If you are following me on Instagram and Facebook (and I really hope you are because I post there more than I do here) then you probably know that my husband Dude and I are in the midst of a redecoration/remodeling of our condo. This is way long overdue for us. We have been living in our little tiny place for a little over 9 years and before that we were living in a (too big for us) house for three years. We have had most of our current furniture for at least 9 years and some pieces were even older.
Time for a switch up!
So, after a few years of planning, budgeting, and saving we pulled the trigger a few months ago and things are happening!
A little background on our place – it’s small. Not NYC small, but compared to how most of our family and friends live, Dude and I live in a shoebox. That’s just the way we like it, though. We don’t have much and we don’t want much. Our living room is the largest room in the place and that’s the room that is getting the overhaul. But since it’s easily 75% of our home, it’s a big deal.
A major part of the whole project is that now we have all new furniture. There is nothing negative about this, but because there are two brand spankin’ new couches in our place our habits had to change.
Before the new couches, Dude and I would eat our dinner in the living room in front of the TV watching Jeopardy! or something we had stored up on the DVR. I know that some might think this is unorthodox and not cool, but eating in front of the TV was a way for us to relax after working all day and then going to the gym. We talked and decompressed from the day while having our meal together on the couch. It worked for us.
Now, until I can help it, not a single crumb of food will be near the couches. Call me hard-nosed, but I plan to keep these beauties as fresh and new for as long as I can. As a result, we now eat in the kitchen.
We have an eat-in kitchen believe it or not. One of the things I love about our place is that the kitchen is relatively huge compared to the size of the rest of the place. Not enormous, but enough that there is ample counter space plus room for a two-top table. And a bunch of years ago I got a little cafe table that is big enough for two to put in the perfect spot. It’s from CB2 and is similar to this, but without the wood. Ours has a tempered glass top and is taller.
Anyway we’ve started this new year out by eating our “together meals”, breakfast and dinner, at the kitchen table. The interesting thing is, it’s not just the venue that’s changed in just a short amount of time; the whole dynamic of the meal has changed. We are more engaged with each other, we are talking more, we’re using the time to review the day.
(Ignore that white spot on the left. Another home improvement project in the works!)
Some of you might be thinking, “Yeah, duh. That’s what happens when you don’t eat in front of the television.” and you’d be right. We never knew what we were missing until we changed our habit and pattern.
And that’s the message I want to get across to all of you: We changed the tone of our day by making one small change. It wasn’t even as though we were dissatisfied with our old habit. Nothing was really wrong with what we were doing before. We just changed out of necessity (new furniture) and discovered a whole new – better! – dynamic!
This has me thinking about other well-worn patterns and habits that we all have that aren’t necessarily bad but could benefit from a shake up.
What small changes can you make that will add up to a big difference?
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