#48: The Not-So-Peachy Parts Of Our Beach House Renovation

Making over our beach house isn’t all rainbows and unicorns and pink siding. So this week we’re diving into a few tasks that have been especially stressful – and we’re sharing one thing we did to calm our nerves (and remind ourselves why we’re doing all of this in the first place). We also get some pro tips from the Clean Mama herself for keeping a house more tidy and organized (including the best tools and tricks that she uses on her own home). Plus we’re sharing the Instagram account that surprised John, the outdoor updates the studio has been eyeing, and we test our expertise in all things Ikea.

You can download this episode from iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, and TuneIn Radio – or listen to it below! Then use this page to check out any links, notes, or photos that we referenced. Note: If you’re reading in a feed reader, you might have to click through to the post to see the player.

What’s New

The pic above is from our day trip to Cape Charles, VA where we got to relieve some of our recent beach house renovation stress. One of the reasons we fell in love with this beach is how calm and shallow it is (you can see how far out those other people are and it’s still just shin-height). And when the water goes out, the kids love finding snails and sand crabs in the little tide pools.

Update (Sort Of)

If you need some backstory on our whole “Family Yearbook” tradition, you can find it in this post
And if you want to read more of the feedback we got about a MyPublisher replacement, here’s the Instagram post and the that we mentioned – thanks to the 600+ people who weighed in with preferences and suggestions!
Here are what seemed to be the two top recommendations: Blurb and Mixbook (Shutterfly was also mentioned a ton, but also garnered a lot of negative feedback, so it was definitely polarizing). Our final choice is still TBD!

What’s Not

Here’s Apartment Therapy’s list of IKEA’s 10 Best-Selling Items
And here are some of the Ikea items in our house that we mentioned (and some we forgot to mention):
- Wood-wrapped Expedit in our son’s room (now called the Kallax)
- White planters that we love for real (and not-so-real) plants
- White duvet in our bedroom
- The big metal shelves in our office (also seen above in that Family Yearbook photo)
- The mega-sofa and cabinets in our bonus room (as well as the now-discontinued sofa in our living room)
- The cabinets in our laundry room and the built-ins in our bonus room

Clean Mama

You can check out Becky’s website at CleanMama.net – including these free cleaning printables and recipes for DIY cleaners. You can also pick up her new book, Simply Clean.
Here are more of her tips on picking the right vacuum for you, including her personal favorite: the Miele Dynamic U1 Cat & Dog Upright
And here’s one of those microfiber dusters she swears by (goodbye feather duster!) and she even sells her own microfiber cleaning accessories
This is her blog post about cleaning your mattress with baking soda
And if you missed our previous cleaning episode with Melissa Maker that we referenced a few times, you can catch it below (Episode #39)

We’re Digging

Above are some of the items we’re eyeing to get the kids outside more this summer: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9
Amazon even sells straps like these to help secure these items over a large tree branch.
And behold, Sky Island
We talked more about that book we mentioned again (Simplicity Parenting) in Episode #45 in case you missed it
Here’s our neighbor’s fast-growing Instagram slime account if you want to jump on the bandwagon like me. The video below is the one that has wracked up over 1.6 million views!
And here are some other good accounts / hashtags to find more #satisfying #soothing #calming videos (FYI, watch enough of these and your explore page will suddenly be overrun with more options!)
- @sam_cik and #printmaking
- @sand.tagious and #kineticsand
- @seblester and #calligraphy
- @annettelabedski and #mixingpaint

Also, if you’re looking for something we’ve dug in a past episode, but don’t remember which show notes to click into, here’s a master list of everything we’ve been digging from all of our past episodes.

And lastly, a big thank you to Modsy for sponsoring this episode. Visit Modsy.com/Objectales to see our home office reimagined as a modern living room (their computer renderings are crazy realistic – and it’s so helpful to see everything to scale). And don’t forget to use code YHL20 to get 20% off your first Modsy room.