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making a home: the templates | printable homemaking templates
- Alexa Rickenbach
- Dec 23, 2025
- 6 min read
Updated: Dec 31, 2025
making a home doesn't happen by accident. it’s a practice.
There’s a quiet myth floating around the internet that a well-run home is something you either have or you don’t. As if it’s a personality trait. As if some people are simply born organized, rhythmic, and calm..while the rest of us missed the memo.
You can see the myth everywhere, especially on social media. In spotless kitchens at 10 a.m. In morning routines that never unravel. In homes that look serene without ever showing the scaffolding holding them up. What you don’t see is the repetition. The trial and error. The years it took to learn what works, and the humility required to keep adjusting when it stops working.
Calm is not genetic. Order is not accidental. Rhythm is not something you stumble into while scrolling.
A well-run home is built the same way a strong body or a faithful marriage is built: through attention, practice, and a willingness to begin again when something falls apart. It’s not about doing everything right. It’s about choosing a few things to do on purpose, and returning to them even when life gets loud.
The myth persists because it flatters two groups at once. It lets the “naturally organized” believe their ease is innate, and it lets everyone else believe they’re disqualified. But the truth is quieter and far more hopeful: homes are not discovered. They are made.
Made by women who plan, revise, scrap systems that don’t fit, and build new ones with the season they’re in. Made by choosing tools that support real life instead of aspirational versions of it. Made by showing up imperfectly, again and again, until something steady takes root.
homemaking templates born in the dark
Making a Home exists because I needed something to keep our home in rhythm. Not aesthetic motivation. Not another planner I’d abandon by February. I needed a place to hold the work of my life - the rhythms, the responsibilities, the meals, the margins. To manage the time I had - even if I wasn't 'homemaking' full time.
This idea didn’t come from a Pinterest board or a quiet afternoon musing with a cup of tea. It was born in the dark, in late-night nursing sessions with my second born. One eye on the clock. One ear tuned for breathing. My body running on fragments of sleep I didn’t feel like I’d earned, yet somehow still showing up the next morning to work, to parent, to keep the household moving.
What weighed on me wasn’t the work itself. It was the mental load waiting at home. The sense that I was leaving one full day of responsibility only to return to another. Unwritten, unorganized, and held entirely in my head. I didn’t want to come home and manage chaos and hope for the best. I wanted to land. I wanted the work of our home to feel held, not haunting me from every corner.
I remember marveling at my own endurance..not in a heroic way, but in a bewildered one. How was I still functioning? How was I holding so much with so little rest? And more importantly: how long could I keep doing this without something giving way? God has always sustained me when I've needed it, no doubt, but this felt less like a quiet rescue and more like a nudge..an invitation to respond. A call to steward the gifts I’d been given instead of merely surviving.
And that's where it was born: the idea of this 'second brain'. A place where decisions could live so I didn’t have to carry them all day. A system that remembered for me when my capacity was thin. A way to buy back small pockets of time with my family in a season when I had so little to give, and even less margin to waste.
What began as a personal lifeline slowly took shape as something broader: a way to honor motherhood not with platitudes, but with tools. A way to say, this work matters enough to be planned for. Enough to be supported. Enough to be held with intention.
That’s the heart behind this system. Not productivity for its own sake, but care. Care for the women who keep showing up, often on empty, trusting that God will meet them there..and also believing it’s wise to build structures that help them endure well.
At first, this was just for survival. But somewhere between those late nights and early mornings, the thought widened: this isn’t just for me.
Not just for working moms.
Not just for stay-at-home moms.
Not just for one kind of schedule or one kind of calling.
Homemaking happens whether you’re home all day or squeezing it into the margins. It happens after work, before school pickup, in the quiet hours no one sees. And without planning and intentionality, it becomes noisy. Reactive. Heavy. Draining.
A peaceful home doesn’t appear by accident. It takes work. It takes thought. It takes systems that respect the reality of your life.
I built these templates while working full time, which means I know they hold under pressure. And now, as I step into staying home, I get to do what all good homemaking requires: refine, add, and grow them for a new season. Not because the work has changed, but because the rhythms have.
a practical answer to a perpetual problem
Making a Home is a practical framework for homemakers who want clarity instead of chaos.
It’s a physical system you can build, revisit, grow with, and return to when life shifts seaso..new babies, new homes, new capacities. It helps you:
stop carrying everything in your head
make plans that reflect your real life, not your ideal one
create rhythms that serve your family instead of managing them
And importantly, it’s not prescriptive. You don’t follow it perfectly. You use it faithfully.
not just a set of printables
I want to say this clearly, because it matters:
Making a Home is not just a stack of homemaking templates.
It’s a thoughtfully built resource designed to be assembled, revisited, and expanded over time. When you purchase it, you’re not just getting pages. You’re getting:
guidance for assembling a home management binder
intentional category structure and flow
cover pages and tabs so the system stays usable
long-term usage ideas as your season changes
lifetime updates as the collection grows
This is a system meant to live on your counter, not disappear into a folder.
who this is for (and who it isn’t)
This is for you if:
you’re a home (or managing home life) and want to treat it with seriousness and dignity
you crave order but reject rigid productivity culture
you want your home to feel anchored, not just optimized
This is not for you if you’re looking for:
a one-shot reset that fixes everything
color-coded perfection
someone else’s routine copy-and-paste
Homes don’t run on hacks. They run on habits.
want to DIY the whole binder? here’s exactly what I use.
One of my favorite parts of Making a Home is that you can make it yours. Below is exactly how I assemble my binder—nothing fancy, nothing fragile. Just durable tools that hold up to real life. Click to shop the items below!
paper + printing
Cardstock (for covers, dividers, and anything you want to feel sturdy)
Printer paper (standard 24–28 lb works beautifully for everyday pages)
Perforated paper for the weekly meal plan template
Printer The cover pages are hand-designed and full color. I recommend using a professional printer for those pages if you don't have a great home printer!
protection + durability
Laminator or self-laminating sheets
I laminate covers, tabs, and frequently handled pages.
An alternative to lamination if you want to preserve pages
Perfect for seasonal pages or anything you want to reuse with a dry-erase marker instead of printing new pages all the time.
binding options
You can choose the best method for you—there’s no “right” answer here!
Binding machine (coil or disc) for a book-style system - I like this binding wire!!
Traditional binder (1–1.5 inches is a good starting size)
Gold binder rings for flexibility and growth
creating tear-away notepads from your templates
If you love having single-use pages you can grab quickly (meal plans, daily task lists, brain dumps) turning templates into tear-away pads is a game changer!
Rather than rewriting it all here, I walk through the full process step-by-step in a separate post:
It’s simple, affordable, and surprisingly satisfying!
a final word before you scroll away
You don’t need to become a different kind of person to have a steadier home.
You need a place for decisions to live. A system that respects your limits. A rhythm you can return to without shame.
Making a Home is an invitation. Not to do everything, but to tend the things that matter with intention.
Homes are made the same way faithfulness is practiced: one small, ordinary choice at a time.
