Stylish Homemaking is doing everything you would do in basic homemaking but it is giving it a better effort by noticing the details. It’s adding a bunch of flowers to a vase you just cleaned! The skills remain the same but the mind set is to do that little bit extra.
Where are you on the Homemaking scale of skills?
Basic Homemaking is making sure our homes are clean and comfortable, the clothes are washed regularly and there’s food on the table. Every style from then to now has that in common.
Picking up from where Grandma left off, we see how homemaking evolved in the times we were growing up.
With so much more responsibility being placed on women to subsidise household income, we saw our mothers try to simplify homemaking. Many did any with crisp linen served with every meal. Many also
During this period, we also saw mothers struggling to keep things going and how it often affected their self esteem and health.
So, slowly we moved from traditional homemaking to a more simplified one which includes focus on self care.
In our family, I was the struggling mother while my mum was the traditional homemaker.
Mum’s homemaking included baking every week or more, gardening, sewing and embroidery, cooking our meals, maintaining laundry and she kept the house clean and the dishes washed. She conducted baking classes and was often commissioned to bake customised cakes and desserts.
When my kids were growing up, I worked outside of the home and that meant simplifying my homemaking. The easiest solution (for me) was creating good habits and routines. This helped me get through everything I needed to do in a day. I have always used a planner to keep my tasks and thoughts organised. Needless to say, as you probably already know, I never did any gardening until recently.
That back story is meant to show that simplified homemaking is in no way inferior to traditional homemaking. We adapt what we know to be homemaking to suit the needs of our family and our own situation. Everyone needs different skills to keep their family and home functional.
Here is a list of Homemaking Skills which have been used for generations and while it is in no way exhaustive, it can be said to be universally used in varying ways.
Cleaning and organizing
Cooking
Baking
Sewing and mending
Gardening and food preservation
Basic natural home remedies
Caring for children
Shopping
Entertaining
Budgeting
Decluttering
Creating routines and systems
What we use today is modern homemaking. Modern Homemaking is taking control of our homes and our lives so they can run smoothly even while we are attending to other matters. It’s making sure our homes are clean and comfortable, the clothes are washed, and there’s food on the table.
We have therefore added skills like having a planner (or two) meal planning and delegation to our skill set.
Although these are all part of our daily homemaking tasks, we must remember our vision and our goal is to create a beautiful, vibrant home life that nurtures our own soul and the soul of anyone who enters our doors.
This vision is the key to you pinpointing what skills you need in creating the home of your choice and your mission is to keep only what you need to function productively.
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