“Remember, a wonderful aid to orderliness is a function for every room!”
-Daryl V. Hoole
So this week I’ve been thinking about what the function of each room should be and then how to make them the most functional.
For example:
The room I spent the most time on this week was the family room. This is where we spend the bulk of our time. It’s where I sew and cut patterns, where my husband relaxes on the couch, where Simon reads, where Gracie colors, and where Ruth plays on the rug. It is also where we watch movies, have camp outs, play games and read stories. When I asked my husband what the function of the family room is he said “fun”. I agree and our room reflects that.
Our house isn’t for everyone—you can tell that we are…um…always doing something.
Our walls are lined with shelves that are filled with blocks and books and fabric and paint and markers and colored pencils and the like instead of with cool vases and interesting knick knacks.
I used to fret because my house isn’t cool like other peoples homes and worried that people would think I was crazy for doing things like setting up a sewing machine in our family room…but I don’t worry so much anymore. I think I finally get something I read in a book a long time ago. It said to be grateful for the home you have right now, knowing that at this moment it’s all you need.
I think sometimes it’s easy to get caught in I can’t really organize this room until we are out of the baby stage or I can’t really make this room usable until I can afford new furniture or I can’t keep this out here because it’s not stylish.
But I finally get it—all I have is all I need. So let’s live the life we have. (Sure we can hope for more, better, or different…but until those changes happen let’s make the most of what we have.) And right now my life consists of hand me down couches (worn but clean), toys on the shelves, and a cutting matt tucked behind the TV hutch.
All I have is all I need…and all I need is within reach in our family room.
I worked this week to organize this family room area—toys were resorted into bins—books re shelved by age level—the kids supply hut (stored in the closed shelving portion of the TV hutch) gone through and cleaned—and sewing table area purged.
I got rid of the magazines clogging up the storage shelf under a table to make way for the lap top and my sketch book. Then I even added a few of the games we play most to one of the shelves so that they will always be handy.
I also have reminded the family about some of the family room rules—no bringing food or drinks into the family room—get dressed in your bedroom, not in front of the TV while your watching cartoons—before you can start a new project you need to clean up the one you were working on before—take your shoes off—and so on…I think these rules will help the family room to fulfill it’s purpose as a place to play, create, relax, and have fun.
This week I’ll be attacking the bedrooms—I think I want to get all of the toys out of them and make bedrooms just a place for keeping our clothing, getting dressed, reading, and sleeping. Am I going crazy? Maybe. But I think I’m going to try it. At least for the summer.
Do you have any feelings or ideas on the function of a particular room in your home or how you help a room to fulfill it’s function? I always love hearing your thoughts.
-liZ
have i told you how much i love these posts? i have totally been following along. im still working hard on meal planning and multi-tasking but have been doing the…just do it, do it right and do it now motto. HUGE help with the clothes and laundry. plus most of the rooms are finally getting in their functioning order. i need to buy a few things to help make the order of them prettier, but those will come in time (with a good yard sale or thrift store). the kiddos rooms are in great order, guess that happens when they are spankin new. i dont have any toys or even books in there. just their beds, a rug (where i spend many a nights sleeping), armoire and dresser. i allow them to bring a book to bed at naptime but not bedtime. it keeps the room so clean and them sleeping instead of playing. we also return the books to the bookshelf after naptime.
i spent the week purging my craft room and all my scraps. plus getting all of the animals stuff organized. we just got two pigs last week and needed some order to all the animals feed. order just gives me peace! now hopefully i can get out of this sewing/blogging funk. have a great weekend!
yes, I also love these posts. It’s like a little peek at a less chaotic life that I hope is in my future!
I really love these homemaking posts as well! They are so great. Although there is no other job I would rather do in my life right now, sometimes homemaking feels so dull. Your posts really motivate me though. Sometimes it is all just about a change in attitude :).
I love this series! Thanks so much for writing these posts. I had never thought of rooms in terms of their function but know that I function better when things are in their place and I get rid of the clutter. It does help to think of daily chores with a purpose and not just a mundane task.
My girls are tiny, just 2 and 8 weeks, but rather than give our newborn her own room we actually merged the two girls into a shared room. Because we needed to make space for another crib, we took all of the toys out of the room and created a separate play room. The room is exactly as you described, only used for sleeping and getting dressed. I have to say I absolutely love it! Bedtime is going so much smoother with our two year old because she isn’t so distracted by all of her toys. In addition, because toys get messy and disorganized from playing, all of that disorganization is in a separate place. I think we will keep it this way for keeps. Thanks for sharing!
Awesome job! Thanks for the perspective reminder. 🙂 My cutting board used to be next to the tv, now it’s under the couch. I wish we had room to get the toys out of the bedroom but that will come one day so I’ll just enjoy what we can. 🙂
Inspired by this post, I have done some furniture rearranging… slowly but surely 🙂