My wife and I have been married now for over 13 years. We have four beautiful kids and a pretty nice life.
We live in the quintessential American neighborhood – cul-de-sac filled with kids and good people all pursuing the American dream.
One thing I do notice when going into other people’s homes is their furniture. Some of these friends and acquaintances have kids yet their homes looks like they’re right out of Martha Stewart Living. There is nice furniture, clean carpet, flower arrangements and even nice little dainty hand towels in the washroom. How do they do it?
Our living room. It's actually more of a playroom
With four kids in our house, a busy daily schedule and my hectic professional schedule, we keep things clean but we certainly represent the “lived in” look vs. the Better Homes and Gardens look.
Throughout the entire marriage, Elie and I have purchased maybe three really nice pieces of furniture. The reason? After our first child ruined some of it, I threw in the towel early and chose function over style. I chose affordable over chic. I chose Ikea and ZGallerie over Thomasville and Ethan Allen.
I was reminded of the wise choice this was just a few weeks ago. Our two-year-old Michael decided that our six-year old cotton sofa and love seat (BTW, most comfortable ever and we bought it on clearance at Macys) needed some purple crayon highlights. This after I spent $400 cleaning our carpets and said sofa. That’s the last time I read the kid “Harold and the Purple Crayon.”
Our Chief Furniture Messer Upper
At the end of the day, I’d love a house full of nice furniture. The fact is I love our house that feels lived in instead of staged. I like the hodge-podge of kids playthings and pieces that don’t match. It lets me live younger and make sure my kids have a fun, safe and warm place to call home.
Others may have more decorating sense, and lots of great furniture, but our home is the best on the block when it comes to love, happiness and adventure.
I wouldn’t have it any other way.
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I wanted to get my kids’ perspective on this so I asked my daughter her thoughts about furniture and our home:
As the Director of Social Media at tax giant H&R Block, Scott Gulbransen recently returned to the tax business after previously spending 1o years at rival Intuit working on the TurboTax & Quicken brands. He brings 16 years as a marketing communications professional, and 11 tax seasons, with him to H&R Block and was responsible for the launch of many key social initiatives at Intuit before leaving in 2010. A strategic thinker and business problem solver, Gulbransen has worked for some of the world’s top brands including TurboTax, Sony Online Entertainment, and Applebee’s.
In 2010, Gulbransen became the first Director of Social Media & Digital Content for Applebee’s, creating the first-ever social media strategy for the world’s largest casual dining chain. While at Applebee’s, Gulbransen lead a small but nimble team responsible for creating a robust and far-reaching social engagement channel for Applebee’s and its franchise community.
In addition to his professional accomplishments at the corporate level, Gulbransen is also a prolific blogger recently named as one of the Top 50 Daddy Bloggers in the US by Cision. Gulbransen was ranked #21.
As a member of the TurboTax communications and social media team for 10 years, Scott helped the TurboTax team launch and sustain the brand’s social media platform. He also drove and was responsible for the launch of TurboTax’s successful content strategy, including the launch of the TurboTax Blog. Recently, he launched one of the most significant social media campaigns in the brand’s history with the @TeamTurboTax Twitter project.
Gulbransen was instrumental in reinvigorating the Quicken brand almost entirely through the use of social media and, particularly, Twitter. By engaging with customers and influencers who talk about personal finance on Twitter, he and his team helped Quicken Online grow from just 200,000 users in October 2008 to over 1.4 Million in just 10 months. This led to a more focused look at the personal finance space for Intuit and, ultimately, the acquisition of Mint.com.
A former print journalist, who, after realizing his paychecks from the newspaper industry weren’t going to get much bigger, turned to the Dark Side – public relations. After working in both college athletics and inside mid-size agencies, he joined Intuit in 2000 and Applebee’s in 2010. He is a graduate of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) and is the married father of five kids.
Despite his busy personal and professional life, Scott is a digital native who never strays far from social networking. To hassle Scott, or to tell him how great you think he is (or not!), email him at scott@scottgulbransen.com, add him to your Circles on Google+, or ping him on Twitter at @sdgully. Scott also is an editor and writer for Technorati.com.
