4 Modern Day Home Myths Debunked — Always Elegant Living

March 17, 2021 | By Ashley Brown

Typical mom culture has us all believing that we can't have a beautiful home because we have kids.

Today I'm putting a hard stop to that. I'm also identifying 3 other myths we often buy into when it comes to our homes.

This episode is full of truth bombs. These 4 myths are being debunked and I'm proving that it's possible to have a have a beautiful home you love.

IN THIS EPISODE ASHLEY DISCUSSES:

A personal story why she started designing a beautiful home.
The 4 myths we often tell ourselves when it comes to our home.
How you can move past each myth.
What to do when you find yourself confronted with each myth.

LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

Everyday Home Elegance Course
Ikea Couch - Ektorp sectional
Ashley’s Facebook group
Reviews are everything on iTunes. Would you please take a moment and leave a review HERE.

I get it some days it feels as if you're riding the "hot mess" express and there's no end in sight. Hello, I'm Ashley Brown, mom of three little kids who used to let life's chaos get the best of me. Then I discovered that you can elevate your life, raise kids and make what matters happen all while adding a little more elegance into your everyday lifestyle.

I'm on a mission to help busy women overcome the hot mess and create an elegant life they love by starting with the essentials. Everyday life doesn't have to be so chaotic. Join me in discussions about ways to help you embrace simplicity with practical solutions and easy to implement ideas. So you can design a home and life you love. This is a source of encouragement. This is the change you've been looking for. This is the always elegant living podcast.

Hello there and welcome to The Always Elegant Living Podcast. I am your host, Ashley Brown, and I'm so excited that you have chosen to listen to this episode today. I wanted to discuss four modern-day home myths that I think all of us, at least at one point in our life have told ourselves. So, before I get into the myths, I just want to share a personal story with you.

My business before Always Elegant Living was Always Elegant Photography. And as a photographer, I had a studio in town and then I decided that it was really hard to maintain, and it wasn't adding that ease to my life that I knew I needed. So, I wanted to close my studio down and actually have my studio in my home so that way I was only cleaning one space. It just made sense. It was much easier. I had three little kids, it was just easier to be home with them. I could have kids napping, while I was working with clients and it just worked better for my lifestyle.

So I knew that if I was going to be having a photo studio in my home, then obviously my home would need to look nice and presentable and all of that stuff. So, it was really important to me to get the ball going and design a home that I love and that I could have clients in. I needed a place that people would feel comfortable in and I was selling high-end photography and artwork. So I needed to make sure that I had a home and a space that matched that. I also wanted to make sure that I had a lot of my own artwork on my walls so that way it was easier for me to show different clients, "This is what it could look like in your home. If it looks like this in my home, then imagine what it's going to look like in yours with your kids and your babies."

That was my whole goal initially when it came to designing my home. I really wanted it to feel high-end and I was proud to have clients come into my home and to sit on my couch and hang out in my living room and wander through my kitchen and use my guest bathroom and all of those things. That's how I initially got started in designing my home. I knew I wanted to merge my high-end studio with my actual home to not only save money on overhead, but to make my life easier because I did have little kids and I could be home more if I just had my studio at home.

That's a little bit of my backstory about how I got into designing and decorating my home. And really the passion behind finding that balance of intentionality with ease. I knew that I was going to be living in my home and then I would need to be able to put it together very quickly to have clients come in to sell high-end artwork.

That was a huge driving factor of my why. So, I put in the time and the energy, and I did the transformation and I got my home to where it felt good. To where I could have clients come over and it wasn't a huge hassle. In fact, it was way easier than having a separate studio, because my kids could be napping while I could be working. And it just was the best of both worlds. But what I started to notice was that more often than not when clients were coming into my home, and not only clients, but friends and acquaintances or co-workers depending on the kind of event that we had at our home and I would just instantly get an earful of the same old rhetoric.

It usually started with, "Oh my goodness, I love your home. Everything is so beautiful and put together." Which, don't get me wrong, I always love hearing and it never gets old. I just love it, because I did put a lot of energy into designing and creating a home that was beautiful and easy and elegant. So, I definitely love hearing that. But what people say next is always still to this day what catches me off guard, but it's usually what immediately follows the, "Everything is so beautiful and put together." Then comes, "Do you have kids?"

To which I always say, "Yes." Because of course I have kids, right? Then they always say, and I don't know why people say this, but the next thing that people always say is, "Do they live here?" It always goes in that order. "Everything is so beautiful and put together, do you have kids?" "Yes, I have kids." "Do they live here?" "Yes, they live here." And I always immediately know where they're going from there. And it's usually one of the four of these myths that we tell ourselves.

I don't know why we feel the need to have to tell ourselves these myths, because they are simply not true. And I want to debunk all of them here today with you, because if I can do this, so can you. So, we've heard the first part of the story, they come in, I have the beautiful home, I love hearing that. It boosts my ego. I love it. It makes me feel good and proud. Then, do I have kids? Yes, we know I have kids. I have three little kids. Okay? Do they live here? Yes. My husband and I are married. We live together. We raise our kids together. We built a home and our life together. Yes, my kids live here and they don't ever go anywhere else. Okay?

After that conversation, then people usually say one of these four things. "Oh my gosh. I can't have a nice home because I have little kids." Or, "I can't have a nice home because I have rambunctious kids." Or, "I can't have a nice home because I have all boys or I just have a lot of kids or I have a dog." Or, fill in the blank, whatever it is. But it's always, I can't have a nice home because, followed by whatever you want to put there. Okay.

So, let's debunk that. I can't have a nice home because I have little kids. Yes, you can, okay? I have little kids. I have three little kids. And at the time of all of this, I had an infant okay? You can have a nice home and have little kids. You can have a nice home and have rambunctious kids. I have crazy kids. My kids are busy and they're running and they're playing, and they're kids. So, of course, you can have a nice home and have rambunctious kids.

I can't have a nice home because I have all boys. Okay. Well, I have two boys and a girl who think she's a queen, but really bosses the boys around, so she might as well be the boy. Yeah. That doesn't matter, okay? I can't have a nice home because I have dogs. Well, that is definitely debunked, because I have a big black dog who is a Labrabull. So, he's big and hyper and runs all through the house, and you know what? I still have a nice home. That myth is such a myth. It is such a lie we tell ourselves, such a limiting belief.

I can't have a nice home because whatever the excuse is, that's all it is. It's an excuse. Yes, you can have a nice home. And I'm going to get into that in a little bit, after I go through the rest of the myths that people often tell themselves.

The second myth that I often hear is, "Oh, well having a home like this would take too much time and energy to maintain, and keep it put together." Okay. It really doesn't. The reason why my home looks the way it does is because it doesn't take that much time or energy to make it happen. If having my home look the way it looks takes a lot of time and effort and energy, I wouldn't do it. I don't want to put that much time and energy into maintaining my home, just like I know you don't. But to say that having a home like this would take too much time and energy to maintain it is simply not true.

In fact, it takes less energy and time to maintain, because my home is designed in a way it's easy to pick up, it's easy to just put it all back together if everything is taken out. It's easy. It's works with our lifestyle and how we live, and it's that way because that's how I designed it. That's how I needed it to be especially in the beginning when I was having clients coming in and different people coming in all the time. I needed a home that was beautiful and easy, and it didn't take time, because I have three little kids and a dog, and I still want to have a nice home and have it be easy to maintain.

Number three, "I wished my home look like this, but I just don't have a big budget." If I can just dive into this one and get this point across, this would be amazing. But having a big budget or a large budget or an extravagant budget or a little budget or no budget at all, has nothing to do with how your home looks.

I really want to say that again, budget restraints have nothing to do with how your home looks. I know that it feels like it has everything to do with how your home look, but it doesn't. Do you know how many DIY projects there are that you can just do things with things that you already have or can find for free? There's endless amounts of projects. Style and elegance has nothing to do with budget. So, having a big budget is definitely a myth that we tell ourselves.

And I know this one to be definitely true, because especially in the beginning when I was designing my home and creating that beautiful space, I had no budget. I had just quit my job, I was making more money than my husband at the time, and we went into half the salary that we had. We had another baby on the way that ended up having a lot of health expenses, and we just had no budget for home stuff. But I knew that in order to sell the high-end items that I wanted to sell and to not have a studio space to sell them in, then my home needed to look high-end on a shoestring budget and it can happen.

You are either buying stuff with time and energy, or you're buying it with dollars earned, but either way, that's what a budget is. You're buying something with your time and energy, meaning you need to make it or find it or figure out a workaround, or you're buying something with dollars earned. And so often, people think that they need to have a lot of dollars earned to have an elegant home. And that is just simply not true. If you don't have money to spend on your home, then you need to have time and energy to spend on it. And that's what I did in the beginning.

So many items in my home are handmade, because I didn't have a budget in the beginning. And it was cheaper to buy the materials or to find something secondhand or to find something free, and update it myself than it was to save up the money and invest in the piece. So, my home is a mix of store-bought and handmade. And that's almost the best of both worlds, because then you can blend together stuff that really speaks to you and works for your lifestyle.

A budget while yes, we do need some type of budget to put into our home, whether it's time and energy or dollars earned, so yes, there is a budget for it, but saying that I wished my home look like this, but I just don't have the budget is an excuse. It's just flat out an excuse. It's something we just tell ourselves, and basically it's just saying that you don't want to put the time and energy into it, because having a big budget is not the end all be all for having a nice home. I promise you it's not.

And then the last myth that I often hear when people walk into my home is "I wish my home look like this, but I just don't know where to start." Or "I wish my home look like this, but my husband isn't handy." Or "I wish my home would look like this, but I just don't have time or anyone to help me." Or "I wish my home look like this, and then fill in any excuse you could ever think of right here." This is a myth we tell ourselves. This is a myth because you're saying that you want it, but you found an excuse to not have it. And I'm going to debunk a few of these right now.

So "I wish my home look like this, but I don't know where to start." There are so many resources to help you start. Most of them are free. Go to Google, go to Pinterest, go to Instagram, look at pictures, decide what you like, and how you're going to implement that into your home.

If you have a little bit more of a budget, go to design books. Design books are written to teach you how to do something from point A to point B and get the result you're looking for. That's their purpose. That's what design books are for.

And if you really just want to get straight to the point and figure out everything you need to know to make your home beautiful, then get a course. My course, Everyday Home Elegance is for the woman who wants to just have it all at her fingertips and have someone tell them exactly what to do in what order to make a beautiful home she loves, that's easy to maintain and functional to live in. That's what it's for. That's why I created my course, so you would have a resource to turn to when you don't know where to start.

Another one of the excuses that I often hear is, "Oh, my home can't look like this, because my husband isn't handy." I'm going to debunk this one right now. And I'm very sorry, husband, but my husband is not handy. In fact, he is so the opposite of handy. He works in a bank. He's really good with numbers and finances, and he has his own skill set. But working with his hands is not one of them. In fact, I don't even think he knows how to use a drill, but you know what? Because he's not handy, and I did not want to rely on him to make my home beautiful, I learned how to be handy. I learned how to make furniture. I learned how to go to the tool store and buy tools that I needed to make the things that I wanted, because making items was way cheaper and easier than buying them. I learned how to do it, because I didn't want to rely on my husband.

So, that is the biggest excuse ever is, I can't have this because my husband doesn't know how to do it. You can learn how to do it. I promise you, if I can learn how to do it, if I can learn how to make a dining room table, so can you. Pinterest is an amazing resource, and it is there for you when you are ready. Having a course guide you through each step of the way, it's there for you if you are ready to take action on it.

Another one of the excuses that I hear all the time is, "I don't have time, or I don't have anyone to help me." I am a busy mom of three little kids. I had a thriving photography business. I had clients in and out of my home all the time, and two of the three of my kids were home with me while I had all of this going on. I found time to make my home look beautiful, to feel elegant on a shoestring budget while running a business and raising kids.

You can find time. We all have the same 24 hours in a day. None of us get extra time compared to others. It's just how you use your time. It's by saying that this is a priority. Making my home functional and beautiful is a priority. For me, I had that driving factor behind me, knowing that I was going to have clients coming into my home all the time. And it just felt like, if I was going to be selling high-ticket items, I wanted to have a high-ticket environment for them to be in. So I did that. I created that feeling of elegance and beauty without spending a lot of money, without having my husband's help, while raising three little kids, while having a business. If I can do it, you can too.

And that is the point of this episode. That's what I really wanted to share with you. It is not about me bragging about my home and people saying that it's beautiful. It's about what I often hear after. So to recap, I swear to you, you guys, Oh my gosh, I can't even count how many people have said this. And it's almost a joke now, when my husband comes home from work, he goes, "Oh, what did they say?" I'm like, "Oh, the same old, do you have kids? Do they live here?" Because for whatever reason, people think that because I have a beautiful put together home that I don't have kids. Or that I don't have budget restraints.

The how is it possible that I have nice things, because my kids don't live here or I don't have animals or I don't understand, or how can I have all of this, because I don't have a husband who's handy. I have heard it all. And I just want to say that I am calling BS on every single one of those excuses. I have proven that you can have a nice home and have little kids. I have three little kids. Two of them are busy boys who play baseball in our house, and we have a big, large black dog that runs around like crazy, and I still have a nice home.

I designed my home and set up my home in a way that does not require that much energy to maintain, because I don't want to spend my days maintaining my home. I don't want to be a slave to my home. So, I purposely designed my home in a way that's very easy to pick up. It's very easy to just get it done so I can have clients come in, so I can live my life, so I can do anything else other than maintain my home. Having a home like this would take too much time and energy to maintain and keep it put together, that is a myth. That is just something that you tell yourself, because you maybe just don't want to put the time and energy into it in the beginning to set it up and have it serve you going forward.

The myth that I wish my home looked like this, but I don't have a big budget. Yes, that is just a myth, okay? Budget is a lot of things. It can be dollars earned, or it can be time and energy invested, but having a large budget has nothing to do with having a beautiful home. I know it feels like it has everything to do with having a beautiful home, but it doesn't.

My couch that I have is the cheapest couch that we could purchase. In fact, I sold the other couches that we had, and made more money on the sale of those old couches that needed to be cleaned, and just did not work with our style, then it cost to buy the new couch from IKEA. I can bargain-shop and IKEA had beautiful furniture. It's probably not the best quality and whatever, but it works for us. And it added to that beauty to the home that I needed, and they're functional and I can wash them. That's all the things that I needed out of a couch, but it didn't require that much money.

Like I said, it required less money than what I'd made on the sale of the other couches that we had. So, having a big budget has nothing to do with how much style your home has. You can have an unlimited budget, but money cannot buy you style. It's the same in the fashion world. Money cannot buy you style. Style is something that you piece together and create over time.

And then of course, the last excuse, which is just always my favorite. I wish my home look like this, but I don't know where to start. That's easy. If you wish your home look like something, and you don't know where to start, start from the end. What do you want it to look like? And start recreating that."

"My husband isn't handy." Okay. You can be handy. You can learn. Or "I don't have time." Yes, you do. We all have the same 24 hours in a day. I know you've heard that over and over again, but it's true. It's just how you prioritize. If making your home functional and beautiful isn't a priority to you, then of course, you're not going to have time for it. And that's okay because it's not a priority. But to say that you don't have time is an excuse. It's a lie that we tell ourselves. It's a myth that needs to be debunked, because we always have time for what's important. We always have time to make what matters happens. So, if you are telling yourself that you wish your home look like, fill in the blank, but you don't know where to start, or your husband isn't handy or you don't have time, then there you go. This is easy to debunk. Start with the free resources. Start with Google and Pinterest and Instagram.

If you want more help than that, start with a design book. And if you just want to go all in, and want someone to hold your hand every step of the way and just be your big sister and tell you what to do, then get in my course. That is exactly what I do. It is everything you need to know about how to create a home that's intentional with beauty and ease. Because as we know from the beginning of my story, that was what my goal was to begin with. Without ever knowing that I was going to start a business around it or make a course around it, that's just what I needed at that time in my life, because that is how I needed my life to run. I needed a place to have clients come into that felt high-end, but I still had a shoestring budget. I had a husband who had no handyman skills, and I knew that this had to happen in order for my photography business to thrive, and for it to work with my lifestyle.

So, together let's debunk these four myths once and for all. Myth number one, you can have a nice home even if you have little kids. Even if you have rambunctious kids. Even if you have all boys or a lot of kids, you can have a nice home even if you're a dog mom, you can have a nice home if it is designed to meet you and your lifestyle where you are.

Myth number two. Having a nice home would take too much time and energy to maintain and keep it together. Wrong. That is a myth. You can have a beautiful home you love that's easy to maintain. I know because I do. When you put the emphasis on having a home that's easy to maintain above everything else, then having a beautiful home that's easy to pick up and really make sure it's clean and ready and always good to go is top priority. And I teach you how to do that in every single lesson in my course, because that is the driving factor behind how I have designed my home.

I need my home to be beautiful, but easy to maintain. If it is not both, then it is not in my home. So let your need for ease be your compass when you are designing your home. Do not put things in your home that take too much time and energy to maintain. Just don't do it. It's not worth it. Having a home that takes too much time and energy to maintain is a myth we have to move past.

Number three, I wish my home looked beautiful, but I don't have a big budget. Yeah. Once again, we know that you can have a beautiful home with no budget. You can have a beautiful home with a shoestring budget. You can have a beautiful home with a large budget. Budget is not the issue. You are either buying things with time and energy, or you're buying things with dollars earned. If you do not have dollars earned to invest in your home, then you need to invest time and energy if this is important to you.

If you don't have time and energy to invest in your home, then you're going to need to invest dollars earned. It's one or the other, but having a big budget has nothing to do with having a beautiful home you love.

And finally, myth number four. I wish my home look like this, but I don't know... Fill in the blank. Where to start? Or my husband isn't handy or I don't have time. Yes you do. You know where to start. You can start with the free online resources like Google, Pinterest and Instagram. You can start with a design book or if you want go all in and just want to know everything you need to know and have someone hold your hand, start with my course. It is created for you if that is what you are looking for.

Your husband, isn't handy, ahhh neither is mine. Learn how to do it yourself girl! You've got this, you can do it. If this is something that's important to you, you can learn how to do it. Do you think I ever worked a drill in my entire life? No, but I learned how to make a dining room table because that is what I needed and I didn't have the budget to buy the one I wanted. But I did have the budget to make one. And that's what I did. I learned how to be handy.

I'm the handy one in our house now. I hang all the stuff, all the wall art and all the decor, all the pictures, all the things. I am, the one who has the drill, not my husband and that's okay. I don't want to rely on him and wait around for him to hang pictures when I know I want it done now. He's busy at his job and just because something is a priority to me doesn't mean it's a priority to him. So what's the answer? Learn how to do it myself. No big deal. I can learn how to work a drill.

And I don't have time to make a beautiful home like this happen. Ah, BS, we all have the same 24 hours in a day. What you're really saying is having a beautiful home is not a priority.

So when people come into my home and make those remarks, I get super flattered in the very beginning. Like, "Oh my goodness, thank you. I love that you love it." Because obviously I designed it for you to love it. I definitely designed it with the purpose of having clients come in and saying that, but I was never prepared for what followed after that. The excuses and the myths that people tell themselves.

It was really important to me to make sure I debunked all four of those myths. And I'm telling you today that you can do it. Be encouraged by this. If I can do it, so can you. It's a matter of priority. It's a matter of knowing where to put your energy and your budget behind. It's a matter of knowledge and really that's what it comes down to.

If you don't know how to do it, then learn how to. Start with free resources, start with design books. And if you are just ready to go all in, start with my course. The knowledge part of how to do this is really the part for me that just made me go from feeling like I couldn't do it to, "Oh, I can do this. I can learn how to do this and handle it." So take control back.

If you want to have a beautiful home you love, if you're ready to design a home in a way that serves your family, that looks beautiful, but it's easy to maintain because I'm all about the easy. In fact, beauty does nothing for me if it's not easy to take care of, then dive into the course. Get your hands on a design book, get information. Don't let not knowing how to do something be the reason why you don't have it. That's just an excuse at that point.

So I hope these four myths being debunked have helped you, have inspired you and hopefully even encouraged you to take action on your home. Do the work, I promise it's so worth it. If this is something that's calling to you, if you want to have a beautiful home you love, if you're ready to finally resources your game and elevate your living space in your environment, then don't let these myths hold you back. They're just myths. They're limiting beliefs. We can move past them. And I hope this episode helps you do just that. Until next time, I'm always cheering for you.

The episode is over and now it's time for you to take action.

What can you do today that will help you create who you want to be? Little by little progress adds up and in turn makes a big impact.

If you'd like to continue the discussion head on over to facebook.com/groups/alwayselegantliving.

If you loved listening to this episode, as much as I love sharing it, then please leave a review on iTunes. And if you're ready to take action and dive deeper into the topics that I discussed on the podcast, visit the courses.

You have the power to create who you were made to be. You can move past the chaos and start living a life you love with ease. And remember, I'll be there cheering you on.

Until next time. I'm Ashley Brown.