My house is a place of creativity, innovation, technology, tradition, beauty, art, music, good food, and education. Fun comes first!
As the one who organizes and orchestrates the events and environment for over a dozen children and an adventurous husband, I’ve embraced an opportunity to throw out the common uses of the rooms in my house.
Most houses were designed to serve as a place of relaxation and comfort for hardworking couples, and school age children. As a homeschooling mom and home-based entrepreneur I began to rethink the way Americans use their homes.
I saw the impractical design of a home as an opportunity to transform the underutilized living spaces into something far more useful and exciting.
What It Looks Like
Our kitchen is now a “Science Kitchen” and a place for fermenting, cooking classes, experiments, a place for making body-care products, and for inventing new remedies and recipes. In the past our kitchen was a birth center, where a few of our kids were born!
Our living room is a lending library and music room where family and friends gather to create music together and to read, share and borrow books. Our living room is also a place where children can play with puzzles and puppets. Sometimes it becomes a church, where we gather daily for Bible stories, worship and prayer.
Our dining room serves the usual purpose of a space for family meals, often squeezing two dozen of us around three tables! But often we set up the space as an Art and Game cafe! Watercolors, beads, and rubber stamps await the touch and imagination of creative kids. We added a coffee bar with three espresso machines and a beautiful assortment of ceramic mugs and flavored syrups. During the week the tables are used as a school space for my five or six youngest kids.
The nook attached to the kitchen is a tearoom, with a DIY tea making station complete with about twenty healing blends of loose leaf teas made from herbs, flowers and spices which were grown in our garden, foraged from our woods and meadows, and imported from around the world. On our recent trips to Italy, Greece and Israel we searched for local blends to bring home and recreate.
The media room in the basement is a Preschool Paradise – even though our youngest child is nine. We fill my house with young moms who have little ones every chance we get.
Our office is a studio of creativity, design, publishing, and relaxation for myself and my team of collaborators who often drop in to work on projects with me.
Our garage is a charging station for two Teslas and a Cybertruck. It is also a gym for my kids who are into fitness and bodybuilding, and another part of the garage is a pottery and jewelry making studio. My husband has a workshop in yet another section of the garage.
Half of the old barn has been renovated into a DIY creative space for neighborhood homeschoolers, complete with a Lego city, shelves full of games, a small stage, and loads of art supplies. The other half of the barn serves as an art studio for our daughters who are studying oil painting and drawing. The space also includes the set for a podcast studio.
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