Living With Kids: Beccy Bingham

Beccy is one of the most talented people I’ve ever met. (Full editorial disclosure: she’s my little sister.) Not only is she an amazing mom to two wonderful kids, you’ll see from this post that she is also an incredible designer and has a home full of stylish and well curated pieces.

She also runs an art market & maker fair a few times a year, and runs her own jewelry business where she hand makes all the pieces. I think you’ll really love getting to know her and taking a peak inside her gorgeous home. Welcome, Beccy!

Hi Design Mom Community! I’m excited to show off my home on this blog. I live here with my husband and our two boys, ages 3 and 4 (11 months apart, so for a few weeks in August we had two three-year-olds!). We also have a very outdoor cat, Kimmy, who comes inside when she needs some food or affection. My husband is a podcast producer, and I run a couple of businesses. One is a pop-up craft fair in Provo, Utah called Beehive Bazaar. It’s where most of my home decor comes from. The other business I own and operate is Aspera Jewelry, which is a great creative outlet for me. 

We live in downtown Provo, and we love it! In fact, we’re in the process of buying a slightly larger house just a couple of blocks away. Downtown has great perks (close to public transit and restaurants, lots of parks, and beautiful old trees to name a few!), but large houses with walk in closets and master suites is NOT a perk of living in this area.

We bought our house for $190,000 a few years ago and it was a total dump. We basically renovated top-to-bottom and learned a lot about our marriage in the process.

We love this neighborhood for our kids. On our street there are 8 boys all 6 years old and under. We’re trying to get together a lot to play outside before the weather gets really cold. Sometimes I get enticed by large new builds in more suburban areas but I just can’t imagine walking away from our neighborhood.

The first time we saw this house, we looked at it for 30 seconds and told our realtor: ‘NO’! It stuck with me, though, and we had him show us a few more times. The house ended up going under contract before we could make an offer so we thought we lost it and starting looking elsewhere. We had a backup offer at another house whose first buyers fell through, so on the same day we had two houses to choose from and we knew which one was best for us.

Regarding the renovations we needed to do, my husband wanted to create a spreadsheet with tasks, expected budget, and deadlines, but I walked in the day after closing with a sledgehammer and started ripping out walls, carpet, tile, and awkward cabinetry.

We had a good idea of what we wanted, and did as much as we could ourselves. We did find out the house needed all new plumbing, which was not something I was eager to take on. We hired that out, and we paid some people to build and install our IKEA kitchen which was an absolute dream. 

I do wish someone had told me to listen to my mom and replace our subfloors! Our house is 100 years old next year, and we had it completely gutted, to a place where new subfloors would have been very straightforward. Our wallets were also completely gutted though, so I opted to leave the squeaky, bumpy, old floors and I walk over all of those imperfections every day.

I am very intentionally a working mother. I want my kids to know that I have more dimensions than what they see at home, and its fun for me to see it clicking in their heads that mommy works hard when I’m not with them.

I’m still trying to figure out how to be present at my job AND present at home. It’s so easy to let the two blend together and give each effort less than it deserves.

The Beehive Bazaar is an event me and my team put on three times a year, and it’s so rewarding for me to see the kids excited to come visit and look at all of the cool products there.

Our boys are both adopted and there is an entire blog to be written about our adoptions. It’s a lengthy process with a lot of emotional twists and turns. And complications and trauma that I’m still learning about and trying to understand so I can best help my kids.

The first step in any adoption is to get a home study. This is a very invasive and paperwork heavy process. So many personal questions about every single part of each of our lives.

Once that was done we were ready to be matched with a birth mom through an attorney we heard about through my sister, who had also adopted. Once we were matched we got to work getting to know our birth mom.

We didn’t get to be there when our oldest was born (emergency c-section in the middle of the night), but we got to the hospital about 30 minutes after he was born. The hospital was such an emotional time for me. Our birth mom is so sweet and easy going, and when I talked to her about when we would do the relinquishment, she told me that whenever I wanted to was fine. I quickly realized that I would decide when to take this woman’s baby, and it wrecked me.

I’m appreciative of supportive friends and family and social workers who got us through all of it, and I’m especially and eternally grateful for our amazing birth parents.

Our second adoption happened much quicker than we expected! Our oldest was 11 months old and just learning to walk when we brought his little brother home.

Adoption is, surprisingly, a new idea for a lot of people, and we get asked insensitive questions nearly every time we are out in public with our kids. If people could take the time to learn from an adoptee or birth mother (the key voice in the adoption triad of child, adoptive mother and birth mother) I think most of these awkward and potentially harmful questions could be avoided. This article is a great place to start. 

I am definitely a multi-tasker. I like to keep a lot of balls in the air, and I think that even when I’m at my busiest, I’m able to keep our little household running. Part of this involves a lot of creative problem solving on the fly. My kids are good sports to keep up with me.

Sadly, I think our kids won’t really remember this home, but a big part of me wanting to own a home, and do renovations, is to see their mom and dad work hard for the things we have and enjoy. My dad was a huge do-it-yourselfer and I love to remember that about him when I’ve got a mountain of work in front of me.

My absolute favorite part of living with kids this age is CUDDLES. My favorite part and what I already miss. Our three year old likes to sleep in our bed with us, and most nights will come in around 3:00 AM. It doesn’t mean great sleep for me, but I always tell myself that one day he won’t want to cuddle with me in my bed, so I’ll drink a little more caffeine in the morning and get on with it. 

Being a mom, as many people reading this probably know, is difficult and wonderful all at once. I wasn’t able to have kids in a traditional way, and that was really difficult for so many years. But I’m so glad to have the family I have now.

I can’t imagine life without my boys. They are amazing and crazy and hilarious and sometimes terrible. I feel really privileged to get to be with them every day, and really privileged to also pursue things that fulfill me creatively. Every parent knows it’s a tricky balance to find, but we’re figuring it out everyday.

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Thank you, Beccy! I love that this house feels so collected and curated. Nothing looks like it was pulled off a showroom floor and transplanted into the house. Every piece is interesting and quirky and seems to have its own story, but all the pieces also work so beautifully together.

I also really appreciate the idea of intentionally being a working parent and showing your kids from a very young age that you, their parent, is more than just a parent. What a great perspective! Rather than seeing working as something that takes you away from your kids, seeing it as something that is giving them a better understanding of you as a person. It’s a really wonderful way of approaching the balance of work and home time.

What things do you do to help your kids see you as a real person and not just their parent? Do you share your talents and interests with them? Are they aware of your faults and struggles or do you always try and put on a good parenting face?

SOURCES

Green living room chairs 

Ottoman

Bookshelves

Bathroom cactus print

Butt embroidery

Rocks/brass stands


You can check out Beccy’s jewelry line, Aspera, here and learn more about the Beehive Bazaar here. Living With Kids is edited by Josh Bingham — you can follow him on Instagram too.

Would you like to share your home in our Living With Kids series? It’s lots of fun, I promise! (And we are always looking for more diversity in the families we feature here. Single parents, non-traditional parents, families of color, LGBT parents, multi-generational families. Reach out! We’d love to hear your stories!!) Email us at features@designmom.com.

15 thoughts on “Living With Kids: Beccy Bingham”

  1. Beccy! I haven’t read the post yet, but saw you own that olive green velvet chair from RC Willey. I came across it some months ago and haven’t stopped thinking about it, but am wondering: IS IT REALLY COMFORTABLE? I’d love your thoughts on it. And now—off to read :)

  2. What a lovely tour. I love your thoughts and perspective about adoption–and how you educate by linking to a fantastic article. Also, I’m a regular at the Beehive Bazaar and am so thankful for all the work that goes into supporting our local creative people who work hard to support their families. What a great community you have brought out into the open through your work! Thank you for sharing your gorgeous home with us. Big, big hugs and keep up the amazing work.

  3. We are foster parents and hoping to be adoptive parents. I appreciate your story and the link to the adoption language. I am still getting used to it myself. Also … love the vanity light. Where did you find it? Thanks!

  4. Beccy – what color is that lovely pale pink paint on your living room walls? It’s gorgeous!

    Thank you for sharing your beautiful home and family :)

  5. Gabby, I’m struck by how very creative and also confident not only you, but also so many of your siblings and in-law siblings are. It’s amazing to find so much artistry and creativity and output in one family. Are both your parents very artistic? Is it in the way you all were raised? Or is it in-born? Nature or nurture? I’d be interested to hear some thoughts on this. Maybe a blog post some time? Thank you.

    1. I *believe* this is Josh’s sister Beccy…he is the phenom editor behind these Living with Kids tours. I met them both at ALT as they shared about Beehive Bazaar (in like 2015?!) and deeply adored them both on impact.

      But I COSIGN on how did both of these families — the Binghams and the Blairs — get so much magic out of their families! Taking notes….

  6. THE JEWELRY!! I only say this after safely choosing a few things so I don’t have to worry about them selling out :)

    I love the pieces, I love that you paused and decided what pieces spoke about you. And now I’m going to wear the heck out of them!

  7. Thank you for this. I have adopted 2 children myself and also trying to promote being a positive role model regarding being a working Mom. Dealing with the effects of developmental trauma can make this so difficult at times, so many times I get told that I should be a SAHM but work gives me space to process my thoughts and deal with each new phase of family life.
    Also, love your house, especially the succulent planter!

  8. I expected to see a home tour but honestly I was taken by the adoption story…! The home looks warm and well lived and I can picture the two boys running about!

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