I wish I'd known this before becoming a Defence wife: How to quickly turn an unfamiliar house into a home
Preface:
Welcome to part 2 of my 10 part series: “I wish I'd known this before becoming a Defence wife!” {you can find part 1 here!} These 10 huge adjustments of each year in the life of a Defence wife and Military mama massively caught me off guard in my first year of Defence wife life. I didn't expect to find some of these moments so emotional, so overwhelming, so exhausting or so difficult to navigate {click here for my family's military backstory!}.
I'm writing this to past me and all the women like me who will make the transition in years to come; the young wives, the new mamas, the young women whose loved one joins the Defence Force and whose lives are about to turn upside down for the first - but definitely not last - time. This is what I didn't have anyone to tell me about before I began my first year of ADF Army wife life … I hope it helps you feel just a little more at ease about the changes to come!
The task of turning a new rental house (in a new neighbourhood, of a new city), into a home is daunting. If you’re already a military wife, you know the routine all too well: a flurry of boxes, a whirlwind of goodbyes and a cross-country road trip which ends with a less than ideal hotel stay and a move in day for a house that isn’t home (yet!).
Whether you're living in Defence housing or not, on-base or in the suburbs; turning a temporary rental into a real home can feel overwhelming. As a mama of four young children, this is what I wish I'd known to ask someone before we became an Australian Defence family and agreed to uproot every 12 to 24 months: how to turn an unfamiliar house into a home in the shortest time possible.
Here's how we have learned to settle in quickly and make each new rental house feel like home for our four children and ourselves; I hope that If you have yet to step into this lifestyle and have fears about constantly uprooting and making a new place feel like home - that the tips we've learned across four Defence relocations with young children might help you to settle into a new routine for your family as you begin your ADF journey…
It took us a couple of moves to learn what we have about giving our home a cosy feel in warp speed, while maintaining balance and functionality. We started off doing the typical Defence family dance of accumulating miscellaneous things throughout the year and then doing a massive purge and organise at the end of our time at each location, so that we had fewer things to pack and weren't taking any broken/useless items with us. We quickly found this to be an inefficient way of doing things though; we found ourselves facing the same closets full of clutter at the end of each posting, wondering how on earth we had managed to accumulate so many trivial things and trying to figure out what to keep and what to let go of.
I have four children who are depending on my husband and I to turn each DHA (Defence Housing Australia) house into a home as quickly as we possibly can and the above lifestyle of clutter accumulation and mass purging/donating at the end of each year was causing them (and us!) a lot of unnecessary stress.
In a life of constantly fluctuating stability; we were causing our children more worry by making their home an environment of constant shift. They never knew what items would survive the purge and if or where they would show up again and so they could never form a picture in their mind of what our next home would look like.
We needed a solution and fast! So I latched onto the idea of having a capsule decor system and we haven't looked back. Have you ever heard of a capsule wardrobe? The idea has existed since the ‘70s and it's a system that gains traction and sweeps the world again via social media every handful of years or so. A capsule wardrobe is based on the premise that owning a handful of high quality, slow fashion clothing pieces will yield years more of high-end looking outfit combinations than an infinite amount of cheap, fast fashion clothes will.
Well, we like to call our routine the “capsule decor” system. We own a minimalistic number of furniture items and particularly home decor items. Each item we have in our home is thoughtfully and intentionally selected to serve us well (and tie in with the colour theme and vibe of our house) and has to adhere to the 1 in, 1 out rule. We never bring something in, without first disposing of or donating something else of roughly the same size and location.
If we're desperate for a change - we'll update very minor details that give a new pop of colour … without drastically altering the style of our home. i.e we might swap out our throw blankets, choose a new pattern for our couch cushion covers or head to Ikea to change out the colour of our dishes. Otherwise though, the number of items in our home and the layout we have them set up in, never changes. This means our kids know what to expect of each house; they know they'll have to navigate the changes and challenges of a new neighbourhood, new friends and new postal address, but they have the assurance that every item in our home is going to go on the truck come moving time and be put right back in its place when we get to our new home (if it survives the move of course!).
When homefind opens up to us, we study floor plans carefully and try to find a home that has a layout as similar as possible to the one we've just left and we've found it surprisingly easy to maintain this system (few pieces, 1 in-1 out and minor changes to style only) so that when we unpack in our gaining location - we can have the house cosy, comforting and familiar in one week flat!
Move in day and moving week priorities are opening and unpacking all kids bedroom boxes, along with decor, picture frames and books. You'd be surprised just how quickly a house feels like home to a kid once their room looks exactly the way they left it and there are a few pictures on walls, throw pillows/blankets on the couch and books on the bookshelf. The playroom comes next and linen cupboard, kitchen and garage are always last to be completed, but those items aren't as integral to our kids feeling emotionally grounded.
I feel I need to throw this in here, while it isn't decor related; it is essential to our kids sleeping like babies from night one in their new house. I'm talking about: white noise. I mention this and other tactics for surviving each posting transition in my post: How to help kids with anxiety - tips for military families. In short; if you're not utilising white noise - you are missing out friend!
What works for my family is playing our favourite playlist of worship music while we sleep. I have friends whose children only sleep to rain or whale sounds though, or even just the gentle and familiar drone of an old oscillating fan. Whatever your jam is .... you are missing out big time if you don't establish a regular routine of playing this sound while your little ones sleep.
Our trusty JBL speaker has done the rounds of the country with us and it hasn't mattered whether we are sleeping over at grandparents', staying in temporary accommodation, taking a family vacation or settling into a new Defence house; as soon as we pop our kid’s music on at 7pm on the dot, their brains immediately get the message that it's time to wind down and they sleep peacefully knowing that they're in a familiar place.
It's also kind of an “Inception” effect if you will haha. You know how at the end of the movie the main character spins his spinning top and depending on whether it stops moving or keeps spinning, he knows whether he's in reality or a dream? White noise is like that for our kids … when they have a night waking - they're so much more capable of settling themselves back to sleep if they can hear their white noise playing and know they're in the same place they fell asleep in!
Ultimately, routine is key - for our little ones and ourselves! When all else is constantly changing, create little familiar routines that you can enact as a family - no matter what is happening around you or where you are located.
All things said; promise me that as a brand new Defence wife - you'll remember these two most important things: give yourself grace and give yourself time.
Not every day will feel put-together. Some boxes will remain unpacked longer than you’d like; some nights will feel lonelier than others and that's okay. Embrace the chaos and celebrate the small wins always! The only constant your family will have through each transition is each other. So love each other well, make new memories, light the candles and unroll the rug that makes a house feel like home; you might be surprised at your resilience for starting over and how nifty you get at creating a joyful home out of any space. You've got this!!
Time to weigh in! ... What are you most looking forward to about creating your first Defence home? Or if you're already a seasoned military spouse: what are your top tips for turning any Defence house into a home? Hit me up in the comments … I’d LOVE to hear from you!
