(door knocking)
(door clicking) (gentle music)
- Hello, I'm Katy Bowman
and welcome to my house, come on in.
It has been almost three years
since I gave a tour of my home.
Since last we got together,
we have purchased our first home.
So it is a 100 year old farmhouse,
kind of funky that we've been slowly working
to create the perfect-for-us dynamic living space.
And we have a river rock entryway.
So this is one way of getting some vitamin texture
into our house.
It's just river rocks thrown
in the hole of these floors that we did lay ourselves.
We have a low table here, with some cushions.
People ask me a lot, but I have found some on Etsy.
If you go to Etsy and look at floor cushions,
there are people out there who are sewing them.
Maybe you're someone who's super talented,
and I seriously recommend
that you just start making them and let me know,
and then we'll go ahead and buy them from you.
We also have this, bench seat, I guess.
You can sit, quite comfortably
in different positions here, window distance looking.
This is one of my offices right here,
where the magic happened, but it also just gives me,
a slightly different surface on which to play.
So what do we do about company
that comes over that doesn't have a place to sit?
And so we have added not a super comfortable
'cause we don't want to encourage sitting, type bench,
but we do have places for people to sit.
And then we have our obligatory balance toys,
that are always kind of strewn about, bolsters,
logs of different heights.
Just in case someone wants to have a seat.
The kitchen is not super exciting.
It's just a regular kitchen,
but we do have a lowered low modified kitchen table,
with some stumps.
I think it's around 17 inches.
People ask us about the height a lot,
you know, if you want a little bit
of support, if you're not used
to sitting on the ground, the kids like to be able
to sit on something, to make them a little bit higher.
It's good if you're sitting
on your knees, but if you're trying to sit all the way
on your bottom, it might be too high.
So logs are a great way to get a lot
of different variations of sitting.
Another great suggestion
from my friend, Debbie Beane, at Positively Aligned,
is putting your dishes down low.
So we tend to put everything up high, where it's easy,
right, where you're just moving very little.
But when you put your dishes low,
then you're guaranteed to add, you know,
at least a few more squats to the day
and also makes it super easy
for kids to facilitate their own drinking or eating needs,
or certainly participate in the preparation of making food.
That's water because I spend at least 11 hours
getting small children water, if you just put it here,
then they can get it themselves.
This is my dynamic workspace, also where the magic happens.
I have a standing desk,
which was just was something we found in the garage.
Texture on the floor.
And when I say vitamin texture,
I really mean changes and pitches.
This has got a little texture to it.
Meaning, it's going to deform the 33 joints
of each foot just by stepping
on it, while you're doing something else like working,
you'd be working and mobilizing at the same time,
a desk down low where I can get down and work.
And then I also have a window
always see if you can set up some
of your workspace to have some sort
of distance to look at, because as you look out,
what you will find is every distance that you're focusing
on is like a different range of motion use for your eyes.
We do not have a television,
but we do enjoy movies and cinema in general.
And this was kind of a genius move on my husband's part,
putting it down really low
because when you don't have furniture
and your computer is pretty high,
then you end up doing a lot of this.
And just roll it like this.
And then we roll it out because it turns out if you get rid
of the TV from your living space,
you won't be so inclined to watch it
as much, because it's not just there, it's like ice cream.
If you keep it in the freezer, you're going to eat it.
The bathroom is not finished,
so don't look at this room, but this room is finished.
The only thing that's super cool here I think
is the Squatty potty.
This is our second Squatty potty.
This one is the bamboo one.
We have also had the what's.
I don't know what it is.
It's not super important, I guess.
Ahhh.
This is the bedroom here, also where the magic happens.
We used to sleep on the floor,
but we had a problem with air flow under our mattresses.
So we built these frames, so that we could have air flow.
I just sealed them with beeswax and oil.
I've written about it on the blog.
So there's no chemicals in here which is kind of awesome.
And these are just all organic cotton.
Also non flame retardants.
There's flame, retardants, pretty much in everything.
You have to pay attention
when you shop to try to get them out of your stuff
and maybe you can't get them out of everything, but for me,
it was a priority to get them out of basically a place that
is touching my skin and like against my face all the time.
So you'll notice that there's no pillows in here.
And a lot of people will ask, like,
what do I do when I'm sleeping?
If I'm sleeping in my head has to bend funny.
It was like a lot of the height that your pillow gives you
are heights that can be created by using this glorious,
muscular, hinged, meaty thing you have called your body.
So what I like most, I would say
about sleeping without a pillow, is that it affords,
or creates lots of opportunities to do the various stretches
that I then seem to have to make time
for later on to keep my neck and shoulders loose.
It kind of happens while I'm sleeping
and I'm very busy person.
My house never looks this clean.
This is a very special occasion because
a very special guest, we had doing a tour through our home.
So I've been working on this for like what three days?
- [Husband] Three days.
three days, and we actually had professional help.
I actually had a house cleaner come
in and help me do a lot of the cleaning.
This is perhaps the room that we are most known for,
the room that houses, the indoor monkey bars.
So indoor monkey bars, were built by my husband.
So the magic is with him.
Per usual.
There are no plans.
If there were plans for these,
I probably wouldn't suggest that you follow them
because it's, it is what would you call it?
- [Husband] Wobbly.
- Yeah, that was the one I was going for,
but it is a little wobbly.
So there's definitely someone out there
who can help you design something.
That's pretty sturdy for our low weight kids.
A lot of these spin, so it's actually more challenging.
It's actually more like interacting with something
in nature that doesn't come perfectly stable,
where you have to pay attention
to the loads that a structure can hold.
So this is just something fun for us
to play with, when we're up high, we can go across it.
Right, it's a little wobbly, what can you do about it.
It is adjustable though.
And I highly recommend that you do make one adjustable
because the more something can change,
within that same piece, then the more you get out of it.
So this comes down low, we put a low,
the kids can get up on their own
when it's high, then we hang different stuff from it.
Come in the backyard, real fast.
Just a collection of various inexpensive props.
Like this was a $5 ladder from a garage sale.
And it's hanging from a TRX strap.
I would not recommend duplicating any of our practices.
Use this for inspiration only not instruction,
because we're also okay with things being wobbly
and falling down, just like trees and stuff do in nature.
There's little playhouse
that we found on the property, climbing dome.
This ladder is normally suspended
between two different trees.
It's one of my favorite kind of training tools.
Hula hoop up in the tree for some strange reason.
There's a slack line over there between those two trees.
And then of course there's just branches
and things to hang off of.
And so try to, if you can, if you have some outdoor space
create just a little bit of activity,
even if it's just some hula hoops.
Lots of minimal shoes by the back door,
pretty much concludes our visit.
Thanks for coming, I appreciate it.
And if you have any more questions,
you can just put them down in the comments below,
and keep on moving.
(upbeat piano music)