Before becoming a mother of two, Jessie Carrillo spent the early years of her art career working for world-renowned museums, galleries, and centers, including a few local favorites such as the Dallas Museum of Art and the Nasher Sculpture Center.
Back in 2010, during her education internship at the Crow Museum of Asian Art in Dallas, Carrillo had a Hallmark-movie meet-cute and fell in love with the security guard, Abraham, now her husband and the man behind the museum’s operations. Today they share a darling 1938 two-bedroom, one-bath bungalow in Oak Cliff with two little girls and a basset hound named Jenny.
Motherhood—and managing a family of five in a small space—became an inspiration for Carrillo’s career swap: A highly successful organizing and home styling business, A Charming Home, and the book she recently published under the same name. Here she shares her story about living at the intersection of styling, organizing, and parenting.
Interview with Jessie Carrillo
DFWChild: How has your background in art helped you in setting up a home?
JC: When I was working in museums, the objects I most loved to research and share with visitors were those that relate to daily life—things like furniture, textiles, and ceramics. Back then, and in the work I do now, I helped people see that the things we surround ourselves with, even the seemingly mundane, matter in that they communicate stories about who we are and what we value. To use an art world term, if we curate the things in our home, we are going to be happier in that space.
DFWChild: Tell us about your “calm the chaos” mantra.
JC: So many moms today face the pressure of being the primary parent and bearing the mental load of keeping the family and home on track, all while working full time in most cases. With so much to juggle, small frustrations in our daily routines can add up to feel like total loss of control. Decluttering, organizing, and styling address these pressure points in our homes and in our habits. So, this work gives you small wins each day that build up to greatly improve quality of life.
DFWChild: When a friend says to you, my house is such a mess, I don’t even know where to begin, what do you tell her?
JC: Make a goal, then start small. Goals are so important to this process. If you don’t have a specific thing you are aiming for—not just a clean house, but something like easier school mornings—it will be very difficult to gauge whether your belongings are helping or hindering you. When you have your goal, choose a room that doesn’t have an emotional impact, like the laundry room or entryway, and tackle one drawer in that space. After a quick win, try something slightly bigger, and so on.
Kids don’t need a lot of toys and variety. Children get overwhelmed with clutter and excess just like adults do.
DFWChild: How do you teach your children to be neat, tidy, and organized?
JC: Lucy gets a pass since she’s only 1, but for Cora who’s 4, it’s about having systems in place that are designed for her and helping her to practice using them. When we get home, I remind her to hang her backpack on the low hooks by the door and to put her shoes in the cubby in her closet. If the living room is starting to look a little crazy, I get the “go back bin” and she gathers everything of hers and takes it to her room.
Her toys are all sorted by type so she can easily help clean up by throwing similar items together. It’s not perfect and she’s learning every day but having the systems in place makes it infinitely easier to help her build those habits.
DFWChild: How do handle the clutter that can come with kids?
JC: Kids don’t need a lot of toys and variety. Children get overwhelmed with clutter and excess just like adults do. Young children are often most interested in the things they see us do. For Cora, there was a span of about 6 months when the watering can was better than any toy she owned. As they get older, a few open-ended toys make for more creative play, which you know if you have ever seen your child play with a cardboard box!
DFWChild: What’s a myth you’ve learned to let go of?
JC: The idea that you have to do it all. The demands of modern parenthood are no joke, so take the help where you can get it. If hired help is in your budget, do it. If not, take friends and family up on their offers to help with a specific ask like taking the kids to the park for a couple hours.
People want to support you, they just don’t always know how. When we welcomed Lucy a year ago, we identified areas of our life that we could simplify for the sake of our mental health. The result: No fancy dinners around here and my beauty routine has become a 5-minute face in the parking lot of the daycare.
DFWChild: What parenting philosophy has helped simplify your life?
JC: Giving them an environment to develop freely. So rather than wiping their nose 20 times in one day, what if we teach them how to do it and put the box of tissues where they can reach it? What if their dishes are in the bottom drawer where they can choose a plate for snack time? There is so much empowerment in these small changes.
Spring Cleaning Secrets
Heed Carrillo’s top tips for organizing, decluttering and storing all your kids’ stuff
1. 5 Ways to Maximize Small Spaces
Carrillo practices what she preaches in her Oak cliff bungalow. Her tips:
Declutter until your space feels functional, beautiful, and maintainable.
Look up: Take advantage of all that unused wall space above eye level.
Don’t be a wallflower: Pull furniture away from the wall and use shelves, rugs, or plants to create zones.
Streamline: The more floor you can see underneath your furniture, the larger your space will appear. Opt for pieces that are sleek, not chunky.
Multitask: Select objects that are beautiful but also serve a storage function. “Our daughter’s Ikea day bed has deep built-in drawers that hold most of the toys she regularly plays with,” she says. “A mid-century hutch in our living room does double duty as a bookcase and storage for candles and knickknacks. We also have a large book case in our bedroom that does double duty as shoe storage on the bottom half and display space on the top.”
2. Don’t Keep All That Stuff
Artwork, books, toys … moms feel oddly obligated to hang on to just about everything. But why? “You are not a bad parent if you don’t keep everything your children ever made or touched. My oldest is 4, and I come home with 10 drawings per day,” Carrillo says.
“Keep the things that truly mean the most to you and let the rest go. If you’re having trouble letting go, let the storage container set the limit for how much you can keep. For long-term storage I like scrapbook cases from Michaels. For both storage and display I love front-loading kids’ art frames.”
3. Storing Bikes & Trikes
Think of your garage as a project space instead of a storage space, Carrillo advises. “It’s a room that is there to support your current hobbies and how you want to spend time outside,” she says. “For bikes and kids’ toys make use of wall space. My favorite system is the Rubbermaid FastTrack. It’s affordable, customizable, and easy to install.”
4. A Cool & Functional Kids’ Room
“Style the room with timeless pieces that don’t scream ‘kids room,’” Carrillo says. She likes to source furniture and decor from Etsy and local antique stores. (Lula B’s Antique Mall in the Design District and Oak Cliff, High Street Antiques & Design in Plano, and Lots of Furniture Antiques Warehouse in Dallas are her faves.)
With clothing, she hangs as much as possible and file folds the rest so she can see and use what she has. For nurseries, it’s all about ease of use. “Store necessities at a height that you don’t have to stoop with the baby in your arms,” she says.
5. Keep a Go-Back Bin
Carrillo has a nightly routine that helps her keep things spiffy. “Start in one room of your home and collect things that don’t belong there. Return them to their proper place and collect out-of-place items in that room. Continue until your bin is empty,” she says. “This method gives you the instant satisfaction of seeing your space become tidy which fuels your energy to put the items away.”
RELATED: Meet DIY Furniture Flipper Maggie McGaugh
Top image courtesy of Jessie Carrillo
