Room by Room: The Living Room (Part 1)
Every room in our homes is a tool for us to utilize for our family’s delight, rest, and strengthening. We really should look at it that way because it will undergird our work with a true level of importance. It gives us the ‘why’ to the ‘what’. It helps us properly prioritize our time and money and tending. If we dig past just the expected levels of simply having a nice building in which to safely sleep and store our stuff, we can see that shelter is more than protection from elements and theft. Our shelters are places to tend to souls – ours and our people. Our homes have a job that is much bigger and broader, harder and more subtle than only keeping us alive. They’re here to provide healing comfort, cheering strength and we do this with hearts of merry durability. Don’t shrug off or belittle the work you’re doing in each room. Train yourself to see the tools you have and put in the labor necessary to bring them to their full potential for the wellbeing of your people, body and soul.
After the Master Bedroom, I’d venture to say the Kitchen is the next important place to focus since food is one of our biggest and most constant responsibilities. We already touched on the Kitchen here, so let’s move on to the Living Room.
Why is the Living Room important? Because it is a gathering point. It is where the family comes together to rest, recuperate, and recreate. Some of you may have a split Living Room, where one room is centered around the TV and the other around conversation. If you can do this, it is a great blessing that you should put to good use. If you can’t split these two functions, you want to look at both aspects in the same room. Can your family comfortably and cozily watch movies, read books, and play board games and video games in your living room? Can company come and have a conversation? If not, then where can those things be done?
Side Note: I would highly recommend, with all that is in me, to never create a situation where the only places reading books, watching movies, and playing video games are done are in separate bedrooms. This is isolating and fracturing. There is a bonding that happens when you’re all gathered on the same couch, or in little comfy piles, even if you’re all doing different things on different devices. Yes, your kids should enjoy alone time/play time in their bedrooms and may prefer it as a place to escape from the general family noise, but you should always have regular times of rest, recreation, and recuperation together.
The Living Room needs to be a place of intimate family rest, recreation, and recuperation and/or a place for friends and family to converse. If you can’t split these two things, get creative about making your space an inviting and cozy place that does both.
Function: Gathering Place. Having a place where the whole family can gather is important because of three things:
· Rest: Daily rest and recreation (which grows the mind and experiences) are so underrated in our communistic and evolutionary society because rest is antithetical to both of those philosophies/religions. It is also under attack by our own inner sense that we have to always be on the verge of chronic franticness or we’re doing something wrong. Even solid Christians struggle to rest, viewing it as lazy, and recreation as evil, sinful, or immature. But we all need to rest and recreate. We weren’t designed to go until we break. Nothing sucks the joy out of life faster than never resting, and nothing makes us subconsciously doubt the Lord’s goodness quicker than living a life without rest and recreation. Living rooms are great places to encourage rest and recreation.
· Together: The other wonderful magic of the Living Room is the ability to be together. We all need alone time. Even you extroverts. Bedrooms are a great space for that, but it is important to be together, even for you introverts, as family and friends even if we’re all reading a different book, working a different craft, or playing on different tablets and phones, we’re still together. That is the magic of this room. Its size, furniture, and layout allow us to be together.
· Conversation: the other gift of our Living Rooms is the curating of casual conversation. Now, depending on your home layout and your personality, a casual conversation may be had more often at the kitchen table. That’s fine and normal. It’s simply important to have a place where conversation is relaxed. The table tends to have harder seats which are easily wiped for obvious reasons. The Living Room is generally softer. It welcomes you to sit and curl up and get that glass of red, red wine or a cup of chamomile and talk.
These elements are how our Living Rooms work for us HearthKeepers.
Beauty: Our Living Rooms can’t be gathering places if they’re cold, dirty, or austere. If we fill our Living Rooms with furniture that can’t handle food and drinks, we decorate with pillows that can’t touch the floor, and throws that are only for looking at, we aren’t creating beauty. We’re creating museums and we need to hire security guards. In fact, we often become the security guards making sure nothing is touched.
Living Rooms need to be livable. They need to have couches we can curl up in, pillows that can be squashed, and throws that can warm toes, even dirty ones. Trays are helpful for drinks, books, pens and papers. Nearby baskets can hold knitting, crochet, cross-stitch, embroidery, crosswords, and charging cords. Plants on nearby tables purify the air and bring living décor into a space. Plants make a room feel welcoming. Lamps are wonderful ways to create a pocket of soft light that invites even the smallest child to grab a book and sit a bit.
Look for down-filled pillows with removable covers. That way they can be washed, replaced, or changed seasonally. And! Bonus! Down is squishable and easily reshaped. No snarling at husbands or kids if you only have to fluff to reset.
You can make throws or buy them. There is little that is as inviting as a blanket on a couch or chair.
Rugs can set spaces off, especially if you have an open floor plan, and a fun, cozy rug in a Living Room can draw a stranger in. Take into account your family, pets, and traffic. Don’t set yourself up for disaster by buying something white if you know you can never keep it clean. Think ahead. (Rugs are also worth the investment. You may need to get a cheap space-filler, but it’s worth saving up for a high-quality rug.)
If you’re single, the Living Room will be both your spot and the place you gather your friends and family. Try to put it to good use. Don’t avoid nesting in your Living Room. Walking in on a place never used isn’t inviting (See Stagnation Article). Have your books, throws, and tea in your Living Room regularly, and then have your people over.
Our Living Rooms are wonderful tools in our tool chest for gathering our people together, calming everyone down, replenishing and growing imaginations, enjoying stories, fellowshipping, and being together.
Don’t allow yourself to take the rooms that make up your home for granted. They each serve a purpose and we need to be intentional about using them.
