Family Dinner and our Kitchen Table

Mostly, I like the pretty pictures, but it also begs the question - when will we finally sit down for regular family meals?

I would love for Rowan to grow up in a house where the family eats together at the kitchen table. This should be a place where anyone can gather to chat and nibble and create. I just came across a family recently who built a huge table for their big family which also doubled as a kitchen prep area. I really like this idea! I love to cook and bake and it can get lonely if you're shut away in a kitchen. Plus, I'd love for my family to do the cooking with me.

Well, if we had the space, I think we would every night. But we live in an apartment that a friend scoped out for us before we moved from Vancouver. It's the nicest place I've ever lived in on my own, but it's not my ideal living situation iwantahouse. When we first moved in last May ( 9 months ago, holy crap), I was almost half way through my pregnancy. In a rush to get settled and without a vehicle of our own we went to the local thrift store and scavenged for our furniture. Our kitchen/dining room table is something we picked up out of a random pile of crap in our parking garage. I think it may have been originally from Ikea? We have two wooden chairs we scored from a thrift shop which works for Matt and I, and we end up pullingover the desk chair and a camping chair when we have friends over to play cards. Oh yeah, and our coffee table, where we normally eat our meals, is big tupperware-like-box. Classy! I would LOVE to have dinner together at a table that can actual accommodate us comfortably instead of hunching over the plastic tub sitting on the couch.

I've rearranged our space countless times as our needs have changed significantly over the past few months with Rowan going through major developmental milestones and I think I'm going to have to change it again.  Today he was on the floor -ew- making all sorts of noises and playing with the blanket I had laid underneath him. Not so comfy or clean, so, I'd like to bring out Rowan's playpen so he can freeplay in there during the day. I'd also like to use our kitchen table as a kitchen table since he'll be starting to eat solid foods in a couple of months and will be able to pull up a highchair. I know we don't have a lot of stuff, but there's too much going on in our living space to accommodate everything we need to function on a daily basis.

Check out this mess.

Drying rack in front of balcony door which we'll open in the summer, kitchen table with sexy camping chair and one thrifted chair, behind that cardboard box shelving and a small bookshelf.

Help?

I think I'll have to get rid of the hallway I created in the front behind our couch and possibly rearrange the living room in order to squish everything in. Here we go again! I'll make it work.

HAPPY NESTING TO ME.

Love, Mama

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