How to make your home reflect your lifestyle (book review)
A few months ago, I had the privilege of interviewing author Cristin Frank on my podcast. Cristin is a thrifty girl after my own heart. On the show, we talked all about whether or not the DIY lifestyle is worth the trouble. If you haven’t listened to that episode, click here. Cristin’s book “How to Live Simple, Free & Happy” rejects the notion that our quality of life is measured by the number in our bank accounts. I love her story of how her family basically DIYed themselves out of debt – including their home!
Well, Cristin is at it again with a new, amazing book. She just launched “Rooms Repurposed: A Purposeful Home, A Purposeful Life.” In this e-book, Cristin challenges us to take a fresh look at our homes, making thoughtful decisions about how each room is used. She then offers tips, photos and craft ideas for how to execute a game plan to re-purpose our spaces to meet our needs and desires.
“Rooms Repurposed” was a timely read for me because, lately, I’ve been stumped by how our family can live in a home with 2,300 square feet of space and still feel like we’re out of room! So I’ve been taking Cristin’s advice and thinking more creatively and intentionally about how we should be using our rooms.
For example, we have a formal dining room that rarely gets used. Eventually, we could re-purpose that space into a killer office. Here’s what it looks like now:
Also, we have a closet on the other side of our laundry room that goes almost completely unused because it is difficult to access from our garage. I’d like to bust out the laundry room wall and expand into the closet space so it can then function as my craft/sewing room. Here’s what our current laundry room looks like:
Cristin says, “If you are the creative type, the best way to dedicate yourself to your craft is to create a room conducive to your creative needs. This can’t be a temporary solution. You need to feel like your hobby has roots in your home. This will ensure tranquility and inspiration in the creative process and preserve your work-in-progress from being sabotaged.” Love this!
Whether you live in a small home and need some creative ideas for how to use your limited space, or you live in a larger home and wonder where all your space has mysteriously gone, this book is for you. My favorite part of the book is how Cristin emphasizes that our home should reflect our passions, interests and pursuit of happiness; our home is the container for the life we lead and much of our feelings and thoughts are held inside it. I couldn’t agree more!
You can pick up a copy of “Rooms Repurposed: A Purposeful home, A Purposeful Life” for $6.99 through Amazon here or Barnes and Noble here.
Do you feel like the rooms in your home are a reflection of your passions, interests and pursuit of happiness? Why or why not?
You should do the craft room! you’ll never regret it! I couldn’t give up my Dr as I use it frequently. I don’t understand why people don’t use theirs more. Why have it otherwise. It seem so many blogs just have their spaces for show. That’s way to much upkeep for something usused. One might as well have a bunch of little figurines to dust. Go for it!