Since you guys have enjoyed the past messy house tour videos that we’ve shared (like this one from our last house in 2011), we seized the opportunity to remind everyone that we’re not all carefully folded towels and meticulously placed pillows 24/7 (not even close). With our attention focused mostly on the showhouse & some last minute nursery updates, many of our other house projects have been put on hold (some are literally halfway done) and a handful of rooms have quickly devolved into chaos. And when your house is a mess, why not video tape it for the whole internet to see?
A few notes:
- There is no rapping in this video. I am both relieved and somewhat disappointed.
- I hate narrating these things and usually just hold the camera (I have steadier hands) while Sherry talks, but she was doing showhouse stuff so I put on my big boy pants and went for it.
- Burger is all over this thing like a helicopter in a P.Diddy video.
- Don’t worry about the droopy figs in the office. They bounce right back after getting some water… although they do seem to be suspiciously thirsty.
- If there truly were a wedding between a sabre toothed tiger and a pony, I would have given anything to attend it as a child (I was a huge fan of any type of tiger, and checked out a library book about tigers every week for two years straight in elementary school)
- Look at those gleaming hardwood floors after the climb to the second floor. They make my chest swell with pride.
- For everyone asking what’s on the fourth wall of the nursery, you catch a quick glimpse of it in the video (it’s just a floor lamp and the doorway to the hall for now, but we might add a “wall of fun” like we did in Clara’s room eventually)
- There’s some rarely seen footage of the unfinished storage room at the end of the upstairs hallway (and – surprise! – that’s a mess too)
- I edited the end of the video to cut off myself shouting “keeping it real” because something possessed me to yell that out and the end of the video like a Backstreet Boy circa 1995 and I couldn’t not let it see the light of day. You understand, right?
In case you can’t watch the video at work (it would still pretty much tell the story sans sound), here’s a quick tour-via-screengrab of some of the highlights.
If everything stays on schedule, we should have a few days between our big Homearama deadline and our baby arrival date when we can hopefully wrap up a couple of projects and return things to some semblance of order. You know, right before Barnacle comes along and throws us all out of whack again…
Does anyone else have any messes to fess up to? Is there some half-finished project that’s causing a ripple effect into other rooms around it? We can’t be the only ones.
Psst – Showhouse deadlines have kept us even crazier than expected this week, so we’re not going to have a post for you tomorrow, but we hope to be back at it again on Monday.
Laurie says
I think every DIY website should share their lived in rooms. I love seeing the gorgeous staged rooms (afterall, as DIYers, I think we are all about possibilities) but hopefully we are living happily in our spaces!
I love seeing your darling home and the cool stuff you have done but my favorite picture is the tiger wedding (good to know you have passed the love of tigers on to Clara).
My house is currently a disaster as I’m feveresihly in the midst of an office makeover and I have to get it done by Easter when I have invited in a bunch of people for dinner. Eep!
meredith says
Even messy, your house still looks beautiful and never even close to dirty! How do you manage that with kids and animals? Our house is a mess of fur balls (from cats & dog) and crushed goldfish (from toddler) if I don’t vacuum daily. And who has time to vacuum daily?! That said, it makes me feel much better to see that everyone has a mess sometimes and that toys aren’t always put away or blankets folded each evening. I think I set unrealistic expectations based on Pinterest and home blogs. Thank you so much for keeping it real and showing us that the pictures you normally post of your projects are your house in its best light, but perhaps not its daily living state : )
YoungHouseLove says
We try to run the vacuum when we can (I zipped around the house last weekend since we had relatives in town) and I love simple cleaning solutions (damp microfiber cloth for dusting, washing out sinks and toilets weekly so they stay pretty clean, etc). Doing small things as I go helps, but it’s not a hyper-clean house by any means :)
xo
s
Bethany says
Do you have some sort of cleaning “schedule” that you try to stick to? I usually do all my cleaning on Saturday morning, which is zero fun and can be overwhelming. I just made myself a mini little schedule to try to go by. Like dust on Monday, vacuum Tuesday, etc. I’m hoping I’ll actually stick to it though! Doing one thing each day seems a lot more bearable than doing everything at once, at least in theory! We’ll see how it goes…
YoungHouseLove says
That’s smart! We like to clean as we go, but I don’t have a daily task or anything. Sounds awesome!
xo
s
libradesigneye says
John – love the video week, and that a busy life / happy wife means we get you on camera. Since I’m at the “messy house cause boys have moved to college” and the last one home gets a new room stage, I now can think of certain rooms as places things are getting to vacation (snort). What works most for me (besides the sly pony-tiger baby boy predictions above), is your love coming thru. Sherry is literally creatin’ homerana / barnacle so you and burger step into the need. Love in action – that is sexy. (not to me cougaring on u – generally to busy moms everywhere) lde
Sarah M says
I am the queen of half-finished projects. Painted the kids bathroom but didn’t finish the edge by the ceiling, bought a storage ottoman and hook rail for a “mini mudroom” in the hall but can’t put it together until we paint in there, got curtains and rod for the dining room but haven’t hung them….. I could go on. Thanks for “keeping it real!!!”
Isabel says
Well it’s definitely nice to know you guys are as real as the rest of us :) My husband and I try, we’re only 2 adults after all but we’re only about 50% successful. Now the dogs are shedding so I just give up until it’s over. Our house is very much connected like yours, typical colonial I guess, so when we worked on the kitchen the mess just seemed to spill over into every downstairs room. Then they delivered the wrong sofa so even the living room became a hot mess with the behemoth covered in sheets and all other furniture pushed back out of the way. Can’t wait for spring to actually start, then the house will stay clean and tidy since we’ll be spending all our time outside!
Kate S. says
Love that you guys really show this stuff. And man! Seeing those baby clothes on the guest bed pulled at my heart strings. I loved being in that time. So happy for you.
April says
Breath in, breath out! Give yourselves a break! You guys rock and the Barnacle is going to fall right in perfectly. He will probably be sleeping most of his first weeks so I imagine you’ll get more done than you think. :)
Michelle says
Ha! Yet another reason to love your blog. We are fixing up our (rented) house and starting to work on a nursery for the bug due in September and I love coming here for ideas and instructions! In fact, we saw your collection at Target while making our registry this weekend and I spent the rest of the trip rambling to my husband about how much I LOVE the showhouse. (If we still lived in metro DC I’d definitely be driving down for the tour!)
YoungHouseLove says
You’re so sweet Michelle! Thanks!
xo
s
Megan W says
Just wondering how you get rid of kids clothes? Consignment sale, Craigslist, garage sale, donate? I just found out I am having a baby girl and now have to get rid of all of my son’s old clothes and shoes.
YoungHouseLove says
We have a lot of hand me downs that we return and I also donate and consign. I did keep a few sentimental outfits/hats/shoes I couldn’t part with though.
xo
s
Kely says
This is me being a dorky designer, but what font did you use for your captions to the photos? I love it :)
YoungHouseLove says
Ostrich Sans. We love that font.
xo
s
Travelstovegas says
Thanks for being honest! One of the reasons I like this website so much is because you guys aren’t afraid to talk about the good, the bad & the ugly. As a mom of a 2.5 year old daughter and 4 month old son, my house has a ton of folded clothes that never seem to make it into the proper drawers, and they pile up on the guest bed too! It’s hard not to feel guilty about the things that don’t get done, but it helps to know that other people are in the same boat some weeks (or months… or years!).
Samantha @ Fabulous Fabris says
Will have to watch the video when I get home, but that makes me feel better about myself ;) You’re both normal people after all!
Caroline says
Oh please. Your disastrously messy is my day-ending-in-y. I love house blogs and design shows, and I have not one bit of capability in that area. Wanna come pimp my house sometime?
YoungHouseLove says
Haha, sure! Be right over ;)
xo
s
Ashley says
Have you thought about a glass door beside the laundry area to take advantage of all that natural sunlight to that corner?! I LOVE that extra space, Lucky!!! And Burger is the cutest video-bomber ;)
YoungHouseLove says
That would be so pretty! I pinned something like that a while back – love the idea!
xo
s
lindsey says
Or even a frosted glass door would be great, si no one can see your stockpile.
YoungHouseLove says
Pretty!
xo
s
Lauren says
I love how the video tour really gives you a good idea what the space feels like – especially lived-in space! Sucks that you can’t put anything on those counters yet…bleh. Good luck with everything!
Rachel K says
Thank you so much for posting this! It is extremely refreshing to see. We live in an 800 sq foot apartment with a 7 month old so you can imagine what our place looks like with nowhere to hide a mess, lol!
Stephanie says
I love seeing the normalcy!
Even without the previous bullet in the list, I’d have known this was written by John. $herdog would have never spelled it “P.Ditty”.
YoungHouseLove says
You know it. Haha! All fixed. I’m more partial to Puff anyway.
xo
s
Amy says
Thanks for the tour! Glad we’re all a little messy!
I love the light gray paint color in the foyer and upstairs hall. What is it?
YoungHouseLove says
That’s Edgecomb Gray by Ben Moore.
xo
s
Carole says
Have loved you guys for years, but this makes me love — and respect — you a hundred times more. Keeping it real! I do love the beautiful pictures of your house, because they give me something to aspire to. But these pictures really drive home that it can be done — that we all have messes and that I can get my messy house to look like your tidy one.
Hannah Wallace says
Love the messy house tour! We just bought our first home and it has a vanity that’s open to the master bathroom like yours. Does it drive you guys bananas like it does me? I do not want to see/hear my spouse brush/floss their teeth every day. Or am I just crazy?
YoungHouseLove says
So funny! Maybe we are just used to it? Our last house had a sink that was even more in the bedroom, so it’s just all we know (never had a master bath in our first house).
xo
s
Richelle says
Thank you for this… I have been going quietly insane over the perpetual state of half-finishedness in our house, and the roving objects that are “vacationing” in odd places. Glad to know it’s not just us living in chaos… ;)
Melissa B. says
Haha Richelle – I love your terminology here! …”roving objects that are ‘vacationing’ in odd places”, perfect description. I would describe my situation the same way, ditto your whole comment! :-)
Paige says
So I noticed the ol’ “All You Need is Love” artwork in your storage area and I thought, “That would actually look pretty cool in the new nursery.” Have you guys thought about utilizing it in there? Or in anywhere else in the house for that matter?
YoungHouseLove says
I want to hang that in the dining room either between the built ins or over the buffet, so once we paint I’ll break it out. It’s really big so it would have pushed out the bike art in the nursery.
xo
s
Chandler @ AllPrecious&PleasantBlog says
Looks familiar, and I LOVE how real you guys are. I feel like a lot of bloggers wait to show any photos of their home until it is Pinterest-worthy, and it is a breath of fresh air to see some of my favorites keepin’ it real and letting us in on the animal weddings and laundry piles :-) A house isn’t a home without a little bit of mess!
Amy says
Yes!!! I love reading your blog but never really post comments. I had to this time because we are in the same boat of house wreckage. Our first baby is due in May and we’re re-modeling the master bedroom (almost done!) and my husband is re-tiling the bathroom (no where near done). Then we’re having our hardwood floors refinished in two weeks. House is a disaster. Desks and beds in the dining room, nursery/baby items EVERYWHERE, paper in every room (is that a mail pile from January?!). I have a hot date with some trim and a can of paint after work tonight ;) No worries, using zero voc paint and staying elsewhere during floor refinish. Love that we’re not the only people living in total chaos with a baby coming!
Jedi Mama says
Wow! Suddenly…. my kitchen counters covered in last night’s dirty dinner dishes, because TOO MUCH GOING ON TO GET THEM THROWN IN THE DISHWASHER, and the pile of laundry on my closet floor that has climbers from all over the world calling me to try and secure climbing permits and permission to summit doesn’t make me feel so bad, because LOOK! YOUNG HOUSE LOVE’S KITCHEN TABLE LOOKS LIKE MINE!! And we might not have a little wedding going on in the living room, because BOYS, but we have Trains of Thunder and forty-eleven miles of track all over our hardwood floors. Thanks for keeping it real!
Katherine says
Many thanks for the highlights summary. I was about to be sad that I couldn’t see your post until tonight.
I think this is the first time my place has EVER been cleaner than yours. I took out (old, gross, smelly) WtW carpet from my apartment in stages over the past several months, which has occasionally forced all of my possessions into one room for a week at a time. Everything finally looks okay, if you discount the fact that I still haven’t taken up all the carpet tacking. (No kids or pets to get hurt on it; enabling my laziness.)
Annelies says
Love the flow in your house! And so happy to see I’m not the only one who has some mess in their house sometimes :-) Good luck with the babies (showhouse & Barnacle) !
Nina says
Thanks for the post guys!
Quick question (and again I am sorry if this has been answered elsewhere!), but where is that lovely cream ottoman from? For some reason after reading the blog forever I am just noticing it and I am in the market for a similar one.
Thanks!
Nina
YoungHouseLove says
That was from Joss & Main a few years back. So helpful since it hinges open and we can hide things in there… like blankets! Haha!
xo
s
Alison says
Don’t work too hard Sherry, your energy amazes me.
Tirsa says
Great job John!
Thanks for making me feel better about our mess. I have still to put away things from our weekend trip. (I’ll get to it today, I promise! :) )
Will miss you tomorrow, but totally understand. I can’t imagine how crazy it is for you guys right now. Can’t wait to see the finished show house.
Kati says
Have a fabulous day of not posting guys!!! I know it will be the opposite of a break, and I hope it is as productive as you need it to be. Thanks for keeping us in the loop with your adventures. :-)
YoungHouseLove says
Am thanks Kati!
xo
s
Erin says
Love this – thanks for sharing!!
And sending you lots of good thoughts for baby boy’s arrival!
Melissa @ Loving Here says
Yes, we have a mess—we just started the giant kitchen remodel…so yes, there’s a lot of displaced items…including a giant pantry sitting in the middle of our kitchen floor! Yikes!
Happy early weekend since we won’t see ya tomorrow!
http://lovinghere.com/the-kitchen-is-started/
Jen says
It is definitely refreshing to see that you guys have clutter too. I’m always down on myself because I have three (yes, three, I’m insane) large dogs and between their fur and toys, it’s hard to tell I clean all the time.
But the real reason I wanted to comment was to say thank you for being so considerate of your readers who view your blog from work and who can’t watch the videos. I always get bummed when other blogs post videos that I can’t watch, so it was so nice that you posted some screen shots from the videos for me to see! Thank you!
YoungHouseLove says
Of course Jen!
xo
s
Jill says
Love this video! Thanks for being honest and showing us what your house looks like on a normal basis. It’s comforting to know that other people “live” in their homes the way we do. :)
Jessie says
Oh my goodness, I busted out laughing at the Burger-helicopter-Pdiddy thing, you all are too much, anyways, it is nice to know that my house is not the only house that is less than perfect, in fact, we are getting ready to put our house on the market, so we are in the middle of putting in floors and this and that and it is amazing how that process can destroy one’s living space!
Kimberly says
I know it’s silly, but I LOVE when you all do this. I know that you’re not perfectly neat all the time, but seeing proof of it does wonderful things for my heart and self-worth. ;-) My house is always a constant state of mess – one room will be clean, but only because I’ve moved it all to another room and then never get around to cleaning that one. Then the original room gets messy again – gah! It’s a terrible, terrible cycle!!!
I’ll just drink some wine instead…
Steph Reiner says
Okay first of all, I thought the caption for the Dining Room was going to say “Where stuff from the office and living room go to die…” Does that make me morbid?
Secondly, I wish our house was as “messy” as yours right now! We moved a month ago and still have stuff in boxes because there’s flooring to be finished and painting to be done. BUT I also know what it’s like to have a mess everywhere and feel sorta overwhelmed. But 38 wks preggo and showhouse stuff are really good reasons to just have a messy house for awhile. :)
Taya says
Ah. You just made me feel waaaayyyy less guilty about the clutter in my house. I love how you two show the world how you are actually real people!
Quiana says
Really appreciate this! I read this as I prepare to host a get together this weekend of 30 people and am not quite ready (why then am I on the internet?!). Anyway, I did a “behind closed doors” post once I saw something similar on another blog and found the response I received was great. Readers LOVE seeing real life so thank you for sharing! ::runs off to clean::
Susan V says
Thanks for keeping it real and not having people live up to an unrealistic version real life.
Lily says
This makes me breathe a big old sigh of relief! You guys are the best. Thanks for sharing these :)
xo Lily
http://whilemyboyfriendsaway.blogspot.com/
keisha says
Love that you shared this. Makes me feel a little better. ;-)
Becky says
I really think you should have left the keeping it real comment on!
Yancey says
Did you guys mention what double stroller you purchased in a blog post? I can’t remember. I’m having a difficult time deciding which one to purchase for when our new addition comes in July! If you have done your research I would love to reap the benefits of it.
YoungHouseLove says
I think if you search: do new for baby 2, it should come up I think!
xo
s
Laura says
Thanks for keeping it real, y’all. You two definitely deserve a break…I get tired just thinking about all you do!
Jeanette says
Your blog posts are a mid-morning break for me at work, so I love it when you post video summaries for us folk who can’t turn up the volume yet!
Good luck on the show house stuff tomorrow/on the weekend!
holly says
Wow. Just wow. That’s not messy, that is total chaos. Didn’t you just have people over for a race? Where did they stand, sleep, eat? I mean, sure, we all have piles of stuff in a random room or a messy kitchen island but every single surface is covered in STUFF. Maybe spring 2014 should be a “simplify” themed time for you guys. The iheartorganizing blog is a good one to help you get storage systems in place so that you can live with less clutter. Once you get systems going you do not ever need that kind of chaos in every room because everything has a place that makes sense and is easy to access. Like maybe convert the toy closet in the front hall to the place where you store things to be craigslisted or donated, and designate one area in the storage room for furniture and another for housewares and put up shelving? Or, since you clearly can tolerate no large dedicated desk space int he office, line the wall with big Ikea wardrobes so that all your bits and pieces are handy but concealed?
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks for the tips! We’ve hosted family through kitchen gut-jobs (no kitchens at all- let alone no table) and they still miraculously like us! We thankfully have a lot of DIYers in the fam so they seem to be ok with chaos (they host us that way too) and we have a lot of family in Richmond so everyone can gather at other houses if ours is crazy (we can host easy stuff like donut breakfasts or all meet out for bagels at a cute local place).
xo
s
Bethany says
Holly,
Thanks for the IHeartOrganizing blog tip, I found a Monthly Cleaning Plan calendar that I’m going to try out! I’m actually excited to go home and clean. Which is very weird.
Kati says
Wow that blog is awesome! Thanks for sharing!
Lauren says
I’m floored by the amount of “stuff” you have! And where do you eat? All the tables are full!
But your floors do look good and shiny!
YoungHouseLove says
Sadly we have been eating at the showhouse or with family/friends since we have been working late a bunch of nights so we are still running around during dinner time. Can’t wait to get our table back!
xo
s
Sandy says
Ahhh yes, it’s about this stage when we start getting lots of drop-in guests popping over for a visit and,”Oh what a great house! Can I have a tour?” o.O
Nice to know we aren’t the only ones whose house can look like this at times. Ours does more often than I’d like to admit. Get a couple projects going at once and bam! disaster ensues. My husbands motto is, “Progress is messy.” So I guess it’s okay as long as we are making progress. That’s what I’m going to stick with anyway.