Ep 001: The Lovely Home Podcast Preview Episode

---

Welcome to the Lovely Home Podcast: the show for homemaking mamas, just like you. I’m your host, Shannon Acheson. If you’re looking for ways to confidently create a clutter-free, cozy and beautiful home, you are in the right place.

To learn more about what we’re talking about here today, visit homemadelovely.com for all our blog posts and podcast episodes. Plus, you can get your hands on some awesome freebies there too.

---

Okay. Let’s dive right into this season one preview episode.

I’m Shannon and I’m the mama of three awesome kiddos who are actually now 16, 18 and 20, at the time of recording this, which seems really weird because, for the longest time, it felt like we were in those baby crazy, hazy, no sleep days. But now that they’re this big, I can honestly say I have enjoyed pretty much every stage of having them, of loving on them and just helping them to grow into the adults or almost adults that they are today.

We chose to homeschool them. I may share on the podcast at a later date, why we did that. But if you’re curious, in the meantime, you can check out a blog post I wrote on our blog about that. So we homeschooled them all the way along. So again, while this is being recorded, we are actually at the beginning of 2021. And I know lots of you had the experience of being thrown into homeschooling, not by choice and so huge hugs and kudos to you for tackling that, especially if it was not something that you expected to be doing.

I am also married to my best friend Dean, for almost 25 years. We got married, I was 20 and he was just 24. We love to spend time together. We love to work on our business together and our home together and hang out together. And so that and the kiddos are two of the biggest blessings in my life.

I have always loved home decor and organization ever since, oh my goodness, as long as I can remember. I remember organizing my room and moving things around and just, I was one of those kids who would get dolls and toys. And I would sort of set them up on a shelf to look at them more than just play with them because I’m just such a visual person. I also love decor all the time.

Does anyone remember back in the day – oh my goodness, this is probably dating myself – but back in the day when we would hang wallpaper? Now, technically I would do this with my mom, so not my house, but when we would hang wallpaper, you’d do half a wall of one pattern and put up a wallpaper border and then put up another pattern above that. So, yeah. So I’ve been doing DIY for a very long time.

And I also, long before Pinterest and those things, I used to drool over when the Sears catalog. Does anyone remember when the Sears catalog would come? I loved their bed in a bag set. It’s not just the cheap and cheesy little kid ones, but I love the ones where there was a stripe and a floral and another pattern in there and it was just all so coordinated. Anyways. So yeah, so I’ve always love decor and design. So that was sort of just something that I’ve always, always had as part of me.

Home Made Lovely started, which is our blog and our business. And also I wrote a book that launched last year, Home Made Lovely. As our businesses started initially, it was actually called AKA Design and we rebranded a couple of years ago because it just made more sense. So Home Made Lovely started about 10 years ago now when we were at a fairly low point financially in our marriage and our family. And Dean had been driving back and forth from the city commuting for, oh my goodness, I think about five years at this point. And we had gone through about three cars and we almost went bankrupt and we were just done and tired. Our kids were then five, seven, and nine.

And so we sold our little townhouse out of the city, which of course means when you’re moving back to the city, there’s even less than you can afford as far as the size of the house goes and stuff. And so we bought this little war era, rundown bungalow. And honestly, it was the cutest little house that you could see in my imagination. It needed a ton of work and because our budget was so tight, even after moving back to the city and not having the community more, we had to learn how to DIY everything.

We had some amazing friends who had more experience than us that helped us gut the kitchen and deal with floor rot and all kinds of things. And I mean, you can imagine. The house was 70 or 80 years old and it was just a mess. And so we had some amazing friends who helped us with that and really helped us to learn how to do that. And Dean was always kind of handy, but through this process, really, really learned to be handy in what he loved to do, and how to stretch what he knew how to do into other things.

And so this house was just, it was the biggest blessing in the weirdest way. And I know our friends at the time, they looked at us like we were totally insane. They didn’t say so until after we actually sold that house and moved to another one after we fixed it up a lot, but I know that after the fact, they were like, “You guys are crazy. How did you even?” Because it was the tiniest little house. It was 950 square feet with a crawl space and no garage.

So we had tools, once Dean started to get some tools stored in our closet and there wasn’t a lot of space, but that taught me so much about how to stretch what we had and what to do. And so after doing that for a few months, doing those DIYs, we turned out a kitchen reno in record time. That’s a story for another day, but we did that in really quick time.

And we got to this place, blogs were sort of becoming a thing online to read. And I just thought if we could learn all that DIY and I love home and organizing so much, and we were strapped on a budget and we loved being creative, that maybe there were other people out there, maybe there were other mamas living in homes that they didn’t love or that weren’t their dream homes, and they had a strapped budget and wanted to do these things for themselves too. Or they just wanted the creative outlet to do these things for themselves. So I started a blog.

That was the start really from that house and all that we learned from that, and then my heart was to teach that to other people too. We started that and so we started out sharing DIY projects and crafts that we were doing around the house. And then later, we added in meal planning, because that’s a huge part of seems like what I do all the time as a mom, meal planning and some recipes. We also started sharing more decorating sort of advice and tips as I grew in that.

I practiced and practice in that house and then the next house after that one. I actually even got an interior design diploma course that I did, just to make sure that I had everything covered, so I wouldn’t be teaching anybody wrongly. But really I did learn way more just in practice than I did in the course that I took. And then later we even added decluttering and organization because, it’s so funny because it seems so backward, but because decluttering and then organization sort of comes before decorating, but that’s just the way that we added it into the blog. And now that’s a huge part of it as well.

And so as you’re listening to this, this is the very first sort of intro episode of who we are and how we started. And so what can you expect from this podcast going forward? You can expect more of what’s on the blog. You can expect how-tos and encouragement for creating that peaceful, clutter-free, put together, cozy and beautiful home that you crave so much. But I’m hoping that through doing this, that I’m actually going to help instill in you the confidence in doing this as well, with a little bit of a, “Here’s a hug, but here’s a kick in the pants at the same time.” And a little bit of faith thrown in there. Just sort of all the things that we talk about, about home and just creating that home that you’ve always wanted, but maybe didn’t know how to do before.

So that’s what to expect. This is the Lovely Home Podcast, which is sort of a twist on Home Made Lovely, which is what our business and our blog and also my book are actually called. So I hope that that answers some questions as to what this will be about. And I am so looking forward to hopping on here and talking to you and sharing with you and encouraging you and loving on you in the best ways that I know how with tutorials and encouragement.

---

Thank you so much for joining me today on the Lovely Home Podcast. You can connect with me at homemadelovely.com. There, you can find all our upcoming podcast episodes, as well as our blog posts for the last 10 years, plus social media handles and how to connect with us that way, and my book, and just how to touch base with us. So check that out at homemadelovely.com. Again, thank you so much for listening. And this has been Shannon with the Lovely Home Podcast.

Other Lovely Home Podcast Episodes You May Like: 

• Ep 001: The Lovely Home Podcast Preview Episode (you are here!)

• Ep 002: Nightly Reset/Evening Routine

• Ep. 003: Where to Start in Your Home

• Ep: 004: Stocking Your Pantry & Preparing for Emergencies

• Ep 005: Getting Rid of Paper Clutter Once and For All