WHAT SHOULD A HOME BE LIKE?

I see my readers as like myself. We want to avoid a long, lifeless weeknight, so we try to make good food and have a good conversation. We don’t want a bunch of restless, boring kids in our house, so we build a home that is welcoming to every age (including the adults still!). We don’t want the regret of squandering our family’s time together. We don’t want a home that doesn’t comfort or inspire.

Homes should be a joyful, refined environment for us to grow and experience belonging. I like to share things to maybe help or inspire you to have a sense of sophistication and enthusiasm about your house. For beautiful, thriving families. And of course, also to simply answer that reoccurring question – what should I make for dinner? (THIS lasagna grilled cheese!)

You can subscribe to my newsletter, follow me on instagram (stories are so fun), pinterest (a continual inspiration gold mine), see the progress of our home renovation, or visit my shop of curated useful, pretty finds here.

David Schultz

I am putting David on the about page because he is my husband, captain, and best friend, who manages me. He is the “why” behind everything you see here. He’s just a classic A+ dad sort of guy. Sometimes he blesses us with his presence and writes a post about something masculine like installing hardwood floors, making diy floating shelves, how to prune a fruit tree, making a diy basketball backboard, or building benches and dining tables, indoor or outdoor

Rachel Schultz

Rachel is me, and I write content. I am the author of the cookbook Happily Homemade and love home renovation, decor, cooking, and motherhood. I am really into homemaking and living in God’s design for women. My main thing I spend my time on is as a wife and mother of four children. Some of my favorite posts to write have been job ideas to include your children in cooking, homemade vanilla extract, and the asking moms interview series.

FAQ

How do you keep your house so clean?

This is kind of hard to answer because families have their own norms for level of cleanliness they like to live in. My husband likes being neat. And I’m into cleaning (as well as organizing). So we don’t like to go to bed if the house is messy, but it’s not usually stressful, just something we do at the end of the day to feel nice. I guess the short answer and real answer is hard work.

How do you choose paint colors for your house? 

I paint so many rooms white which maybe at first seems like I don’t love color, but I really do. I have certain colors on my “love” list (most shades of blue, most shades of yellow, bright red orange, dark wine, olive, emerald, blush pink) and certain colors on my blacklist (most oranges, lime green, burgundy).  I paint my walls white so that I am free to use a lot of color and pattern in everything else in the room. Also for most of us who have a middle of the road house size, your home will feel so much bigger and more continuous and calming when you do one color for as many of the rooms as possible. For picking color, it always looks more intense on the swatch than in the room. If I want a subtle color, I actually get out a paint deck and go to the “neutrals” section and pick a color that is a neutral with a lot of the color you want. For example, I want my daughter’s room to be blush pink, so I will not go to the pinks section, but go to the whites, and I would pick the most pink white. If you ARE going for a saturated bold color you don’t have to do this. And that’s usually how I work with color, either very subtle or extremely intense (like I love an acid yellow).

What’s your advice to bloggers who want to grow? Do you think blogging is a viable option for income?

Blogging is a viable option for income, but it is not an easy option for income. Sometimes I hear people say they’re looking to make some extra money so they’ll start up a blog will soon add an extra income on the side with a couple hours everyday. Which is not how it often works! A lot for earning money blogging can hinge on the number of readers you have. (The exception might be if you are selling product or service to a very invested smaller group.) The number of readers you have is based on how quality your content is. I think photography is very significant for many niches (at least the more feminine, housekeeping ones?). A few months would be fast to start making a couple hundred dollars a month. But you could do it – if your content is excellent. Here too I wrote some advice on creative endeavors.

How has your relationship with your marriage changed after kids? How do you keep it strong?

We don’t feel like our relationship changed a lot from having kids. Now we have a new shared love that we spend a lot of time talking about! One way to keep a strong marriage is thinking of yourselves as one entity (because you are!).

Any and all questions about mothering.

I like writing about motherhood in principle. My best advice is to build a relationship with an older mom who you want to parent like and learn from her. I have one, maybe two mom friends who I asked about baby sleeping stuff and no one else. Any questions? I just went to them and got consistent advice for one philosophy. Googling or crowd sourcing opinions on the internet (even from a bunch of people you know) I think is pretty useless. I credit the ease of motherhood partly to lots of things I learned from the moms I have a real life, face to face relationship with. (But definitely the kids’ personalities and the mom’s personality is part of this too, so I don’t discredit those factors for people!) I think the internet is great for craft ideas, food ideas, decor inspiration, organizational stuff, cleaning tips, entertaining tips, etc. I share that.

How has your love of cooking changed from becoming a mom? How do you fight through times of less inspiration to put great food on the table?

People ask me a lot some variation of “you love cooking; how can I love cooking too?” And the first thing I want to say is to acknowledge it is a grind. But it helps to realize that you are going to be cooking for fifty years, so you should get good at it and learn to like it. Which, I can attest I have more and more. At the place where I exercise, one of the phrases they use during the work out is “don’t stay on top of the work.” Which means don’t just get through this hour, but push and engage your muscles as much as you can, and make it hard so you feel it and actually produce something good. Which, “don’t stay on top of the work” is actually a really good thought I have applied to things like my everyday work in the home. Don’t try to get by doing as little as possible. You have to provide meals one way or another, so get down into it and do something good instead of going through the motions and doing something mediocre everyday. AND STILL we must balance this with sometimes what is best for your family is simple or frozen meals! Work hard, but rest. And do whatever will most serve and bring peace to the home in this season. (I just wrote that same idea in the doing art with kids post. It applies to so much of homemaking!) Also getting some fun new cookbooks helps!

What is your favorite recipe you have ever made?

Some of David’s favorites are: easy homemade calzones, (lightened up!) red pepper and goat cheese pasta, and roasted strawberry & chocolate grilled brie.

My three favorites (right now) are: coconut custard pie (in the blender)black bean & spinach chicken enchiladas, and cocoa zucchini bread.

Do you create all your own recipes?

My favorite thing about food is that it is a communal event that brings people together. Many recipes are developed myself from scratch, and lots of others are tweaked from other recipes, perhaps from my friend’s mom or another blog on the internet.

Any question about a recipe.

The very best way to contact about this is in the comments section. I think I usually respond.

Do you make money from this blog?

Yes, we make money from a few different avenues. Rachel Schultz LLC is a participant in the amazon services associates program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.

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