Making Your House Work for You

A few months back I went and saw Young House Love give a talk while on tour and came away with an interesting thought. Just because a room in your house was designed for one thing, doesn't mean you have to use it that way. That got me thinking. We've been fighting with our living room since we moved in.

It's long and skinny with the front door right next to the fireplace. It was always more of a passthrough than anything else, which is a shame because now that our trees are gone there is a great view. So I thought; let's change it!

We moved the dining room table in to the living room added curtains (from West Elm) and a little desk by the window.

This is where you can find us 80% of the day. Daniel loves to work at the table so the office tray I put together has been a lifesaver.

 Sunflowers always bring cheer to a space don't they?

Ignore the wrinkly chair covers and table. We are still using the free furniture we got when we moved in.

I've love to replace it with a round table one day. For now, free is good. The bench is something I made last fall and never wrote about.

It is simply plywood, legs and some foam. Super easy. Maybe one day I will go back and write a tutorial. I find upholstery really hard to describe so I don't usually write about it (though I love doing it).

There you have it. Our living room turned dining room. We've lived with it for 4+ months and love it this way. There are still some lighting kinks to work out but I don't see changing it any time soon. What happened to the dining room? You'll just have to wait and see! (As in we are still figuring out how to make the whole space work)

So tell me, what have you done in your house that was a break from it's intended use? I've seen some awesome spare rooms turned in to dressing rooms and great offices.

Cheers!