:05:51.230]

So that’s how it has to be. So tell your family why you’re creating those boundaries so that they kind of understand a little bit more rather than I don’t want your toys in here, you little messy kid. Right? This is just as big for me as it is for anyone else. I’m not great at telling my kids, oh, I should be better. And then you may need to, you know, do three or four times where you clean up with the kids, especially if they’re a little bit smaller.

[00:06:15.290]

OK, it’s time to clean up the living room. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Mom’s not going to help you next time. But today I’m going to show you how fun it can be, right. Mary Poppins it up so that hopefully they can do it on their own soon and they realize that that’s the consequence of bringing your toys into the family room. You get all that good time, but you also just need to put them away, which is not a huge deal because we are going to Mary Poppins them.

[00:06:34.010]

Right. So what I have to say about this is that boundaries in organization always need to be set. I think it’s really obvious in the living room. It might also be obvious in your kitchen, like I have a boundary that my daughter’s homework stuff no longer belongs in the kitchen where it did when she was little. Right. When I really needed to help her first grade, second grade, you know, those younger grades. But then as she got older, I was like, you can homework in your room.

[00:06:54.830]

I don’t need to be here. You’re welcome to homework in the kitchen. But I don’t need all your glue sticks and crayons and everything in here. So, yeah, just make sure that you’re keeping the boundaries at a place that both of you are comfortable. You know, you want your kids to be happy and healthy in your home, but you also want it to be easy to clean up. So just think for yourself what’s going to work for you.

[00:07:11.960]

What boundaries can you set to make your home easy to organize? Right. I hope you guys enjoy this episode and I hope you’ll keep our boundary by leaving me a review.

[00:07:21.980]

Thanks so much for joining us on today’s episode. We know you have lots of options for your ears and we are glad that you chose us. We drop episodes weekly and until next time, we hope you have a tangle free day.