When it is all said and done, our homes and how we use them—be it one room in our parent’s house or a full home with extra nooks and crannies to spare—are what makes our homes home. They should reflect the people who live here, their needs, comforts, and personalities.

Porches should truly be considered rooms in our homes. They’re one more place we can gather and tend our families. They’re one more place we can help our people rest and regenerate. They’re one more place we can offer to friends and family to enjoy.

Bedrooms can be an interesting element in our homes because they’re utilized as places of privacy. But that privacy or training ground of privacy doesn’t remove them from our overarching responsibilities. We need to make sure we’re not neglecting these spaces, but embracing them!

True safe spaces don’t belong out in the world. They belong in the home, centered around truth, and they’re most often found around the family table sharing a family meal. We all need to take the table and this room seriously. We all need to delight in harnessing the power of this space and clothe it with beauty. 

Routine is loyalty and faithfulness made sight, given firm, given tangible expression, and action.

Let’s not take our laundry rooms for granted, nor disrespect our helpful machines that call that room home. It’s fine that she’s not a glamorous place like the entryway or a cozy place like the living room, but that doesn’t mean the laundry room should be ugly or mismanaged.

Let’s strive to be good stewards of our pantries. Let’s strive to watch our flows, our backstocks, and our decorating so that we bring order and wonder to the little corners of our worlds.

It’s not us who wax eloquent about the ‘magic’ of the kitchen in praise of God’s provision, in praise of daily bread. It’s the pagans. How is that even close to appropriate? We of all people should be profuse in our thanksgiving for all that the kitchen produces for our families.

There are times we have to use our main space in unique and creative ways that move beyond gathering places of rest, recreation, recuperation, and casual conversation with friends and family. I want to open up the discussion to some of the other ways this room does double duty by examining two other options: Libraries and Playrooms.

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.

The master bedroom is a key room in the house. Often it gets our last gasp of effort when it should get our first, because, single or married, it is the inner sanctuary of the home.