17: Table Bedrooms and Other Rule-Breaking Room Ideas with Julie Lause
Julie Lause, AKA the Bossy Mom, joins me today! She and I met and became friends on TikTok.
Most new parents face the pressure of trying to make sense of things and figuring out how to get everything done. When Julie had her daughter, she was a school principal three years into a school turnaround project. Yet she still managed to keep her home organized by setting up systems. The Bossy House project started because she had friends who were bosses at their jobs, but things at home were a mess. So they needed help.
Julie is a Co-founder and Chief of Schools of a small charter school organization in New Orleans. She does the Bossy House project on the side to help families put systems in place at home. Let’s dive into how she does that!
Show highlights:
How the Bossy House started.
The conflicting feelings Julie had after becoming a mom.
How Julie’s daughter’s “table bedroom” came about.
How the pandemic inspired many of those who took Julie’s Be the Boss of Your Home course re-imagine their homes in the wackiest of ways!
The life-changing benefits of customizing your home in any way you choose!
What keeps most people from making creative and functional changes to their houses?
What you need to consider when re-imagining your house.
How Julie helps moms develop the courage and confidence they need to create a personal area in the home that allows them to feel calm and happy.
How Julie deals with people who have anxiety around clutter and clearing up.
Why I believe that anxiety disorders are underdiagnosed in women.
Links and resources:
Connect with Julie: TikTok (@The Bossy House) and website
Send in your email to get Julie’s free workshop on setting up and customizing your command center at your house.
Connect with KC: TikTok, Instagram, and Website
Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning
Get KC’s decluttering workbook when you sign up for her newsletter
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KC Davis 0:05
Hello you sentient balls of stardust Welcome to Struggle Care, the podcast about self care by the host that hates the term self care. Today I have a guest with me, Julie Lause. I'm so frazzled today because I literally just picked up one of my kids from school because the power went out of all things. Anyways, but I had rescheduled you like twice already. So I was like, I can't do that to Julie. So we may have. I mean, you could we may have a little co host at some point. We didn't want to I was so excited. Because you recently so Julie is the Bossy mom,
Julie Lause 0:37
right? Yeah, I am the Bossy house. Good. God, y'all
KC Davis 0:41
I have not taken my Vyvanse I have not had any coffee. I've been running around like, I woke up. First of all, I am a little bit sick. I woke up from a dream about talking NyQuil bottles. And just immediately was like, I must film this. And instead of preparing for this podcast, like a freaking professional, I spent over an hour this morning filming a tech talk about talking NyQuil bottles. And
Julie Lause 1:13
let's back up, we know each other on tik tok, so like, number one, that's totally appropriate. We are tik tok friends, which you know, that makes sense. And I am a schools person. So I do this bossy House Project. Totally on the side. So I am a co founder and chief of schools of a small charter school organization in New Orleans. We are in 100% Public Charter School District. So the Bossy house started because friends of mine said to me, I feel like a boss at my job and a mess at home. You seem like you know something about this? You're a school principal, can you help me? And I totally got it. Because when I had my daughter, I was a school principal, three years into a school turnaround project. And I was pretty organized at home. But I she was a surprise, she was a welcome wonderful surprise. But I like you know, I was a mess. I was overwhelmed. And I hadn't done the work of putting in place at home what I'm actually an expert at at work, which is systems. So once I did that, I started kind of feeling better about work at home. And now that's what I help families do put systems in place at home. So I started tick talking about it. And that's how we met. And we both do ridiculous things on tick tock like, I don't know what your NyQuil project talking NyQuil bottle, but I cannot wait to see it. So
KC Davis 2:49
well. Oh, my God. Anyways, the here's what I love about your story, though, is that I resonate with it so much. Most people know, I've been a therapist for a long time. But what I also did, while had been licensed for a couple of years was do compliance, consulting for health care, making sure that everybody's following all the little rules. And there's so many little rules that you have to build these systems. Yeah. And the systems have to have ways of like checking in and keeping up and double, you know, checks and balances and reminding you and yes, and I actually really, really loved that work. And so I relate to that idea of okay, I'm so good at this at my job. But for me, I mean, I've always been a messy person. I've always been a little bit scatterbrained and it does. It's never bothered me, like I would do the dishes every few to several days kind of person. It really wasn't until I had my second daughter, that that became not functional. And I feel like that's a lot of people's stories, whether it's kids or a pet or an illness.
Julie Lause 3:52
Yep. And once you like that, two things I felt and one of the things I felt was, I think correct. And the other was BS, one of the things I felt was the work is too much. And I can't do all this stuff. Plus have any shred of the life I used to have before I was a parent, like read a book, or like watch a TV show or like have a friend. The other thing I felt was like, I can't go to bed at night with the dishes in the sink. What is my mom would never have done that. Or I can't have a rich coffee shop life anymore. I'm a mom. My baby can't just like go with me to the coffee shop on Saturday mornings or like, kind of what mom life is supposed to be. Or like, I can't you know, you know, like my three year old knew what a croissant was. I never ate out as a kid. My parents didn't raise me that way. The expectations that I grew up with as a parent, I started feeling the pressure of what that's supposed to be. And so all those things kind of came together. You know, every mom, every parent is trying to figure out like what am I going to how am I going to do it and the pressure on you and the things you Try to figure out how to relieve the pressure and how you're going to do it. And then like all of our friends, and our Tik Tok friends, and all of the people in our lives who are sort of in person influencers, trying to figure out how to make sense of it. And where I came out on the other end was, we've all got to customize it for ourselves. And it's beautiful people like you who are helping folks relieve the pressure from doing it like our parents, right. And from doing it, like the people have told us, we have to, and I think that's where I've come out on the other side, too, is I'm going to do it like I want to, and the dishes might stay there. You know, that might be how it is? Well, yeah,
KC Davis 5:38
when you think of those two options of like, and I feel like a lot of people are in that place, even if they don't have kids where it's like, okay, I have this job, and this house, and I have a social life, and I want to do some activism, and there's all the care tasks, and I don't, I can't do it all. And I love how in your mind, it was like, I don't have time to watch a TV show. And I'm not allowed to leave dishes in the sink. Because it's those two ideas. Like it's that second idea causing the first like, actually, we can leave the dishes in the sink and watch TV,
Julie Lause 6:11
right. But in my growing up life, and maybe many other people's, that's a lazy mom, a mom that sleeps in on Saturday, instead of cleaning the house is a lazy mom. And so all of us are battling those demons. Right. And, you know, I think that's the thing that is so freeing about sort of, there's so many wonderful things about internet culture, and the world we're in. And there's so many hard things, internet trolls aren't fun. And the sort of criticism world we live in isn't fun. But also, isn't it wonderful that moms today are exposed to many, many, many more ideas about what it means to be a mom, then, you know, maybe our moms were
KC Davis 6:49
so here's what I want to do. I want to pause for a second, we're gonna take a small break. And when we come back, I want to ask you about your daughter's table bed. Okay, good. Okay. Okay. We're back with Julie and one of the main like, I mean, I've always wanted to have you on the podcast with the Tick Tock that really pushed me over the edge was like, I have to contact her right now. Is you talked about redoing your daughter's bedroom. And you showed a picture of it. And it was an i This is not hyperbole. All table. Yeah. There is this giant table that forms a U shape. Yeah, around three walls, three of the four walls, and there's like a little bit of space to stand in the middle. Yeah. And that is what the bedroom looks like. So tell me how this came about. Okay. Well, tell me what it looked like before.
Julie Lause 7:40
Well, okay, so it looked like everybody else's bedroom before, which is like, you know, well, first of all, it's back up and talk about my daughter, everybody's kid has their own special quirks and wonderful things. My kid is like a builder. And I am a person who loves a system. And so we you know, her whole life. She's had a Montessori principle mom, who had the like item baskets, and the closet with the toys, and we would rotate the toys, right. And ever since she was small, she would break into the closet. And I would wake up at a reasonable hour on a Saturday, and she had gotten herself up at the crack of dawn, and had built something with every toy in her entire catalogue.
KC Davis 8:27
Sounds like one of mine.
Julie Lause 8:29
And though you appreciate the artistry, you also, you know, like, these are challenging things for moms. So her capacity for you know, building bigger and bigger worlds challenged our space in our house, we live in a normal sized house. And she would build these things and never want to take them down and be on to the next thing.
KC Davis 8:52
And where would she build them when she built them? Like on the dining room table?
Julie Lause 8:55
Yeah, dining room table. I mean, they would kind of move from one place to another she would. And of course we have stuff like her office is in our living room, which is where she would build more kinds of things. You know, she'd build these cardboard houses she'd but you know, she really loved and any container would get turned into other things. So a drawer would become an elevator. And so like this is a mom who could not keep a system going for her toy storage. And the weeks that I wasn't just cleaning up after her yelling at her to do it, doing it with her giving myself like deep breath therapy, like trying to wrangle it and or deciding to let it go and it would just turn into a pile of stuff. And so I struggled with this for a really long, many, many years and just you know, trying to figure her out. And I don't know where I was. I think it was Hurricane Ida so we were out of town. So for a year last a year ago right around now. We evacuated for hurricane Ida. And then we actually lived with my parents in California for a month, we couldn't come home. And at that time, we were living in my parents house in a room, and we had so much less space. And she, we were really struggling with like keeping her stuff together in someone else's home. And I was kind of strategizing about all different kinds of things. And I started to have this idea about like, what if she just had way more space? I kept like fantasizing, like, what if we were really rich, we just had a huge house, or a huge room. And then I saw your tech talk about the bright room series. And I saw that the drawers and I had been thinking about some problems in her room, there were three different problems we were having. One of them was this, like, maybe we could make this room 10 times its size. But the other one was a drawer, what he called a dresser drawer problems. So she had an old antiquey, kind of like vintage dresser, she couldn't open and close. And I was like, Oh, that would be a really cool dresser. And I was like, oh, it's exactly the same height as this other organizational thing. Because you know, Target has all these same things that are the same height. I was like, what if I just got five of them, put them in the room and put plywood on top, and just made the whole room a table. And at the time, her room had like a double bed in it. And she has actually just moved out of my bed into her own bed about, you know, six months to a year ago. And she doesn't really need a double bed. Like what if I just put a twin size bed under the table. So I started with a really good friend of our family sort of sketching this out, I had this whole plan. And we just bought a lot of plywood and made it happen. And so basically, you know, a twin bed is like 79 inches by 44. So imagine a 44 inch wide desk. I mean, it's so great because she has room for not only a workspace, but like she can't even touch the wall of that desk. So she's got like, tons of storage for her Legos, and then a whole workspace for her Legos. So this whole situation has solved the major problem of her building, because she can do an enormous project and then leave it there. And it doesn't bother anybody. She can leave it there for a week. So the table has really changed our lives. I've got to say.
KC Davis 12:47
I love that. And what I love about it is it really required forgetting everything we know about bedrooms. I know it seems so weird, but like, we really do have this idea about what bedrooms are supposed to be like. And I'll never forget a follower that tagged me in a video where she said that I had inspired her. She said, You know, we come home every day. And my husband and I love to watch TV together in the living room. And we have this couch and we want to lay down and cuddle but the couch isn't big enough for that. And we don't have the budget to buy a bigger couch. And so they just kind of figure out what to do. And then they realized they just brought their bed into the living room. And they were like this works for us. Like we make it in the morning. It looks nice. It's fine, you can still sit on it. But like what we really like to do when we come home is watch TV. And you know, we have this big TV in the living room. And there's not enough room for it in the bedroom. So we just moved our bed into the living room and put the couch in the bedroom. And I just thought that's so genius. Like rooms don't really have rules, like we think they do.
Julie Lause 13:52
Yeah. And you know, KC, do you think we all got slightly more inventive because of the pandemic? Yes.
KC Davis 14:00
Well, I know I did. Yeah,
Julie Lause 14:01
I do too. Because we spend a lot of time in this house. Yeah, exactly
KC Davis 14:04
being made to be there. And I think particularly for me like I have such unchecked ADHD most of the time that I tend to hyper focus on things. And I was just in my house. There's nothing else to think about. But my house and the ways it wasn't working for me and what rooms were due. I mean, I'm recording this podcast from one of my daughter's closets because that's what I turned into my podcast recording studio and the reason I could do that is because we don't use her closet for clothes because her clothes are in our ensuite closet because we have a family closet where every single week for people in our family, all of their clothes are in the same closet because that closet is off of the laundry room and we just have various bins for everybody's clothes and then we hang some stuff and we put in a changing table so that they can stand and so I don't have to like bend over to help them button things and it's close to the laundry. And it's right off the laundry room like there is a door from the laundry room to the closet
Julie Lause 14:59
did You invent that during the pandemic?
KC Davis 15:01
Yes. And so that opened up two bedrooms in my daughter's rooms. One, I turned into a podcast studio, the other one we use for storage, because she has a pulpit that only comes out sometimes. And we did something similar. Like she had a queen size bed. And we recently flipped it out for a twin bed, because we realize that she's kind of getting to the age where she wants to play in her room. And she didn't really have the space to do that. Yeah. And I mean, I love I was listening to a story of a couple recently where they were like, we have separate bedrooms. Yeah, like, fully, they lived together for years, they had separate bedrooms. And I was like, good for you.
Julie Lause 15:37
Yeah, you know, I have a course called be the boss of your home. And a lot of people who take the course the first thing we do is we sort of draw a like blueprint of your house. And then I invite people to kind of reimagine how they want to do it. And there were not as I've never had, as many students in that course, reimagine things in the wackiest, most, like amazing ways as during the pandemic, because that kitchen table had to do so much heavy lifting during the pandemic. You know, moms would literally say to me, like, I can't do it anymore, I can't have the kitchen table be for all the meals and my work and my husband's work. And the kids work, we need different work areas everybody needs to be. So like, we're doubling up the kids, all the kids are going to be in one room. And we're going to have a different room for this. And I think it's really interesting, because ideas of who should have private space change ideas of like, what we need private space for change. Like, do we all need to sleep in separate places? Or do we need time during the day to
KC Davis 16:37
write and like I are, for the longest time we had a toddler bed or indoor crib and an adult bed and every bedroom? Because we were we had a like an infant and a toddler. And like, you know, me who's super particular about sleep and my husband who sometimes stores and it was like we were just playing like musical beds every night. Like we're just figuring out what works. And I also we have sort of an open concept living area that's not super big as far as like houses go. And so we have always elected to instead of putting a dining room table in, we use that as the play area.
Julie Lause 17:16
I think it's really funny, Casey that you are talking about like this, as if we don't all know what your living room looks like. I mean, we
KC Davis 17:25
know not everybody knows. But I mean, to me that was such an intuitive thing, because especially because our island was built so that part of the stone came like overhangs so that I could put barstools Oh for like chairs, right? And like my husband and I don't sit down at a table to eat dinner we'd like to eat in front of the TV. So we got one of those coffee tables that like pulls up to the table. Hi. Oh, yeah, it's so cute. Yeah, so we either eat at the bar or we eat in front of the TV. And the girls have their play area when when you have little little kids like you need to see them all the time. So that was super helpful. The other thing that I did was I had this tiny, tiny coat closet, it was 26 inches wide. It was tiny. And for the longest time we were using it like a coat closet because you just don't second guess things like that. And but like it was like the closet of no return. Yeah, like it wasn't actually it was like being used as long term storage almost like we
Julie Lause 18:22
weren't really once you put something in there, it's gone.
KC Davis 18:25
It's gone. And it was one of my only Storage Spaces downstairs. So I was like this is ridiculous to be using like these things can all be stored on the third floor where no one ever goes. And I actually ended up getting a like over the door hooks for our coats to go outside the door because I live in Houston. It's not even that cold here. Yeah. And I like use that closet for storage. And then recently I took it like one step further and actually had like The Container Store people come out and put shelving in it. And let me tell you, yeah, Julie, this has been life changing, because I'm someone who like my island always has stuff on it. And that's fine. I feel like that's what countertops are for is to like have stuff on it. Yeah. But there was like I was running out of places for stuff to go. And they came out and looked at this closet. So it's 26 inches wide. So that's like two feet wide.
Julie Lause 19:19
Yeah, there's not even a shelving unit you could even buy that would go in
KC Davis 19:22
18 inches deep. It's like standing up coffin. We got 12 feet of shelving into this thing.
Julie Lause 19:29
Really what are you, huh?
KC Davis 19:31
All right, feet of shelf.
Julie Lause 19:33
All right. Did you film this because we need a series on this on the tick tock.
KC Davis 19:36
Yes, I did. I gotta see this. Yes, because we put them like 16 inches high. And we just went all the way up. And I didn't even go I didn't even so I'm like five foot two. I didn't even put shelves above what I could reach and we still got 12 feet of storage in there.
Julie Lause 19:53
That's amazing.
KC Davis 19:54
It's incredible. And it has changed my life. And I love what you said earlier when you were like I'm not supposed to leave dishes. In the sink, because in my experience, and I think you'll agree with me on this, what keeps most people from making these, like really creative, functional changes to their house? Has, it's not that they're not creative, right? It's that they haven't given themselves permission to think outside the rules about what rooms are supposed to be used for.
Julie Lause 20:21
That's right. You know, when you walk into my house, I live in kind of, uh, well, New Orleans houses are like Houston's houses, right? Like, so you know, you walk into the living room, right? You just walk in, there's no entryway. So here you are in the living room. And there's in my living room, I have what I call my command center. And a lot of times people ask me, like, why is all this crap in your living room? And they'll say, like, you have a calendar, you have the kids schedule, you've got what is all this stuff here. So this is how I run my whole life. I have all my systems right here. If I thought, Well, my living room should be like the house, the room in my house that we don't go in, that we keep nice for when that person is coming over who were keeping that room nice for I don't know, if you had a room like that in your house growing up? Then I would be following the rules. But why would I follow that rule, I'm going to customize my house for what I need to make my family functional. And so I think that when you can, and even you know, this, for me goes so far as don't go to Pottery Barn. And by the command center, you know, when you go by that command center that has one calendar, and there's two bulletin boards on the side, and there's three little cups, and there's, you know, two little shelves, and you go put it on there. And then you're just actually going to put your stuff into someone else's idea of what you need to organize your life. That's not even going to be good enough. You need to think about what do I need? When I go in and out of this door? What is my family need visible on the wall? To help us organize our time? What is my partner and I what do we need to talk about every Sunday to manage our week, like what is our life need to go like for we have a Birthday Calendar, I have it on the wall, my daughter manages our Birthday Calendar, it's been on the wall in the command center since she was born. Because it's always been there. At some point, when she was three and a half or four, she decided to start managing it. I'm not saying that, like you know, everyone's three year old should manage their Birthday Calendar. But she's the only other person in my house. So she takes on some of the chores. But you know, this is the kind of this is the work of a family. This is the kind of stuff you do to keep your family moving. You know, this is where you put stuff on Friday that you're going to take to work on Monday, right, you're not going to just like leave it on the kitchen table, and then it gets piled under a bunch of stuff, you're going to have a landing spot for it so that you don't forget it on Monday. Like that's what families need and getting used to the idea that our homes can have stuff in it, they don't need to look like the Architectural Digest is that's the name of it. You know, I like clear surfaces because it makes my brain happy. But like you don't need your organizational systems to pretend that you don't live at your house. So I like customized systems. And I think you know, having the Container Store, come measure your space and build something exactly for what you need nearby so that it relieves the pressure on your counters is exactly the reason to customize something. I think it's brilliant.
KC Davis 23:25
I had them build it at a depth where only one thing could fit. Oh, my heart. I love it. And I think you must be like me, because a lot of people will ask me like, Why do you have all of this? Because all my systems stuff are on my fridge. And people say like, why don't you use an app? Why don't you develop an app? Why don't you have a Google sheet and I'm like, it has to be visual for me. And so when I went into this little project of creating these shelves, I was aware of like, okay, I can't create this in a way where things just start disappearing again into this closet like and just like in my fridge. Like I realized like everything needs to be front row. Yeah. Like I can't have a bunch of things stacked behind other things. So they just swallow it up. So I did it at a depth where it really is like one sort of basket of things. There's not other things behind it unless like at the bottom row is like toilet paper and paper towels. That's fine. But that was huge, because I know myself and I think that's a big part of it is that you have to know what your limits are, what your barriers are part of us. We have three bedrooms on our second floor. One is our ensuite bedroom for me and my husband. And then of course the babies have the other two and last night was the first night they slept in the same room. They have tried over and over and over they really want to but they just can't they're too and it's hard. But last night they did. And I'm let me tell you the party that I am throwing because I have waited for the day that these kids want to sleep in the same room because I realized that you know when you when you have a baby in a crib, yeah, they need their own space because otherwise they can't fall asleep but once they get to that toddler age Ah, I really realized there's no point of them having their own room at the toddler age, they play together, right? It's the same stuff. And so I want to be able to put both of their beds in one of the bedrooms for a sleeping area that can stay calm, and soothing with the blackout curtain. So that the other room can be the play area where we can take the blackout stuff off the shade. Like they have a place to go play that isn't just in the mother living room, a place to play when I'm upstairs doing my stuff. And so I've just, it's like, it's a really celebratory day at the Davis house today. This
Julie Lause 25:36
is amazing. I mean, it's gonna be two steps forward, three steps back, you know that, but this, the fact that it works once is a really good sign. How did you make it work? How did it I mean, now I want tips.
KC Davis 25:48
So one of my youngest didn't feel very well. And so we were having to go in over and over and over because she was crying and asking for mommy. And then like, I kept putting her down. And then the other one would like run into the room and our dad would be like chasing or like night to go back to your room. And so my older daughter was crying saying, Daddy, don't leave. I don't want to be alone. And the little one was crying, saying, Mommy, mommy, mommy. And so finally she ran into the room. And I just said, Do you want to sleep in here? And she said, Yes, we have a big bed in here too. So I let her lay down. And we tried this before, but then they started giggling together. But I think this particular night like one of them's not feeling well, there were They were both so tired. Yeah, that they were just they were tired enough to just lay down.
Julie Lause 26:31
Yeah, yeah. It's like batch processing your children's bedtime. I love it.
KC Davis 26:35
I'm just not a peep, not a peep. Let me tell you that.
Julie Lause 26:39
That's so great. My kiddo is not even able to do a sleep over it. Let me tell you, this child has never she is like her grandmother. And she's like her mother, she does not want to go to sleep. She does want to miss a moment of life. It's like, she's just could stay up forever. Last night at 1030. She's like, I have read five books tonight. And I'm gonna read five more.
KC Davis 27:03
Okay, so I have I have a couple more questions for you. But I'm going to take a short break, and we'll be right back. Okay. Okay, so here are my questions when you're working with people, when people are taking your course about how to customize their home? How do you help people that say, you know, I really what is functional for me in terms of what I need to do, the things I need to do is one thing, but then I feel anxiety. When I look at stuff on the walls, I feel anxiety when stuff is on the countertop. And I mean, that's something that I hear a lot is that there's this kind of conflict between, yes, functionally, it would be really great to not have to put my blender away every morning. But I just have this hope and dream of looking at completely clear countertops. And I just feel anxious and wrong when there's stuff on it.
Julie Lause 27:54
Yeah, I mean, I think it's so individual. As you're asking me this question. I'm thinking of three different women. I've worked with one on one. And so I could answer it three different ways. But you know, sometimes I have found this is about mom getting a space in the house, that's her own,
KC Davis 28:11
dude, let's just stop there. That's really powerful. It's not about oh, I you know, I am superficial. And I want clear countertops. It's not about oh, I have anxiety, I want clear countertops. It's about I just my whole life. In the past several years have been in service of my family. I am, you know, a great everything's a workstation. But like, I just want some place in my house that I can make aesthetic and pretty, that makes me feel calm. And
Julie Lause 28:42
when I put it this way, no one messes with it, no one comes and messes with it that I have to keep taking care of. I turned it this way. And I came back in and there it is like this
KC Davis 28:54
sort of like an area you're not in service to 24/7 Yeah, that gives you something right an area
Julie Lause 29:00
that gives to you. So like maybe that's a closet, maybe that's a you know, maybe that's a corner of a room, that's a space. And so there are one on one clients that I work with around really finding the courage to tell your family that you require this in your home, right, and finding the courage and the confidence to say this is something that I need to be able to be in this family in this space and to do all the service that I am doing and to do all the you know, all of the very heavy lifting that happens when you have young children that you are in the middle of so you know all this what this means. People are hanging on you all the time and you're just constantly cleaning everything. Yeah, I
KC Davis 29:43
think it's really smart of you to identify that for some people. That is what it's coming from, and then sort of gently steering them to this idea that maybe the kitchen isn't the best place to try and cultivate that at this season of your life. Right? That's right. And I mean, this is what Like she sheds happened, right? It was this this area in the backyard. And it's like, you can have that in, right. And I think it's perfectly fine to say my children, you know, depending on ages, and I mean, I'm not saying be disrespectful of what other people need, but maybe your kids can't sleep in the same room so that you can have your own room, right, your own sitting room.
Julie Lause 30:19
That's right. And I have felt this at, you know, I have had my child in my bed for eight years. So like, you know, and many, many people have told me, This is my own fault. But I, you know, it's a choice I made because of some struggles that we had in our, you know, family and some big fears that my child had. And it was easier than going in and out of her room, 100 times a night, and it was fine. And now, I want this to be my space, and I am bossy about it. Like, please don't take my covers on the floor, please don't get in my bed like this is my space. And I've felt like I couldn't do that for many, many years. And I have other places in the house that for sure are mine. But I think that when you are in the middle of parenting young children, and perhaps there are other things at work, you see it as your role. You see it as your duty, you see it as you might be a stay at home, mom of small children, and you see it as sort of a gift. And so in like exchange for that gift, you don't get personal space, or it's like you're trying to enjoy it, because you're supposed to enjoy it. Like all these things are happening for us, right? But it is okay. I would also say there is this like rejection of luxury, oh, I'm not like that. I don't need a luxurious, I don't need a she shed, I don't need a spa bathroom. And it doesn't need to be luxury, it can just be a space that you don't have to clean up after other people. So we do that. Sometimes it's about that. Sometimes I think this is I'm not a mental health professional, you are the mental health professional. But I know a little bit about this, because I'm a school principal. And I've worked with communities, my whole career where minimizing distractions and minimizing clutter can really help with mental health issues. And so sometimes it's about that. So sometimes it's about figuring out, where is this contributing to your mental health issues or your stress. And like, maybe you don't get to decide that the kids room is an arena, you're gonna get to clear out. But you can decide that there are some services that you're going to say this is a clear surface, right. So that's another thing. And then I would say the third thing is that sometimes we try to control things because we don't have boundaries around things in our house. And so a lot of times this is that fair play work of like, partners communicating around expectations for cleaning up and sharing the work. And I don't have a partner in the house. And so I'm not an expert on this work. But that's we do do a lot of work around. I do work with my one on one client clients around communication around expectations around cleaning up and partnerships. So I think those are my three answers. When you say how do you deal with people with anxiety around clutter and cleaning up?
KC Davis 33:07
I love that. So I did something similar to make like a MySpace a few months ago, where I redid my bedroom,
Julie Lause 33:14
I saw that Little House on the Prairie, the Little
KC Davis 33:16
House on the Prairie bedroom, it doesn't match any of the aesthetic in my house. And I thought I don't care. That's fine. I want my inner child to be happy in this room. And one of my daughters sleeps with me actually. And but it's been fine. Like what I did was, I did the whole bedroom the way I wanted it. And then I got this chest. And I'm not usually a chest person, because things just get turned into kind of a doom box. But I got them a chest
Julie Lause 33:42
for toys. Because in your room. Uh huh.
KC Davis 33:45
I mean, you know, at one and three, two and four, like the reality is, is like they're gonna be playing in your bedroom while you're taking a shower wherever you are. And so I didn't want to go so far as to say like, you are not allowed to bring toys in here. But that's where I chose that like cupboard storage where it could go away and be away. And I think that's important. Like there are things in my life that I need to not disappear. I need to actually they need to be like mentally permanent to me. But there are things in my house, I do want to disappear. I want to not think about them. And so they have some toys in my room, as well as this like big antique doll house that looks like it's part of the aesthetic. And all those toys go away all those toys go away. Even though my daughter sleeps there. She has her own little cot. She sleeps in bed with me, but they're still out there just in case. She she has a little cot and it was I got off of Amazon and we just drape a quilt over it a little baby quilt and it looks like it's part of the room. I love it. But I'm such a fan of that. I think that it took me a long time to get to the place of being able to think about aesthetics from a care perspective because for so long. Aesthetics were an obligation and a duty and a pressure and And a place where I was failing if it didn't look like that. And even when I did feel good about what my house looks like, when I was really paying attention to like, what was I saying to my house when it looked good? It was it was not connected to me it was connected to, I'm doing it. I'm a good parent. Yeah, joke, it mom's holding it off. It was just like cosplaying you know what I mean? And it's taken a long time of just kind of throwing aesthetics out the door and leaning into function. And two years later, it's like, I'm kind of got the function squared away. And it is, it was like this tiny little crack opened for, what would it be like if this space had some beauty in it? But I feel like I had to go through that process of almost like not thinking about aesthetics at all. Oh, yeah. Before it resurfaced as something in service to me.
Julie Lause 35:57
Yeah. Oh, yeah. And I also think that's the, what if like, think about it, if you had done it the other way. Like, you would be cramming your chore chart into, like, your Little House in the prairies. You know, you would be backwards mapping for functionality. And the frustration that comes when you're trying to layer on top of the aesthetic
KC Davis 36:23
than the S. Yeah, the aesthetics wouldn't be doing anything for me, because I'd be so stressed out and nothing worked. Yeah. Right. Yeah, I think that's huge. I also think one other thing when we're talking about kind of the anxiety of like, okay, I can make my space functional, but then like, I'd have anxiety about the way it looks. I think it's really important for us to take seriously, anxiety, and I am of the opinion that anxiety disorders are massively under diagnosed and women because it is culturally acceptable for you to be fretting about the house, it is culturally acceptable for a woman to never sit down. It's funny how we laugh about how mom can't sit down to watch a whole movie with us because she has to be cleaning something. And,
Julie Lause 37:10
or she can't drink her coffee, she has to warm up her coffee 15 times I've seen 1000 Tick talks about the coffee warming up. But it's, you're right. It's not that funny is it?
KC Davis 37:20
I mean, I know why there's humor in it. And I don't want to like, you know, throw be a wet blanket, but at the same time, right? Like, you deserve better coping skills than having to exhaust yourself and service of keeping a pristine house, you just really do like, you deserve better coping skills than that. And so I think it is important to see a doctor, talk to a therapist, talk to someone about this is what I'm feeling in my house. And maybe it's something simple, like you said, where it's Oh, I'm just in search of a space of my own. Oh, I'm just kind of caught up in some old rules about how I think places should look. But maybe there's an anxiety disorder, maybe there's some OCD, maybe there's some of these other things happening, that is sort of being camouflaged by the fact that nobody bats an eye and a mother or a woman who won't sit down, or can't sit down or feels anxious. And I always say when people say like, you know, I can't let my house be messy at all. Because like, you know, it messes with my mental health because like a clean house makes me feel peaceful. And I always respond to that by saying like, I mean, the beach makes me feel peaceful. But I don't feel anxiety when I'm not at the beach. Right? Like, there are lots of things that make me feel peaceful, where the absence of that thing is not creating anxiety. And so like, I also find like a beautiful aesthetic, home peaceful, but because the absence of it doesn't create anxiety in me, I'm not tempted to prioritize keeping a clean home over other values that are more important.
Julie Lause 39:00
And I think the long term consequences for women are that the life that we have gets smaller. So you recently made a tick tock, this is just a podcast episode where we talk about each other's tic TOCs.
KC Davis 39:14
Yeah, I mean, that's most of my podcast, so don't feel bad. Okay, good.
Julie Lause 39:18
You recently made a tic toc. That was so beautiful. That was like, let me see if I can do it. It was something like, yeah, 50% of you are saying like, Oh my god, your dishes are so dirty. And also you're asking me, how do you have so much time to write a book? Well, the dishes are dirty. And so when we have so much anxiety that we have to constantly be in this loop of obsessively cleaning our homes, we don't write the book. We don't run the marathon. We don't have the hobby that turns into another career. You know, we don't do the things that are fulfilling in life. We don't have the friendships. I did a whole Tech Talk series about female friendships and how do you meet friends? As a mom, I have so many real life affirming female friendships. I've lived in my community for 30 years, and you wouldn't believe the 1000s of comments I get from people on Tik Tok that say I have zero female friends and like, okay, but you're in there cleaning the house, you know, you could be out, I have no time for female friends, I have no time to write the book, I have no time to go to a group. And I do think that the long term consequences of having that kind of anxiety that keeps you spinning in that kind of place, keeps your life that small. And
KC Davis 40:30
it's really something that you can't tell from the outside looking in. Like, I know that there are men and women and and everywhere in between that, that their hobby is homemaking, right, like they want to make bread from scratch. They want to sew their curtains, they want to, you know, listen, I spent an inordinate amount of time looking at decorations online. Like I love decorating for the seasons. Like it is so much fun for me. And I think that it's not for anyone else outside of you to judge how much time you do or don't spend attending to your home. It's just, it's for you to check in about is this making me happy? Is this serving? Am I creating a home that serves me? Am I creating a home that brings me joy? And being able to identify? Yeah, man, I love this stuff, or no, like, I really kind of wish I didn't have to do this all the time, because there are other meaningful things that I would love to have in my life. And so yeah, it's just for each person to have the permission to explore that.
Unknown Speaker 41:31
Yeah. And it's funny because the normal like I do think tick tock sometimes makes everyone feel like they have ADHD or an anxiety disorder. Like there's this whole, you know, movement of people saying, I think I'm diagnosing myself on tick tock, but it also is really opening up this possibility for people that they can reflect on like, wow, you know, maybe this thing that I'm feeling isn't just me, I'm not alone. I think that's something really powerful. Hopefully, maybe I'm not alone in this. This has
KC Davis 41:59
been an excellent conversation, we you plug for people where they can find you.
Julie Lause 42:02
Well, you can find me doing non dancing things on Tiktok. So at the boss, yes. But at the Bossy house.com You can find a free workshop on setting up and customizing your command center at your house. So go to the boss house.com If you put your email in, I will send you the link to the video. It's an hour long workshop. And your freebie
KC Davis 42:26
is so much cooler than mine. I have a decluttering workbook that you can get if you sign up for my newsletter. It's trouble. care.com So you guys, should everybody just do that at once your sounds cooler than mine.
Julie Lause 42:38
Well, and of course, you'll find Casey and I, you know, dueling it out in the comments section on tick tock, that's where you'll find.
KC Davis 42:46
That's awesome. Thank you so much. This has been a great conversation.
Julie Lause 42:49
Yeah, thank you. And thank you for being such a lovely platform for everyone. It's just It's been such a joy to be inside your comment section and to get your content. You're such a leader in this space. Thank you