A tour of our family living space – how top make an open space living plan work for a family of six. Also, goals for the month of February 2018.
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Family Living Space House Tour
What You'll Find on This Page
I planned to post a house tour soon after we moved in! Last weekend our house (well, the common living spaces) were mostly-clean, so I snapped a few photos and you get a look at our daily life.
All four photos in this post are from a big open room, and this is the space where we spend most of our time. I subdivided the room into several distinct spaces that work really well for our family of six.
Family Friendly Kitchen
We moved into a house with a gorgeous kitchen! I added these four bar stools; everything else was built in or brought over from our old place. The kids love asking Alexa questions, and they enjoy baking in our toaster oven.
Family Friendly Dining Room
The dining room table used to be my desk. It’s a glass table that I don’t think IKEA sells any more, although they have some other choices now. I’m really pleased at how easy it is to wipe clean – from crafts as well as meals.
Anna still likes to sit in her Keekaroo baby chair (it’s approved up to 250 pounds). The other chairs were freebies we found out on the curb in our old neighborhood!
The Expedit shelving unit and baskets are from IKEA.
We don’t have a television; instead we project TV shows and movies from DVDs, Netflix, and Amazon Prime onto the wall on the right using our BenQ projector. You can see the white projector on top of the IKEA shelving unit. The colors come out pretty true to life even though the wall has a yellow tint. Sometimes we sit at the table, but I purposely picked lightweight furniture for our living room so that we can move it over to the dining area for a family movie night (the table is also very easy to move).
The dining room was kind of dark at night, so we installed this light fixture. Now it is super bright at night!
Family Friendly Living Room
The living room was our big splurge. We bought this Safavieh rug, and the electric fireplace was a fun addition. The fire looks real enough that people who don’t know it’s fake sometimes think it’s real, although I’m guessing those are people who haven’t spent much time around real fires. It is pretty to look at, and creates a cozy atmosphere. We can set it to heat the room or just look pretty – a nice feature for a place like California that is seldom actually cold.
I was really pleased to find these accent chairs and loveseats for our living room. They are comfortable and can be re-arranged for movie nights, having people over, and even for Anna to dance on the rug.
We’ve had the Playmobil castle for a few years now – the kids love it!
This piano is a dream come true! Mike and I started saving up when we first got married, but other things always came up that used up part or all of the fund. Our ten year goal turned into a nearly seventeen year goal, but we finally got a beautiful Pearl River baby grand! Piano hunting hint: find a good piano tuner and ask them for recommendations!
The IKEA Leksvik bookshelves (no longer sold) and laptop cart are from our condo, along with the Willow Tree figurines on the windowsill, the books, my guitar, and the LEGO sets Mike and I build as at-home dates.
Goals for February 2018
I barely accomplished my January Goals! I squeezed second posts for both Great Family Reads and Top Toy Finds into this week, but I got them done. This is why I set goals; I highly doubt either post would have happened otherwise. I have a rough(er than I would like) ebook draft written, but it needs revising, photos, and illustrations. Mike and I found a lovely Airbnb rental for our summer in Edinburgh (we’re taking a bunch of university students; thankfully they stay in dorms). The plan is for the girls to continue homeschooling and Johnny to continue at our local public school next year; it’s a system that’s working for everyone. Lily and Emma showed good academic progress at their homeschool charter school’s mid-year testing this week. That is always reassuring.
February is a month that always flies by, and I’ve kept goals simple:
- Enjoy a visits with my sister and Mike’s aunt. It’s wonderful to have space for guests now!
- Celebrate Emma’s birthday. It’s hard to believe she’s turning twelve, but I look at my poised daughter and it’s obvious she’s growing up.
- Take photos and illustrate my e-book.
- Publish two more posts on my Great Family Reads and Top Toy Finds sites (as well as blogging as usual here, of course).
- Publish a blog post here with highlights from my time at Creativation.
What are your goals for February 2018? My friend Cassie has some neat plans to celebrate her six year blogiversary, and Varya is setting healthier lifestyle goals. Do you have a tour of your family living space? Please share in the comments below, or share a post link on my Facebook page! You can also tag me on instagram.
MaryAnne is a craft loving educator, musician, photographer, and writer who lives in Silicon Valley with her husband Mike and their four children.
Right now the kids and I are reading Clash of Clans, that obviously takes place in Scotland, and it had me thinking of you because it’s a family that is traveling there to visit for a wedding with lots of little kiddos.
Your house looks wonderful and seems like an extension of who you are as a family.
Your new home is beautiful!! Congrats!
Such a lovely, welcoming space! Well done!!!
Thank you!
Beautiful! I have a piano at my parent’s house. You are inspiring me to fulfill my dream of bringing it to my own home. This month: organize our photos by year and finish my deep cleaning.
Wow, your new house looks gorgeous! The place looks perfect for your family. Good luck homeschooling another year!
Thanks! Plans actually changed and I think Anna will go to public school for first grade (her choice, like Johnny). Emma and Lily still want to homeschool.
I love looking at your new house! I so need to get more organized with it! I love the black shelves and baskets.