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What Kind of House Did You Grow Up In?

What Kind of House Did You Grow Up In?
Carly Jacobs
This post is sponsored by Porter Davis

L

ast week I was invited along with my mate Stacey from Veggie Mama to a Porter Davis event in Melbourne. The whole experience of wandering around the show room took me straight back to my childhood. Being the daughter of a plumber, I spent most weekends in the industrial suburb of Fyshwick in Canberra, while my parents looked at taps and paint samples and I almost died from boredom.

ย Now that Iโ€™m a grown up though, I freaking LOVE looking in bathroom and kitchen stores, so Porter Davis was like visiting Disneyland for me. Iโ€™m also incredibly Type A, so all the neatly arranged plates and knick knacks were right up my alley thank you very much.

I think Iโ€™m like this because I grew up in a house that looked like a hotel. A hotel that people werenโ€™t allowed to stay in. A hotel that had a full time maid (AKA Mama Smaggle) that would follow you around picking up your shoes and dirty plates and tutting disapprovingly every time you sat on a perfectly fluffed cushion. It was while I was wandering around Porter Davis and resisting the urge to tell Stacey to stop touching things, that I got the inspiration to share with you a few home hacks I learned from the fabulous Mama Smaggle. [divider type=”standard” width=”1/1″ el_position=”first last”] livingroom

This was Mama Smaggle’s ‘formal lounge’. It looks like Marie Antionette threw up in there. I think I sat in this room twice in the entire 13 years that we lived in that house. White carpet. I still can’t even fathom why she did that.

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5 Home Style Habits You Should Steal From Mama Smaggle

 

Throw away (almost) everything

Mama Smaggle is extremely unsentimental when it comes to possessions. If she hasnโ€™t used it/worn it/loved it in over year, it gets donated to charity. Useless clutter is the enemy of style so ditch everything you donโ€™t need.

Take your sweet ass time making design decisions

You can actually live without decorator items so donโ€™t settle for something thatโ€™s almost right. Hold out for something that delights you and add slowly to your home.

Have a design mantra

The house I grew up in was โ€˜Victorianโ€™ with lots of antique floral patterns, liberty print fabrics, vintage furniture and terracotta. My home is more โ€˜Playful Designer Eclecticโ€™ which means shite loads of monkey toys interspersed with humorous art prints, Eames chairs and weird spiky plants. If you have a few key words that represent your style it makes SUCH a huge difference when youโ€™re shopping to decorate your home. If youโ€™re totally confused try this World of Style quiz. It will narrow down your style to a main category like Classic or Modern and then give you several options within those categories. Itโ€™s perfect for people who literally have no idea where to start or people whoโ€™s style has changed and they canโ€™t quite figure out what direction theyโ€™re going in. [divider type=”standard” width=”1/1″ el_position=”first last”] bath

All teasing aside, I freaking loved this house. I’d pay GOOD money to have just one more soak in that tub.

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Follow your gut

If you see something you love, get it. Deep down you know whether or not itโ€™s something that will fit in your home. Even if you see something that you โ€˜loveโ€™ your gut will tell you that a giant plush pink sofa shaped like a pair of lips is not going to work in your Nautical Hamptons sun room.

Cleanliness is next to godliness

I am not joking about Mama Smaggle and her clean freakiness. My brother and I werenโ€™t even allowed to keep our toothbrushes on the bathroom counter because โ€˜theyโ€™re not exactly decorator items!โ€™ *insert eye roll and scoff* [divider type=”standard” width=”1/1″ el_position=”first last”]

Anytime Mama Smaggle getโ€™s too twitchy about things being clean I always scream โ€˜Surfaces! Surfaces darling! No THINGS on PLACES!โ€™ at her. Check out the video at 3.30 to see what I mean.

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Iโ€™m not quite as anal retentive as Mama Smaggle but I do enjoy a clean home and if you go to all the trouble of decorating your home beautifully, it will only be ruined if youโ€™ve got piles of washing draped all over your beautiful red leather lounge or if thereโ€™s three feet of dust on your Scandinavian bookshelf. Dedicate a few hours a week to tidying your house or outsource the job to a cleaner. Simples.

If youโ€™re looking to upgrade the decor of your home or even renovate (lucky bastardsโ€ฆ Iโ€™d LOVE to renovate a home. Hello bedroom bathtub!) itโ€™s definitely worth checking out Porter Davis. They know their stuff – thereโ€™s a whole wall of over 64 different styles you can choose from and they have all the stuff you need toย make your home Designer California or Contemporary San Francisco or whatever mood board tickles your fancy. You should also like their Facebook page – theyโ€™ve got some bonza styling ideas in there and they arenโ€™t all weird and brand-ey like โ€˜Blah blah blah PORTER DAVISโ€ฆ blah blah PORTER DAVIS!โ€™ they actually encourage you to mix and match stuff in your home to get a style thatโ€™s unique to you not a weird robot version of you.

Oh and just for the record I DO keep my toothbrushes on the bathroom counter in my own house because Iโ€™m not a giant weirdo.

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16  Main bathroom 1

This is the bathroom I had growing up. I’m not even kidding about the toothbrushes. They’re in those drawers… along with my sanity.

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ย Do the quiz and let me know what style you areโ€ฆย and tell me about your childhood home. Was it anything like mine?

30 Comments

  1. Nicole (@dorkabrain) 10 years ago

    We were too “poor” and had nobody very domestic in our household, so that’s kinda the opposite to what I grew up in. Add to that my mother’s inherited hoarding and there were piles of everything on top of other random things.
    At one point we had mismatched lounges, one of which had the door off of our wooden shed sitting over the slats to keep it from sinking. Suffice to say, there wasn’t anything to be delicate about.

    Like most quizzes, it seemed a little limited. But I think I ended up with Designer? I’m not sure, I might have done it wrong.

  2. Author
    Carly Jacobs 10 years ago

    One of my mates had a house like that and I loved it. Their dining table was full of the most awesome because her mum was really into craft. I was ‘Classic’ in the quiz but it gave me four options and I picked French Industrial. I think that sounds about right. ๐Ÿ™‚

  3. Veggie Mama 10 years ago

    THE BUTTERFLY PRINT SOFAAAAA!

    • Author
      Carly Jacobs 10 years ago

      I know right? There was also a chair with an amazing antique book print that we called the Book Chair but it’s just out of the shot in that photo. It’s at my parents new house though!

  4. OMG, I totally wish I grew up in your house Smaggle. Hahahha.
    I spent two years winters { between the ages of 2 and 4 } living in a tent in Armidale, while we were building a house – a house that didn’t actually have ANY DOORS. Interior or External doors – ultimate BOHO chic. We had kangaroos bounding in and everything. Funny in retrospect ๐Ÿ˜‰ But it made me love having the chance to make a beautiful home when I finally got my own <3

    • Author
      Carly Jacobs 10 years ago

      That sounds amazing! We lived in a TINY house before this one while my parents were building and it was ridiculous. My brother and I almost killed each other! I was always jealous of army kids because they got to move around so much. I’m glad you have a beautiful home that you love now! x

  5. Tahlia Meredith 10 years ago

    What a beautiful house!

    I grew up in an old house – literally, and my mum loves antiques. Like Nicole we had lots of mismatched stuff but over time my parents have refined their collection and renovated, but in keeping with the older style of the house so it has come together really nicely.

    I got Contemporary, which I think sounds about right. I’ve still got a bit of a mismatch hangover from my student days but I’m slowly moving towards basics with clean lines and I love lots of light! Fun quiz, I look forward to going through all the photos with my four options – I love looking at houses ๐Ÿ™‚

    • Author
      Carly Jacobs 10 years ago

      It’s funny because I actually really love mis-matched stuff to and as you can see that was certainly not a feature in my parents house! I freaking love house porn. At the store front they have 64 theme cards. They’re bloody gorgeous. I’m sending mine to Mama Smaggle – she’s just started studying interior design!

  6. denvergalea 10 years ago

    I also grew up in a very tidy and well thought out house, though my parents style is a bit more modern (light colours, not wooden, clean lines etc). Although my parents are really tidy, I don’t think they were quite the level of your mum. ๐Ÿ™‚ We were told to pick up after ourselves, but being ‘lived in’ was okay… so long as we put things away when we were done.

    There was a phase when I first moved out at 17/18 when I tried the mis-matched/untidy living, but I’ve realised that I like being tidy too. Agree that if you put some effort into making your house look nice, you should keep it nice. Nothing wrong with being house proud!

    • Author
      Carly Jacobs 10 years ago

      I’m a bit mis-matchy but always tidy which is strange because I wasn’t always tidy when growing up. I think it just seeps into you. Mr Smaggle and I sometime think we could be a bit neater and then we go to other people’s houses and we’re like – nup. We’re practically OCD over here.

      • denvergalea 10 years ago

        Haha, I hear you. Any time I know someone is coming over I tidy up, but I guess others don’t worry as much. I life with a rather untidy man, so that’s my challenge… to try not to act like a parent and remember it’s both our house.

  7. Have A Laugh On Me 10 years ago

    Thanks for my Ab Fab fix, I’ve just read Bonkers and plan to pour myself a big glass or something get watching tonight! We had an old, large farm house with formal lounges, dining rooms, etc, lots of daggy wallpaper!

    • Author
      Carly Jacobs 10 years ago

      I love that episode. ‘She so anal retentive she can’t sit down for fear of sucking up the furniture!!!’. My best mate are just like that. Your house sounds BEAUTIFUL!!! Love!

  8. katepickle 10 years ago

    I gree up in an old cali bunglaow and I LOVED it… love the big tree in the front yard, the ancient kitchen, the bathroom with carpet tiles on the floor and the ceiling roses that randomly fell from the ceiling! I had never lived anywhere else until I went overseas at age 21 and my parents knocked it down and built a new house…

    And then… 15 or so years later on a whim we bought a house ‘in the country’…. crazy idea, but it just happened to be a cali bungalow very similar to the one I grew up in… awwww…

    Great tips… love the one about waiting, it makes me feel a lot better about our house which we’re in the middle of renovating, and which is kinda empty of personality right now as I am just not sure what I want! LOL

    • Author
      Carly Jacobs 10 years ago

      Carpet tile bathrooms! My grandparents had those. So weird. What were they thinking??? I always for everything. You can’t rush great style! ๐Ÿ™‚

  9. Tamsin Howse 10 years ago

    While my parents’ style is virtually the opposite of yours’ (floral? My mum would have a fit) we may as well have been in the same house. Toothbrushes in cupboards, no magazines on tables, microwave hidden in the pantry, all the walls were the same colour throughout the house and nothing was allowed to be stuck on walls. I dreamt of a bedroom with different coloured walls, or a house where I could leave my craft stuff on the lounge room floor or put down a cup without having it whisked away.

    Then I grew up and now my house has the same coloured walls throughout, and I whisk cups away before people have finished with them. Isn’t it funny how we become our parents? The transformation isn’t quite complete – I still leave clothes piled on my red leather couch and craft supplies in the middle of the floor.

    • Author
      Carly Jacobs 10 years ago

      Oh lord magazines on the tables??? HOW VERY DARE YOU? Totally hear you on the blutack. NEVER BLUTACK! I also cannot sleep with cupboard doors open. Mr Smaggle is totally fine but I can’t stand it.

  10. Rosehips and Rhubarb 10 years ago

    I grew up in the world’s tidiest house – seriously. Mum even lined up all the cans in her pantry and they all faced the front. Here style is very mid-century with lovely Parker furniture, muted colours and clean lines. I’m more classic and like antiques and silver. Mum hates silver because it tarnishes.

    • Author
      Carly Jacobs 10 years ago

      My mum used to ‘face’ things in the pantry too! I don’t do that… TOO FAR! I love antiques too but I don’t have any which is strange… must rectify that!

  11. emmabovary 10 years ago

    My Mum has such a strong sense of style, and it seems to be the total opposite of Mama Smags – she loves strong colours and bold pieces, and has so many pieces out that she has collected over the years. If you move one by even a mm she knows and needs to fix it, and she keeps everything immaculately clean. At the moment all the accents in the house are chic red and black…my house? No red, as a rule. We have warm tones throughout, kitchen has an orange theme (sounds strange but it is one of the best aspects of our home!) and the lounge has bright blue and yellow as a theme throughout the lot. I can’t wait until after the wedding when I can buy some dark wood furniture to go with all my accent pieces, I totally agree with you about collection house things slowly and if I don’t absolutely love something I just can’t bring it into the house – can be quite frustrating to be honest!

    • Author
      Carly Jacobs 10 years ago

      Mama Smaggle’s sister is like that! She’s painted whole walls in her house bright red! We do lots of grey with splashes of blue, red and lots of orange. I can’t bring any crap in my house. It’s too small. Dark wood sounds DEVINE!!!

  12. Hehe I remember you telling me about the toothbrushes! I wish I could make hubby more neat but I fear that it is a losing battle!

    • Author
      Carly Jacobs 10 years ago

      Yeah you’ve got to start small… toothbrushes might be too much too soon!

  13. My mum’s very house-proud but my dad isn’t so much. She’d get fed up cleaning up after him, so she’d leave little tests for him. She’d leave something of his right in the middle of the floor to see how long it’d take him to pick it up and put it away. The tests would last – at most – a day, then she’d lose it and tidy it away herself.
    I’m still not sure if my old man was doing it on purpose or not. Intriguing bit of social experimentation though!
    Jx

    • Author
      Carly Jacobs 10 years ago

      My mum had a majorly exgerated sense of time. I’d come from school, kick my shoes off and then after dinner she’d been like ‘Are you going to move those shoes??? They’ve been there for THREE DAYS!!!’.

      *shakes head*

  14. Kelly NH 10 years ago

    Huh. I got San Francisco Contemporary. Whatever TF that means? I live in clutter due to children and renovation. Its become a lifestyle which is destroying my sanity slowly.
    I don’t know what this says about me, but now we are most of the way through renovating our bathroom I have insisted that our vanity has drawers deep enough for the toothbrush holder to stand up in as I am so goddamn sick of them being on the goddamn bench…..
    Also I throw shit out left, right and centre. My husband is a classic hoarder. He cannot bear to part with shit. SO I deal with it by waiting for him to go on a weekend away and then filling the bins of all my family members (God forbid he seen it in our bin, he would bring it back in!) with shit he does not want to part with. Funny thing is, Ive been doing it for years…all the shit that was so important has been gone for ages, yet he hasn’t even noticed.

  15. Erika 10 years ago

    I got Classic, which doesn’t shock me in the slightest. Because so much of my stuff is old (ie scrounged, inherited or actually bought as second hand), I’ve had the comment more than once that it’s like living in a house museum. Actually, it’s not. We have quite a lot of modern things, it’s just that the balance is probably um 80% old…..(tails off in embarrassment). Which actually drives Best Beloved nuts, as he likes modern, but he’s also admitted we can’t afford to buy the same quality.

    I grew up in a flat roof, Wright-influenced house, Scandinavian furniture, paintings everywhere, neat but lived in. Well, with two boxer dogs, it had to be lived in! Also, books everywhere. I think there’s always been a plethora of bookcases. We were definitely encouraged to be neat and that’s something I’ve held onto. I can’t function in a mess, my first step is to tidy up!

  16. Caz 10 years ago

    I grew up in your typical suburban home (think the American suburbs you see on tv) in a new-build that’s now 30 years old. For much of the time we had functional well made furniture but not “nice” until later in my teens when my parents started replacing things. Much of our bedrooms were ikea and I always got to do with my room what I wanted, within reason (Think covering the ceiling in snowboard posters torn from mags). My mom’s style is much more cottage-classic and mine is more dark leather, wood rustic. She’s redoing the kitchen and her choices are nothing I’d ever make.

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