Now that we have toured all of the rooms that we have downstairs and barely use. We are finally going to enter the heart of the home – the kitchen and family room.
Our last house had a semi open space, very semi. The living room, dining room, and kitchen were all connected by large open doorways but there was a wall in the kitchen blocking your view into the living room.
In this house we have a completely open concept. Our breakfast nook/eat in dining space, kitchen, and family room are entirely open to each other. There is a open line of sight from one to the next.
When you walk into the front door, the foyer has double glass doors leading into this special area of our home.
Then you are immediately greeted with our eat in dining space to the right (with the formal dining room through a doorway) and the kitchen to the left (with the family room on the other end).
Our sliding door used to have the track blinds which I hated immensely so I took them down, patched it up, and hung these curtains which are the same as the family room. The chandelier used to have mini round blinds on each of the ‘candle’ lights and I found that just removing them changed the whole look.
We purchased our table + chairs from Pier 1, the area rug from Pottery Barn, and those bar stools from Wayfair. I recently changed the wall behind our table from a pallet clock to this gallery wall, which I love.
A few of these pieces were recently finds – the windmill was a $10 find from a Walmart spring collection, the galvanized bucket + flowers from Jo Ann Fabrics, the metal B from Michaels, the matching picture frames holding the kids silhouettes are from Dollar General believe it or not, and the rest just a hodgepodge of things around the house.
After setting the formal dining room table, I decided I like the look of a set table so I purchased these placemats, table runner, and wood rounds from Pottery Barn. Then came across these galvanized metal lanterns from Home Depot. The two pie plates are from Michaels (small) and Kirklands (large).
Looking into the kitchen there was a large, empty wall and I decided to turn it into a chalkboard wall because that had always been a dream of mine. I added a few decor pieces at the top as well as functional ones near the middle but mostly wanted to keep the wall available for notes + the kids drawings.
The ‘home sweet home’ sign was found at Big Lots, pallet clipboard from HomeGoods, galvanized metal mail box and little metal buckets, which hold chalk, from Jo Ann Fabrics.
I try (try really hard) to keep our counters clutter free. Aside from housing the obviously difficult to store Kitchen Aid mixer and food processor, the counters are filled with my Mrs. Meyers cleaning tub, glass jars filled with flour, sugar, and oatmeal, the utensil holders, and our knives. The very basics. I tried to go simple with the plain glass jars, solid white glass jars, white buckets, etc.
In the bottom right hand corner you can see the other side of the kitchen which houses our pantry, refrigerator, more cabinets, and that door shown which leads to our laundry room.
Leading from our kitchen into our living room, my husband built this barn door gate to keep the kids in/dogs out. It is beautiful AND functional.
This is where my home tour is about to get real, really real. Our family room is currently a TV room and play room. We have a full unfinished basement that we eventually plan to finish for a play room but while the kids are too little to play unsupervised too long – this is our play room. It was cleaned up for these photos, but still very full of toys.
We ordered this couch specifically for this room before we moved in. We picked a couch we loved and then had to add an extra section in the middle because this room is 21 feet long and a regular couch would have been tiny in it.
Red was our choice of color because before we moved to MD, we looked at a house we LOVED in DE and they had a red couch and tan walls. We immediately fell in love with the way it looked and took the idea with us.
Each end of this couch houses toys upon toys upon toys. I try to put things away and tuck them behind the ends in order to make it seem like less, but it only works for so long.
This fireplace is easily one of my favorite features in the house. They really did a good job creating a beautiful stone fireplace to the ceiling of this cathedral room.
One of the only walls in this house to be designed and NOT redone is this wall to the right of the couch (in the left picture). This gallery wall was put up shortly after we moved in and aside from changing out the photos, I have not changed it. The picture to the right is a small wall I put together recently, using that clipboard for the kids to showcase their art as we bring it home from school.
The opposite side of this room is no different. Toys everywhere. The train table is one of the most obnoxious pieces I have ever owned, ever. Cam no longer plays with the trains much, but he now uses the tables to set up his dinosaurs and their habitat. The tent was a Christmas present that is just as huge.
All of those canvas bins also house toys such blocks, cars, all Lilys babies, etc.
And this final photo is the view back into the kitchen, into the eat in kitchen area, and even as far as the formal dining room peeking in from the very back.
Do your consider the kitchen + family room to be the heart of your house? If so, do you have a designated play room or have toys everywhere like us?
Do you have a different space that you spend more time in? I’d love to hear about it.
Next week we will check out the new redone laundry room (sounds weird I know, but you will love it) and then head upstairs!
As always, I hope you enjoyed a look inside our home.
