Latest / The Family Teams Podcast / Ep. 321 | 5 Home Improvement Ideas for Family Teams

Transcript

Ep. 321 | 5 Home Improvement Ideas for Family Teams · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:00
  just is such a like vacuum, like you just you orbit to it. You you change your mood, what you talk about changes.
• 0:10
  What's up, guys? Welcome back to Five Minute Fatherhood. We want to count down five home improvement ideas for family teams. This is coming from a question we actually got in homeroom. Maddie said, we just moved and are redoing portions of our house, wondering if anyone has made changes to their home that they think have helped to craft good rhythms, good traditions, et cetera. I love this question. I just love that question. It's so helpful. So,
• 0:35
  So we're going to share. I'll share the first one and then pass it to you, Jeff. Okay. A family team needs to invest in a good dining room space. This could be your table. But, man, you guys know we talk about table time. This thing called a dining room, you know, this formal thing that if you look at a house that's like pre-1960s,
• 0:55
  Uh, you'll almost always see it. Even in, even in tiny spaces, you'll find dining rooms and like apartments that were, you know, built before the 1970s, 1960s. Uh, newer houses have, you know, these great big open areas where you have the kitchen and the eating space and the living room are all connected. Uh,
• 1:11
  However you do it, make sure that there is a table culture being built, and so you have to build around that table. And so just thinking about that, how that space is cultivated, not making that just simply like maybe a sloppy space where you're just eating at the counter all the time, but you really want to craft what a table is.
• 1:30
  what a family meal where we're having deep conversations, where even we're training our kids to engage in, in that kind of table conversation and table experience. That's a big dip, a big one. But Jeff, what do you got? Yeah. Another one I would say is like, we call them like either kid spaces, but really what they're functioning to do is basically, I would say imaginative spaces. So, you know, sometimes people even joke when they come in our house, but we've kind of converted every little closet and even our garage and like our garage is not a garage. It's like a homeschool playroom.
• 1:59
  Our main closet when you come in, like, you know, it's usually where homes put like coats and shoes and all that is not that it's a playroom. And so, well, I would say that's a big one. And what I think that does is that fosters, we really try to foster a ton of unstructured imaginative play, especially when the kids are that age, whether it's with books, Lego kind of wood toys.
• 2:18
  you know, all the little things they play with dress up, you know, kind of like open ended, unstructured spaces for play, I think has so much more benefits than people realize like of like, just our kids don't, you know, talk about screens that much and not because we're anti screen, but just because the space is shaped not towards screens, but towards like go read a book, go play with Legos, go build this, go put on dress up, you know, stuff like that. And of course, they still ask and want movies and we love movies, we have movie night, etc. But I think yeah, that just
• 2:48
  And then the sibling connection that that fosters has just gone through the roof, we've realized, because every single day they're just kind of wanting to play together now because the space really only lends itself for that. So I would say that's one for sure. That's good. Okay, another one, Matty, that a lot of people do that is weird for a lot of families that aren't family teams is that a lot of us have...
• 3:09
  set aside a room in the house for potentially a household assistant, kind of a more permanent guest room or guest space. And so people that we know that have like a three-bedroom house, they'll have a boy's room, a girl's room, and then a guest room.
• 3:27
  Whereas a typical family would probably just, if they have three kids, spread their three kids throughout those three rooms. And I just think of this as roommate space. A big reason why a lot of people do that is, one, for discipleship. We really like to invest in young singles who are trying to understand what a family's like. And the Bible says that the Lord puts the solitary in a home. So we want to have that as a ministry of our family. Another one is we really want to have a space—
• 3:53
  so that somebody could help us care for our kids and we can really have more robust rhythms, you know, our date nights. If there are times where we feel like we're just, we're burning out, especially as you get into like a larger family, four, five, six kids, man, having somebody live with you that is helping you with the laundry, helping clean things.
• 4:14
  you know, helping with the diapers, helping with just watching the kids, um, or helping with, you know, all the errands that have to be run so that you can spend more time with your kids. Um, oftentimes leveraging a room in your house is the least expensive, most integrated way of getting help. Um, if you're drowning in a season. Um, and so, uh, thinking about that, that third bedroom or, or whatever as in that way is a really common thing I see family teams doing.
• 4:41
  Yeah, I love that one. Another one I would say that's similar to the last one, but I think more specific is book space. We just so care about, you know, one of our favorite rituals in our family is like read aloud time and also just kids exploring through the books. And so but you have to put them everywhere, right? So we have all these spaces where under our coffee table is just kids books.
• 4:58
  Um, and one of our closets is just kids books, you know, next to one of our day beds is just kids books. Um, and one of our little random hallway kind of like, it's like a weird little space. It's just kids books. Like I can go on probably like five more. Like, um, and, and what that does is it just creates all these moments of almost every room we're in, in the house. We, I've noticed it naturally just like, Oh, let's just hop in my lap real quick. Let's read a book. You know what I mean? And it's not like, let's go find it or whatever. It's just, it kind of just fosters this, like, uh,
• 5:25
  every room in the house is kind of a let's cuddle, let's hang out, let's read a book, let's talk, let's sit down. And I really like what that does for the family culture. And like you've talked about, Jeremy, when the kids get older, then that's more, you know, than, you know, them reading books and, you know, and kind of these quiet spaces and being alone with their thoughts and not a, you know, and all the stuff that's necessary for teenage development. So yeah, I love that.
• 5:44
  The biggest thing there, you guys, is you can't have a TV blaring in a main room of the house if you ever want to have a book culture as your family. Yes. Yes, exactly. Exactly. You got to be careful of that one. Okay. The last one, it kind of relates to what you just said, is fire. I would say one thing that family teams I've seen really invest in is fire, like a fireplace. We have a wood-burning fireplace. The little electric ones. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You can put the electric one. We have one that...
• 6:13
  We had an electric one for a while, and then when we could afford and we were doing an addition, we put a big wood-burning stove in the middle of our living room. That's legit. That kind of radiant heat. What you're looking for there, you guys, is you want to create moves that are the pace of relationship, the pace of a conversation. And there's something really dynamic about...
• 6:36
  you know, taking the time to build a fire and enjoy a fire, that it's some, you know, it's work, but it's also, it creates a culture, yeah, vibe and experience that is highly relational, storytelling, reading. So that we have a few of those questions. Well, what's funny is no one argues with that.
• 6:55
  No one argues with that or would disagree with that on like a Christian camp culture or like a camping culture or like a backyard culture. Like there's so many of us can place how a fire at the campground, a fire at the camp, you know, the Christian camp, a fire at the cabin or fire in the backyard just is such a like vacuum, like you just, you orbit to it. You, you change your mood, what you talk about changes. And me and Alyssa even leverage that for date nights. Like we have a little backyard one.
• 7:22
  And what's so insane how much better our date nights are if we go sit out in the backyard versus sit in our living room. And it's just because something like this fire, like it's, it totally does. It creates an experience and a mood, but a lot of us don't bring it inside the home, which some of us can't. You know, we don't, but because Hawaii, who needs a fire? But it's such an addition, you know what I mean? I'm like, yeah, like bring that spirit into the home is really powerful. Very good.