When I wrote part one of this article, Start with the Ideal, I imagined we’d be a little further into the real by now. I imagined we’d be hanging curtains and pasting peel-and-stick. But I suppose our reality this week was even more real: swarming in unorganized chaos, boxes and boxes of things that in the last two months we’d almost forgotten we owned, staring at suspicious scratches, trying to remember if those were there before. A delay in getting our home, a delay in scheduling the move, a delay in the movers showing up. These have created a very real extension to our state of instability. The fact that our landlords won’t allow peel-and-stick wallpaper is just lemon juice in the wound. I admit that living in chaos has been wearing on me, but now most of the boxes have become a fort and most of the dust has settled, literally. I am ready to delve further into the concept start with the ideal, move to the real.
In this article, we’re discussing how the rubber meets the road, how to build that dream when it feels like life is in ashes. We’ve identified our version of our happily-ever-after story. Now we’re flipping back to the beginning of the book, where the heroine starts with nothing and begins creating her real-life Cinderella story.
Moving from the ideal to the real is a concept we use every time we are intentional about creating a learning environment. Setting up a home with an educational design focus is not much different. We follow the same steps used in professional design, but apply them to the spiritual and physical layout of the home.
I’ve been pondering how best to share the “move to the real” concept. I had planned to demonstrate through the car trouble we had in Germany as well as through our current chaotic move. But I realized I need to start simpler, because that is the method I am about to advocate. This is a topic that is at the heart of educational design in the home.
In graduate school, when learning a similar topic, my dear professor, the esteemed Dr. M. David Merrill asked us to select a topic we could teach. He asked us to choose something simple. Very simple, he emphasized. I selected baking cookies. The topic turned out to be more complicated than I anticipated. Fortunately, my professor was a big fan of shortbread, which won me an instant win—samples being necessary to the operation, of course. When I contacted Dr. Merrill four years later, he shared with me that he was using my project at a different university to teach this concept.
In this segment of the article, we are going to do something similar. Except, instead of baking cookies, we’re going to demonstrate this concept with the task of bringing a potluck item to an Easter party. This may not sound like an educational design topic, but we can build on it later. For now, this is a small task that demonstrates how we use the design process to be intentional as we build community, homemaking, and heart–all of the things we are going for when we build our homes. Trust me: the best homemakers do this already without even realizing it.
1. Objective & Constraints
Before we dive into Pinterest in our potluck item search, let’s consider our Saturday morning. We’re daydreaming–we want something nourishing, beautiful, celebratory. We want a dish that feels like spring—fresh, bright, and thoughtful. Simultaneously, we need to be honest about our bandwidth. We want to actually bring something to the party. Do we have oven space? Does it need to be nut-free for the cousins? Does it stay pretty if it sits on a counter for an hour? We capture the dream. We take note of the real.
2. Research & Brainstorm
Now we look at recipes. We want to use what’s in season—lemon, asparagus, or fresh herbs. Pinterest is fair game and no ideas are discounted at this point. Then we check the family group chat. If three people are already bringing heavy sides, maybe we bring a crisp pea salad with mint or a dish with blueberries. We want to be thoughtful, bring something yummy, but also fill the gap in the menu.
3. Selection & Planning
This is where we select our dish. It’s something that balances an inspiring offering, what is needed for a meaningful contribution, and what is in the realm of our current capacity. We make a plan. If a recipe requires three hours of chopping, can we do it Friday afternoon? We buy the ingredients that fit in our budget and plan a special platter to make it pretty. At this point we’re considering the simplest way to accomplish our task that still meets our objectives. Simple wins over complex. It’s sustainable when things become chaotic. Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
4. Prototyping
We don’t need to spend hours testing, but if it’s a new dressing or a specific spice blend, let’s whisk up a small amount and taste it on a cracker. I eat very simply, as a rule, so I have to have my husband and kids taste things to make sure they taste “company ready.” It’s best to try it out on the kids at home before we share it with friends and extended family. This also helps the family feel that we are making the dish for them.
5. Creation & Evaluation
This is where the "cultivated" part comes in. We’ll take ten extra seconds to wipe the rim of the serving bowl or tuck in a fresh garnish. Taste once again. If the flavors are flat, we can add a squeeze of lemon or a pinch of salt.
6. Delivery & Communication
We make it to our party on time, dish in hand. Did we bring enough food? Final notes can save us effort for next time. We make sure to take a picture as notes for future reference. At this point I would share the picture with my daughters on the other side of the country, as I consider sharing a potluck item an accomplishment.
Note how each steps contains an ideal element as well as a real element. The prototype step is creating the ideal in a simplified reality. Both halves enhance and support each other. Ideally, we take full time for each step, but really some of these steps can be done in a few seconds.
This may seem like a simple process, but when we realize the power of it, we can apply this process to issues that are even more important to us, like our children’s education or a move across the world. I have a few more boxes to unpack and a few more closets to organize, and I am already well into this design process in our Williamsburg home creation. This process helps me remember that although things feel dirty and messy in the middle, there is a finish line I am aiming for.
Now that we’ve walked through the potluck design process, consider: do you have a real-life design win you're proud of this week? Share with a friend or email me!
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