A house is a building with four walls, a roof, and a front door. A home is place where memories are created, where families love, challenge, argue with, and support each other. It’s one big complicated mess, but we absolutely couldn’t live without it. Our love fills the rooms, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t a few steps we can take to really create a place that is undeniably a home. Here’s a few simple additions you can make to foster a unified (mostly!), family friendly home….that’s also fun!
Games Room
You’ve got a spare room just sitting there. What are you going to do, create another guest room? Oh no, this one’s for the family. Why not create a space where you, your partner, and your children can hang out together and have some fun. Put in a pool table, table tennis table, arcade games, video games, board games, and a few comfortable chairs, and you’ll have a room where you’ll be able to hang out all together. Bonus: when you’re not there, your children will have a space to hang out in (also when you want a quiet night with a film!), and all the entertainment they need to stop from fighting!
In the Summer
People get pretty excited about summer, and rightly so! Sun shining, good vibes, yes yes! Take the time to make a space where you can really enjoy summer together. Buy some patio furniture and you’ll be able to spend long summer evenings sitting in your garden, right after you’ve had a BBQ. You can also get an outdoor fireplace, and let us tell you – it gets no better than all the family hanging out in front of a fireplace on a summer’s night. Also, don’t forget to bring the fun – pools, water guns, frisbees, and all the other staples of summer.
Open Plan Kitchens
If you’re looking to make any big changes to your home, then look at creating an open plan kitchen. These are great ways to foster family relationships. In the mornings, you’ll all sit at the breakfast bar and discuss the day ahead. It also doubles up as a hangout space that isn’t the living room, where people can come and go. Essentially, you’ll be seeing more of one another during the day, which is especially useful as the kids get older and generally tend to spend more time in their own rooms.
TV-Free Living Room
In some households this is a blasphemous suggestion, but hear us out: having a living room without a TV has many benefits, including improving attention spans, helping people have more – and deeper – conversations, and acts as a room of calm in the home. Naturally, this is probably only feasible if you have another room in the house with a TV. Everyone wants to have film nights every now and again. Plus, a bit of TV isn’t bad for children. Still, stock those rooms without TVs with books and board games and playing cards and you’ll have a really healthy family relationship!