Janette Yost

Mother Stories

How One Mother Shares Her Room With Her Kid—In Style

Written by Katie Hintz-Zambrano

Photography by Photographed by Michelle Drewes

Feb 28, 2017

Along with the mixed bag of emotions that a divorce can bring, one of the biggest logistical headaches that also arises when there are kids involved includes downsizing and rejiggering one’s living situation. This was something San Francisco-based mother and interior decorator Janette Yost was faced with head-on a couple years ago. But instead of moving out of her centrally located apartment (right across from the storied Painted Ladies, no less) and search for another space in the now astronomically priced city, she decided to move her 3-year-old daughter into her room and rent out her daughter’s former space to roommates. Here, she talks about making that transition, finding love after divorce (she got engaged and moved to Kansas City not too long after our shoot!), and a whole lot more.

: "I lived there for six years, and it was the perfect home. We overlooked Alamo Square Park, had a garage, had a backyard, and had landlords upstairs who really cared for us, especially after Viv's dad left."

: "It was a pseudo-Victorian built in the 1920s, so it had a more practical floor plan than most old S.F. homes, and it was perfectly homey. I filled it with plants, artwork, and textiles that were meaningful to me, and we ended up with a kind of Scandinavian-Bohemian-Midcentury mashup."

: "Buy only things that you love. Anything less is kind of a waste of money. Mash them together, then refine by highlighting a few themes with repetition, and you'll have a masterpiece."

: "I lived there three years with him, then three years without."

: "I thought many times about shedding that space and starting fresh, on principle. But there was no denying that it was my home, I found in on Craigslist, I decorated it with love, I was invested in my neighborhood. So, I owned it! ...Er, not literally, because San Francisco!"

: "After a year of living on my own with Viv, and deciding to stay there, I financially had no option but to bring in a roommate! So, I started cleaning out closets. My first roommate set-up was with two girls who opted to share Viv's old room."

: "Pro: Splitting my rent cost in half. Cons: Sharing bathrooms, wearing pants, and not leaving dishes until tomorrow, which I'm awful at...sorry guys!"

: "I thought about our shared room together for a while, and created a rendering to make sure my new furniture plans would fit. The main thing I wanted to avoid was open shelving—while in a kid's room open shelving is awesome for display and decor, it would kill all 'zen' in my own room. I had just seen Emily Henderson create loads of storage in Joy Cho's studio with a wall of IKEA PAX wardrobes—voilà, concealed storage! And those things are huge. In ours, I kept Viv's book collection on the bottom, then a wire drawer for all her shoes, and then rows of shelves for everything else (including my printer). It was a life-saver."

: "Con: Making out with my boyfriend in there...in my daughter's room. Pro: Viv and I have the most special, bonded, inseparable relationship that I could ever imagine, which I wouldn't trade for the world. We share everything, and sharing a room has been a huge part of that! We've shared for over two years."

: Janette wears a Turk & Taylor top, vintage Wrangler jeans, thrifted Nine West books, and jewelry by Soko. Viv wears an Old Navy dress and American Apparel headband. The hand print images behind them are iPhone pictures of Viv's hands, made into risographs via Parabo Press.

: "I love the statement wall lamp, the nude drawing that I commissioned from a friend, the way that the daybed and coffee table allow the room to feel like a living space rather than a bedroom, and the fact that my side is black and white, and Viv's side is all colors of the rainbow."

: Plant holder made by Janette, Themis Mobile from Artenica, vintage '70s print from Janette's mom's teenage room, Otomi embroidery from a market in Mexico, Painted Ladies drawing by Lisa Congdon, hot pink dot print from Minted.

: "It's always been important to me to have easy storage spaces for kid stuff, to keep any room from being taken over by toys, whether it's my daughter's room or a living space. And for me this usually means a cluster of baskets, like a handful of bolga baskets in the living room. I avoid buying furniture-sized play things. So, we were able to keep it pretty under control! In fact, one of my living room baskets had all Viv's musical toys, and my friends loved to pull them out and make music with mini xylophones, maracas, drums, bells, and more."

: Vintage rocking chair from Stuff, indigo throw from the Alameda Flea Market, and pillow made by Janette's mom from vintage Hmong fabric. The sheets on Viv's bed were shibori-dyed by Janette and the striped throw is from Nicaragua.

: “I’m engaged and getting married in May! After the devastation of my marriage ending, followed by the three most growth-filled years of my life—it is incredibly redemptive to be where I am today.”

: “I grew up without much good relationship modeling, got married young during college, and then lived in a relational rut of immaturity, inequality, and all the bad habits that come with those qualities. After my ex-husband and I moved to San Francisco and had a baby, he decided he wanted other things out of life than what we'd built together, and took off. I was devastated. But in the years following, I grew and changed and blossomed more than I had in all of the 30 years that came before. I look back and thank god that I didn't let that rejection define me. I was able to lean into opportunities to learn about myself, and push my limits. The experience forced me to let go of the safe identity I'd clung to (hinged on getting other people's approval, especially my ex's) and step into a new one, finally discovering my own true voice. This has shaped me into the kind of example that I want to be for my daughter— which I'm eternally grateful for.”

: "In the first few months of being on my own, I was so eager to be in a relationship again. I could see how easily people fall into new relationships for the wrong reasons. So, I intentionally didn't date for the first year! I spent hours on my therapist's couch, sorting through family of origin issues, and finding grace for myself in places of deep shame. I reconnected with my faith in an all-new way. I remember new epiphanies almost weekly...my growth was almost tangible, like I could reach out and touch it."

: “In the second year, I had a few relationships that didn't work out. I realized that all the men I'd ever been attracted to were first-borns, just like me...what a pattern! It was time to break the pattern. And one guy kept coming back to my mind, a guy I'd known from when I lived in Kansas City. Back in year one, when I wasn't officially dating, he had visited S.F. on business and asked me to have dinner, but I didn't feel any click. Fast forward over a year, and it stuck with me how attentive and open he was, checking in with me to ask how I was feeling or what I was thinking, and being so bold as to share that he'd noticed me for years, back when I was married. After I'd grown up a bit more, I realized how attractive those qualities were and that I hadn't met any other men who treated me so well. So, we reconnected, again, and dated long-distance for about five months, before we packed up a U-Haul and moved me and Viv to Kansas City.”

: An iPhone photo of Viv, printed as a Newsprint from Parabo Press.

: Dresser via Craigslist.

: "It was the right time for a new season. While it had been beautifully empowering to be a single mom supporting myself and my daughter in S.F., I'd been tossed around by a few jobs, and I felt like I was in a hamster wheel to keep paying rent, for preschool, and for $7 toast (God bless it!). Kansas City is slower, simpler, more affordable. And with an amazing personality all its own. Fun fact: Kansas City is Thrillist's No. 1 most underrated city!"
Paper cat bust by Chloé Fleury.

: “Viv has been so quick to love my fiancé Jeff—it is such a gift! When he and I hug and kiss, she is like a magnet to us, running to come join the moment. She first met him when she was 4 1/2, and a few months later I told her he was my boyfriend, slowly easing in the idea of me having a new partner. She has seemed to have an innate desire for us to be a unit, from that moment on. It's a beautiful thing.“

: “Now, the three of us are in a season of wedding planning and house hunting. Viv likes the houses with colorful walls. I hate to break it to her that I'm going to paint them all white.”

: "Lean on support! All the support you can. I spent hours on my therapist's couch, and I had an incredible church and community of friends surrounding me."

: "Until I had a child, I never realized how much love I had to give. Giving begets giving. Motherhood has forced me, and thus allowed me, to look beyond myself in such exciting new ways. I can give back to the world so differently now than I could before."

: "Viv is 5 now, and I get completely overwhelmed when I think about things in the future like teenage sex, the cost of college, the woes of body image and self worth, the evolution (or non-evolution?) of gender roles, the need for therapy... I genuinely have to stop myself from thinking about those macro-level things and just focus on right now, and doing the next right thing I can do."

: Cowboy figurines from a Danish design shop, found in an antique mall in central Kansas.

: "It's Vivian Sunshine. I love that when her grandpa first heard her middle name, he said, 'She can never vote Republican!' Which is hilarious coming from a Kansas Republican, identifying his granddaughter as a California hippie. That makes me so happy. Now that I'm divorced and have transitioned back to my maiden name, it's a bummer to me that Viv will always have her dad's surname. I've become so interested in our culture's patriarchal conventions for naming, thanks in part to my friend Emily LaFave Olson's writing about it. Viv asked me recently what my last name was, and she said, 'But I have the same last name as my dad? But I came out of your belly!' Isn't it ironic? I don't see an easy solution to our age-old naming conventions, but I've been wondering lately, what if girls took their mothers' last names, and boys took their fathers'?"

: "Bringing Up Bébé remains my favorite baby book!"

: A candid iPhone photo of Janette at Queen's Bath in Kauai, captured by her friend and printed on Parabo Press Newsprint.

: "I work for myself as an interior designer and photo stylist, a veritable dream come true! In Kansas City my financial flexibility is light years beyond what it was in San Francisco, so I'm 'retiring' from my marketing day jobs of the past decade. I just started freelancing as a stylist in Hallmark's photo studio, and I'm offering e-design through Decorist as I build up a client base for residential design here."

: "I love work. Doing good work is life-giving for me, whether it's in marketing or interior styling, for myself or for someone else. So, I imagine that I'll always use full-time childcare, 9-5 each day. In Kansas City, that's more the exception than the norm, as many families opt for moms to stay home with their kids. That leads to some mom guilt at times, that she stays in other people's care for as many waking hours each week as she has with me. But I believe that I need to take care of myself to best take care of her, and if my self-care needs change, I can always change my schedule with them."

: Crate & Barrel couch found on Craigslist, pillows from Craigslist and eBay, prints by Alyson Fox and Kelly Lynn Jones of Little Paper Planes.

: iPhone picture of Viv, printed as an Engineer Print from Parabo Press.

: "I grew up on a wheat farm in central Kansas, but I knew from my pre-teens that I was a city girl. I studied journalism at the University of Kansas with plans of being a magazine editor in New York. Instead, I got married during college and moved to Kansas City as a copywriter. I left that to join my husband's startup, we moved to San Francisco for it, and the rest is history."

: Viv wears a Gap dress. Janette wears a vintage dress from the Brooklyn Flea.

: Tchmo print via Society6.

: "The hardest part of moving has been coming back to an old place—as a new version of myself. There are times I've felt myself revert, just like when you visit your parents' house for holidays and feel like a teenager again. One reason I love San Francisco so much is because of all I went through there emotionally. But after three months in K.C., things are shifting, and I'm seeing Kansas City for what it is, rather than for how it isn't SF. There are amazing things going on here."

: Planter from West Elm and zygote cactus from the S.F. Flower Mart.

: Janette wears an Aritzia dress, Madewell shoes, and Soko cuffs. Viv wears an Old Navy dress and Zuzii shoes.

: Twinning!

: "There's a good chance we'll stay here. But we'll travel a lot, and who knows!"

: "Right now I live in an in-law apartment behind my brother's house, and we trade babysitting every week or two, plus Viv has multiple grandparents asking to spend time with her. After five years with no family babysitting support, it feels like a dream!"