A 60 day exploration of making space, tending and beautifying home.
We begin August 25th, prompts send out to your email every other day. The in between days are for the action, the cleaning and clearing, the space and decision making. Because I will be guiding you, we will use a Facebook group for you to share photos and your progress. I will be right beside you to support, guide, give suggestions, ask questions and tend to your heart through the emotional parts of this work. At the end of these two months together I want you to have a relationship with your home that is soul deep, sacred and deeply intuitive. This relationship goes beyond a physical home and is a healing and life changing practice.
One Time Payment of $140
Two Payments of $75 for those who need to break down the payments into two separate withdrawals, 3 weeks apart.
I am one who spends moments of time gazing in awe at the beautiful photos on Pinterest, examining how a room is put together, how plants are hung, where lighting is placed and judging how (un)realistic it all is. I adore the well lit photographs, the moody feeling of rust orange playing with greens in various shades of nature and the un-lived in look it all has. There is a fantasy in these pictures, it transports me into a place where I draw inspiration and ideas start to unlock from inside.
When I have an emotional response to the photos of Pinterest perfect homes I understand that they are just that. They are a moment in time with filters, lights and a camera that pulls it all together. A magical moment that does not exist when lived upon. When I feel stuck I go there. When I need a dose of beauty I go there. A photo might remind me that a dresser can be put anywhere in a home or a rug can always go on top of another rug.
I crave beautiful spaces. I crave being me. I crave a home that feels like my own temple.
I am neuro-divergent and making home has never been easy for me, if anything, it has been one of the hardest struggles that I’ve had to learn to find peace with. I am the home with the trash can overflowing so the cabinet drawer no longer closes, the piles of clothes permanently beside my bed and things moving around from place to place to place. Tasks like dishes, laundry, sweeping, bill paying, organization and general day to day tending of the home are puzzles that I’ve had to learn to solve. (Still learning many of these.)
This will not a be a course taught from the perspective of a linear way of being in our home. No chore lists for certain days, no one way to do something and certainly no worksheets to complete. This is a course from a brain that needs beauty to clean, that relies on inspiration to finish a project and new underwear to motivate me to clean out the underwear drawer. I cannot do a task simply because it is Monday. What I can do is think about how I want to feel on Monday and give myself one thing to do on that day that helps me to get to that feeling. Something that excites me.
I will not pretend to have a Pinterest ready home. I’ll show you my piles and my messes, along with my little tricks. A beautifully made bed can almost make a pile of laundry on the floor seem like part of the plan! It also serves as a surface to fold and begin the process of putting away the pile of laundry. One thing often leads to the next.
Beautiful and sacred spaces light me up, they help me feel safe and calm. Often there is a chaos around those spaces (an entryway filled with stuff, piles of mail, dirty dishes stacked up) and because I have found a peaceful order to the foundation of each space, I know in a few minutes of tending I can return to the beauty and calm. Each day I have a couple of things I do in rhythm and piggybacking with another thing.
When I return from the morning walk in the woods I start a new pot of coffee and empty the dishwasher. As the coffee perks I move dirty dishes left on the counters from late night teen snacking into the now empty dishwasher. I do this almost every day as it has become a way to keep time with my body, with feeling the open space of a clean counter and a ritual to open the kitchen to my family. It helps that my partner thanks me nearly every day for my efforts, knowing it is not something that comes naturally.
One trick that has helped me is that every dish I own, each cup, all the silverware-are absolutely beautiful. They are treasures. When my hands hold them I remember where I found each one, I am washed in the colors I’ve carefully chosen to be part of my daily rhythms. I am obsessed with the textures, the way they look back on the shelves and how I get to choose the mug I’ll use next. This is one of the ways I work with the differences in my brain to complete a task. I crave beauty like breath and my home tells this story.
My partner is also neuro-divergent and he seeks function and order. It has been a struggle for him to find this order in a house full of other people, but one thing he has taught me is that when something has a place, it is manageable. While he may obsess over place and function and cleanliness I know that this is simply his motivation just as mine is beauty and form, color and texture. We are both moving towards a peace that we often don’t feel inside our bodies; an octopus and a lioness learning to exist together. Making home more sacred (for him more organized) is a tool for integrating calm into the body. We feed the other with the delights only we can offer.
I have spent decades studying designers I adore, different influences like Mid-Century Modern and 70’s Bohemian. I have gathered tips and tricks and ideas like picking wild blueberries into a basket. I could spend a week talking about pottery or wood or plants. What I’ve done is distilled the things that light me up and I feel add warmth, beauty and function to a home and combined that with the tasks less motivating like clearing corners and piles of clothing and scrubbing molding. I will weave a path towards a home that feels like a tapestry and that carries a rhythm unique to you. Our motivations will all be our own and once we find them we will want to act, do, move, clear, clean, change, beautify.
Our homes will become a cloud-like bed filled with comforts and textures inviting us to fall into them. We’ll munch the basket filled with blueberries together, one by one. The work and the reward can both be savored, felt and integrated into new practices.
Each of the 30 days of emails I will include photos and stories and my own brand of guiding towards our intentions. I’ll help you narrow things down, not take on too much but also stay accountable for being here to DO THE THINGS. I’ll show you how 98% of my home is second hand (much of it found free on the side of the road) and offer you inspiration for looking to sustainable ways to add in beauty and function. From the wooden chairs at our long farmhouse table to the small pottery dishes that hold salt and pepper, my things hold story. Their story that once was another’s is what begins to create a home filled with pockets of special.
At the close of the time in circle together, I’ll encourage each of you to find a way to honor your new practices and cleared corners. Perhaps a small candlelit dinner with a few friends or a new coat of paint in a room you’ve loved up. I’ll be right beside you, doing the work of making home in a way that flows and sustains how we want to feel. If this practice is not intuitive to you, no worry. You’ll learn little ways to understand your space and how to create beauty that lights you up.
Learn what motivates you
Understand a habit changing concept called piggybacking
Explore your own rhythms and add in rituals that feel sacred and true to you
Get tips and tricks for leveraging how your brain works
Begin with gentle prompts to move you forward
Explore wood, pottery, brass, lighting, texture, color and more
Learn how to make a gorgeous bed
Practice setting a stunning table
Make space, find rhythms that flow through you
Take my number one practice for beautifying space and use it everywhere in your home
Create systems to clear, clean, cleanse
Feel your home as sanctuary, sacred, special
Add in things that tell story, remove things that keep you stuck
Spend time in circle with others who are doing the beautiful work alongside you
I can’t wait to circle with you. Any questions, please email hannahmarcotti@gmail.com