Anybody ever try doing home repairs while the kids are around? Yeah, right. First off, before anybody starts freaking out, I’m not talking about the dangerous, circular saw type of renos. I’m talking about your run of the mill hanging a curtain rod or prepping walls for paint kind of thing – you dig?

I want my kids to see their parents doing things around the house for themselves. I never saw any of this from my parents so it didn’t come naturally. I also think it’s ok to see Mom or Dad try something and fail (I actually think this is pretty important), I want them to see us trying to figure out something and if it doesn’t work out I want them to see that it’s not the end of the world and in fact some of the best things are born from a failure (or three).

So we know that as parents we do not have a lot of the skills to renovate a home. We also know that we are resourceful and if we want to stretch our dollars we’re going to have to learn a few new tricks and add some skills to the proverbial tool belt. So where to begin teaching these lessons to our girls – for us it was painting. Pretty safe, no major ramifications that can’t be fixed (proper dropcloth usage a must) if things go awry. And a lot of fun. Once we prepped the area carefully to account for the inevitable Jackson Pollock imitation we were about to witness we turned the music on and started painting. And handed a brush to our 4yr old and just let her watch and imitate us. She was so delighted to be doing something where she was not only allowed but encouraged to color on the walls. Seriously one of the cutest things I’ve seen.