Making Home More Comfortable

At just about every possibly check out counter, there is a plethora of magazines telling us how to have lovely homes.  I believe it appeals to the nature of women, the nature that God has given us, to wish for our homes to be beautiful and welcoming.  However, when they fall short of "ideal," it is easy to feel like a failure as a homemaker.  I appreciate looking at lovely ways to beautify my home, but am learning to let go of the "ideals" and replace them with what works best for our family and the way God has designed our family to work best.  Having a beautiful home is not marked by how many untouchables or knick knacks that adorn a room, but if there is love there.  Do our families feel warm and safe?  Do they look forward to being surrounded by the things that make their home special?  They may not mean anything significant to anyone else...and that is okay.  Do they speak love and peace to those with whom God has blessed us?  Thinking of home in a totally different way has caused me to make some changes...and more that are on the way.  We do not own this home, so the changes must be non-permanent and I must work within the confines of the space that is available to me. 

I wrote last time about rearranging the furniture.  I thought I would share some pictures of the process.  This home has a nice separate dining area, but not large enough to accomodate a family of seven comfortably.  Because of this, I began thinking "out of the box" and decided to make the living room the new dining room area.  When we have over guests, it is hard to accomodate them in our small dining space and they did not have an easy way to get up and around the table if they needed to do so. 

This is where the buffet was originally before it was moved.  We were not even able to put the leaf in our table because it would have extended too far into the living room.

As you can see, everyone wants to get into the act.

This is the new arrangement.  Comfortable seating, plenty of room to move about the table...and hopefully a more welcome space for family and friends.

The old dining room area was not big enough to place all the furniture in it...so this grouping is still where it was originally, but I think it ties the two rooms together very nicely.

And here is the room we now call the parlor...formerly the dining room.  My hubby was very thankful I didn't ask him to move all the pictures and things on the wall!  I was actually surprised they went as well as they did with either grouping of furniture.  And what is in store next?  We have decided to do away with our guest room and make it into a crafting/sewing area.  The decision was not an easy one.  But looking at what little time it actually gets used, we decided we could utilize that space so much better to accomodate the needs of our family.  We tried moving a craft table into the den, but little hands have made it difficult to keep it there.  Joy is now taking private sewing lessons, and I am taking private quilting lessons.  Plus, I never get to scrapbook or stamp anymore because of lack of space...oh, and time is a little bit of a factor too!  But, I do know I would have some time once the children are off to bed if there was one area that we had to keep all the supplies together.  I will show you the progress as we go along. Right now it is full of all the clothes bins I am sorting through to change our clothes and such.   Moving things around...which hasn't cost us one thing, has made our home more comfortable for us...more usable.  Why didn't I think of this before?