44: Creating a Home You Love to Be In: Tips from DIY Blogger Colleen Pastoor
DIY blogger and author Colleen Pastoor shares her expert tips on how to plan and budget for a room makeover. With her practical advice, listeners can identify the problems and solutions for their space, gather inspiration from Pinterest, and prioritize the most important pieces that will serve their family's needs. Colleen also emphasizes the importance of decluttering and assessing the room objectively. With her guidance, listeners can create a home they love that supports their well-being.
Summary
Creating a home that you love to be in is a crucial aspect of maintaining a healthy lifestyle, according to Colleen Pastoor, a DIY blogger and author behind Lemon Thistle. In a recent episode of the HobbyScool podcast, Colleen shared tips on how to plan and budget for a room makeover.
Colleen recommends starting with identifying the problems and solutions for the room. She suggests creating a Pinterest board to gather inspiration and ideas for changes that can be made to your own space. "Pinterest is super smart," she says. "Their algorithm is clever. So if you start typing in living room ideas and you start pinning a few that you like the look of, you can scroll down on every single Pin and it will feed you more pins that are similar to what you've already pinned."
Once you have a clear idea of what changes you want to make, it's important to budget accordingly. Colleen advises starting with a lump sum budget or calculating how much money to save for the makeover, and adding a 10% contingency for unexpected expenses. She offers a free budgeting spreadsheet for one room makeovers on her website, lemondedistle.com.
Colleen also stresses the importance of prioritizing the most important pieces first and focusing on what will serve the family's needs, rather than following trends. "And I think that with home renovations, we kind of run into that as well because we think, oh, we're going to save money, but if we don't have the different tools or we don't have the different skills, it can kind of add up," she explains. "So not just budgeting for the furniture that you need to buy, but also the changes that you want to make to the room."
To avoid feeling overwhelmed, Colleen suggests starting with decluttering. She recommends starting with one cupboard at a time and creating systems so that they don't get back to being cluttered. When doing a room makeover, Colleen suggests going into the room and giving it an assessment as if you don't live there. She recommends being critical about what is good and what should be changed to better serve your family.
In conclusion, creating a home you love is an essential element of a happy and healthy lifestyle. By following Colleen's tips on planning, budgeting, and decluttering, you can make changes to your space that will support and enhance your well-being.
Mentioned In This Episode
Where to find Colleen: Website and Instagram
Free Gift: Room Makeover Budgeting Spreadsheet
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Transcript:
Destini Copp 0:00:02
And my special guest today is Colleen Pastoor. Colleen is the DYI blogger and author behind Lemon, thisl blog, where she shares hands on tutorials, home renovations, hand letter designs, and projects to simplify your life beautifully. If you enjoy modern home decor that's cozy for your family, saving money through DYI and simplified lifestyle, then you're going to love the tutorials Colleen shares. Colleen, thank you so much for joining me. I am so excited to jump into this topic with you today, and we're going to be talking about getting attentional about creating a home you love to be in. And before we get into all the questions I have for you, can you tell the good audience a little bit more about you and how you help people?
Destini Copp 0:00:57
Yes.
Colleen Pastoor 0:00:58
Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here and chat with you today. So I have been blogging at Lemon Thistle for over ten years now, which just feels wild. And through that time, I've gone from little DIYs to big DIYs and home renovations and all the creative things that I love. And I've had some really fun opportunities. I've had a book published last year, but the thing that I've been working on lately is answering some of the questions that I get around home DIY and a lot of the concerns that I get from readers. Oh, I love that. I wish I could do that. I just don't even know how to use the tools. Oh, I wish I could do that, but we don't have the budget to hire it out. And a lot of DIYing a home is to save money and is to learn how to do these things yourself. So I'm working on putting really just practical content that you can take and run with to start DIYing your own room makeovers in your house right now. And I'm having so much fun with that, and I love seeing how much it's able to help my readers.
Destini Copp 0:02:09
And one of the things we're going to be talking about today is creating a home that we love to be in. And like you said, it does cost money, but if you're doing it yourself, you can certainly save so much money by doing that. But first, let me ask you, there's a lot of things I don't like. I'll just be honest with you. I've done a lot of things I don't like about my house, and I would like to change them or make them more beautiful. But why should we even bother doing that? Why take the time, energy, effort and the money to do that?
Destini Copp 0:02:43
Yeah, absolutely.
Colleen Pastoor 0:02:45
So especially if your home is more than just a lending base for you. I know when I was young and I was in university, I was home only to sleep. I spent no time there. But life stages change, and I spend a lot more time at home. I want home to be a safe place for me, a place that supports me and the habits that I want to have, the lifestyle that I want to have. For me, it is important for my family to enjoy being here. We want to be able to find the things that we use on a regular basis. And I mean, scientifically clutter and having a home that feels out of control raises your cortisol levels.
Destini Copp 0:03:24
Right.
Colleen Pastoor 0:03:24
So taking the time to be intentional about how we set up our home to support us is just a good investment in our health long term. And having a space that we enjoy and we feel peace in it just really helps support us. And I think it's so important, and we don't talk about it enough.
Destini Copp 0:03:42
And I love what you said about is your home just a landing space or is it basically a haven? Right. A sanctuary, I think a lot of us would say, unless we're maybe, like you said, living in university and just popping in here and there, we want this home to be someone, someplace that we love being in. And you talked about decluttering or just having clutter around your house. Are you talking about minimalism and making sure that everything just looks perfect there? Tell us a little bit about what you mean by that.
Colleen Pastoor 0:04:22
So I love the idea of minimalism, but I have four kids and a giant dog, and I love crafting and we love playing board games. We need a lot of stuff in our house to support the life that we want to live. So I will never be a minimalist, but I do love the idea of having clear surfaces to give me a little bit of a clearer mind. And I really like that with less stuff, we spend less time cleaning it up. So, no, I'm not a minimalist, but I do definitely love to declutter, and that's a strategy that I've built into or a system that I've built into my homemaking, practice, if you will, and having less stuff. Yeah, it just helps us put away our things easier when things get out of control, it makes it so much easier to get things back to ground zero, where home feels peaceful and welcoming and a wonderful place to be.
Destini Copp 0:05:18
So I agree with you, and I would say I'm probably in the same boat where we need things, right? We need the kids toys, we need the kids games, and just things around the house so we can live our life. But what if someone says, I have some rooms or maybe even some big changes to our home that we want to make? Where do we start? How do you get started? And where do you suggest we do first?
Colleen Pastoor 0:05:48
Yeah, so for me, the biggest change in how much I was able to enjoy my home started with decluttering. I had twins first, and when they were babies and toddlers, I was just so overwhelmed with the amount of stuff that we had. It was my first time being home full time. I'd always worked jobs and just used home as a landing pad. Right. And I started decluttering just as a way to try and dig myself out of this feeling of being overwhelmed at home. And so if you are feeling overwhelmed by your home, I think starting with the stuff in it is a great place to start. Like starting one cupboard at a time and creating systems so that they don't get back to being cluttered like that. But then if you want to take it one step further and you want to love the way that your home looks, not just the stuff in your home, then I love taking on room makeovers and I like going one room at a time so I can really dream it out and I can work towards it. And budget wise it is just so much easier to look at things one room at a time as well.
Destini Copp 0:06:50
Well, I can tell you I have some room makeovers that I need to do in my house and one is kind of our living room area. It definitely needs to be redone but I don't even know where to start. It feels overwhelming to me. What would you suggest we do in a certain situation like that?
Colleen Pastoor 0:07:09
Yeah, well, I mean room makeovers can be totally overwhelming and I think being on social media doesn't help. It's done in 1 minute or less. In a little real right, you see somebody take it from a space that doesn't work really well to something that looks like it should be in a magazine and it's totally not that way in real life.
Destini Copp 0:07:27
Right.
Colleen Pastoor 0:07:27
So the first thing that I like to do in any space is I like to go into the room and I like to kind of give it an assessment as if I don't live there. Right, so like what is working in this space has great natural light or love the hardwood flooring, even though they need to be refinished. This sofa is super comfortable and we want to keep it. I really like the layout or whatever it might be that you like about the room and then being critical with it too and saying okay, well, what's not working right? It feels cluttered with this big bookshelf that just has stuff out of place all the time. Or you know what, there's not enough clothes storage to hide the things like remotes and baby diapers or the different things that we need in our living room to make it function really well. And just kind of being really critical about what is good and what should be changed to better serve your family. And then looking at, okay, what are the changes that I would need to make to address these problem areas?
Destini Copp 0:08:26
So in thinking kind of my living room and what I would need to do there, I don't want the couch. So I'll go ahead and tell you, I don't even know that I want any of the furniture in there. And we have some built ins, I should say, that probably need to be painted. And there's probably some other things I could do there, maybe with the window treatments and what have you. What are some of the most important things? Or what would you tell me to consider when I'm looking at doing a room makeover like that?
Destini Copp 0:09:03
Yeah.
Colleen Pastoor 0:09:03
So I think that those pain points that you evaluate when you first do that evaluation are the most important things to consider because I think so often people find things that they like the look of on Instagram or Pinterest and then try to apply that to their home. So then they have a prettier room, but with all the same problems, and it still feels just as overwhelming and out of control, but it looks prettier when it's cleaned up, right? So taking time to understand your pain points and then match them with a solution as you're going and making everything prettier at the same time, that's what's going to let you truly enjoy your room when all is said and done.
Destini Copp 0:09:42
So what if somebody doesn't even know what they want from a style perspective? If I was picking out a couch friend there, I don't even know where to start on that. What tips would you have for somebody like that?
Destini Copp 0:09:56
Yeah, absolutely.
Colleen Pastoor 0:09:57
So my favorite activity to do is to for every room makeover. I always tell everybody, start a new Pinterest board. You can make it private or secret and just start pinning. So Pinterest is super smart, their algorithm is clever. So if you start typing in living room ideas and you start pinning a few that you like the look of, you can scroll down on every single Pin and it will feed you more pins that are similar to what you've already pinned. And so I just like to pin as much as quickly as possible and then I go and I look at that board and I start seeing, okay, what are the common denominators?
Destini Copp 0:10:34
Right?
Colleen Pastoor 0:10:35
Are you seeing tons of bright white living rooms with cozy griege, couches, maybe a medallion print area, rug, and tons of plants? Right. You'll start to see common themes coming through those pins. Even if you didn't know what you wanted when you started, if you start looking at that pinterest board as data that you've gathered about the things that appeal to you, you're going to walk away with that with some really great ideas of changes that you could make to your own space that will suit what you are attracted to, not just what's popular right now.
Destini Copp 0:11:10
And I'm a huge fan of Pinterest, so I love that tip and I agree with you. Their algorithm is fantastic. So once you start pinning some of the styles you like, they will definitely feed you more of the same thing. So that's a really great tip. So now let's talk a little bit about money. I think one of the reasons why I haven't tackled that living room makeover project that I desperately need to do is the money. I know that buying a lot of that furniture could be thousands and thousands of dollars. How do we budget for something like that? Or what would you suggest we do?
Destini Copp 0:11:48
Yeah, absolutely.
Colleen Pastoor 0:11:49
I think that budgeting is one of the biggest pieces of doing any kind of DIY room makeover or DIY project in your house. And it's funny, I know that you've probably seen those craft memes that say, why buy it for $19 when you can DIY it with $92 worth of materials? And I think that with home renovations, we kind of run into that as well because we think, oh, we're going to save money, but if we don't have the different tools or we don't have the different skills, it can kind of add up. So not just budgeting for the furniture that you need to buy, but also the changes that you want to make to the room. Like, the shell of the room as well, is so important. So there's two different ways that I like to start a budget. Either with a lump sum that I'm like, okay, here's how much money we have to make this room makeover happen, and then we can go and we can break it down. Or if we don't even know how much money we should be saving towards a room makeover. So I like to do this planning part kind of way before we actually get to starting on it, just so I know, okay, how much should I be planning to save so that in the fall, when we go and tackle this room, we're prepared for it. And so I like to take that list of problems with my list of solutions, and I like to budget out each of those solutions. So if, for example, you're like, I definitely want a new couch, and you've looked on Pinterest and you kind of have an idea of what you're looking for, then take a quick search and look at five different options and give yourself a budgeted number for your sofa. You want to paint those built ins? Okay, how much is a couple of gallons of paint? And then budget that in? And do I need painting supplies like new paintbrushes and rollers?
Colleen Pastoor 0:13:23
Okay, we'll give ourselves a lump sum in there and start budgeting those numbers and see what it comes out to. And then I always like to add at least a 10% of a contingency. So just for those little things that we don't really think about that come up as we're doing a room makeover.
Destini Copp 0:13:39
And I love the fact that you recommended that 10% contingency, because I always feel like I'm going over just a little bit, right, a little bit in.
Colleen Pastoor 0:13:48
Everything we always do, right? And so then, even starting when I start spending money, one of the things that I like to recommend is starting with the most important pieces first. So what are those things that we've identified as deal breakers for us, that is going to be like, number one to enjoying our space and put our money there first, because if we go over on those items, we can make it up in some of the things that we maybe care less about. Whereas if we do all of the kind of, like, little decor pieces or the things that would be nice to have first, and then our budget for those things that really matter for us is small, we're going to feel really frustrated.
Destini Copp 0:14:25
Colleen, any last minute tips for the audience before we wrap it up here today?
Destini Copp 0:14:31
You know what?
Colleen Pastoor 0:14:32
I would just say to really focus on what is going to serve you and your family, not necessarily what is cool or what other people are doing, because in the end, if you follow trends, you're going to want to change your rooms all the time. You're never going to feel quite satisfied with how they look. Whereas if you take time to really understand what you love by doing that pinterest exercise and the problems that you need solved in your home, like, how is your home going to work really hard for you? Then when you're done your makeover, you're going to have a home that you're happy with for much longer. You're not going to be wanting to change it very often.
Destini Copp 0:15:07
And I love what you said. How is your home going to work very hard for you? We need our homes working for us, for sure.
Destini Copp 0:15:13
Yeah.
Colleen Pastoor 0:15:14
They're one of our biggest support systems right now.
Destini Copp 0:15:17
Colleen, can you let folks know where they can find you? And I believe you have a free gift for them also.
Destini Copp 0:15:25
Yes, absolutely.
Colleen Pastoor 0:15:26
So you can find me@lemonddistle.com. That's where I have all of my blog posts, and I have some really great resources there for you if you are planning a room makeover. And then on social media. I am at Colleen Pastoor. And then for a free gift, I have just finished this. I worked really hard on it, and I'm excited to get it out into the world. I made a budgeting spreadsheet so it's in Google Sheets. When you open it up, you make a copy of it, and then you can make it your own. So it's a one room planner, and it includes space for you to add in all of those things we just talked about, and then it will calculate your contingency, and you can add in those unexpected expenses, and it will tell you how much money you have left to spend on your room makeover.
Destini Copp 0:16:09
And I think I need to download that for my living room that desperately needs a makeover. Colleen, thank you so much for joining us. Today and sharing all of these wonderful tips with us.
Colleen Pastoor 0:16:20
Well, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.