Inside Our Dutch House: The Living Room

I started a series called "Inside Our Dutch House" back in January in which I show you pictures and talk about each room in our house. Unfortunately, I only completed one post in the series in January, but I'm ready now to buckle down and show you the rest of our home.

I thought since I started in the kitchen, the next logical room would be the living room. Recently, I joked with one of my friends that we were being trendy by having an open living plan or a "great room". What this really means, is in our small home we have to make do using the same space for a living room, an office, a dining room, and a guest bedroom. Oh, and did I mention this space is no larger than a small bedroom? If we were going to be here longer, we'd probably invest in some furniture more suitable/versatile, but here is the living room as is:

From the Front Window

In the picture you can see the office (to the left), the dining room (straight back) and the living room (to the right). The rug in the middle of the floor marks the space where the air mattress lives when we have visitors. The queen size mattress nestles perfectly between the sofa and the desk, allowing just enough space to still use the desk chairs (provided you are flexible enough to maneuver in and out). In the picture above and the ones that follow, I've used a fisheye lens. It's just impossible to capture the room with a regular non-wide-angle lens. You would be able to see only the dining table or only the desk. The one thing to note, however, is a fisheye lens does make the area seem a little larger than it is.

One challenge I've had with the living room is find a place to work on projects. Since Mr. Traveler occasionally works from home and often has to check in on his projects in the evening, the large table (which was originally the dining table) has been transformed into his desk. Originally I had hopes of sharing this space, but there is really not enough space for both of us.

Desk Area

Since the dining room table became a desk, we rescued a small table from the corner in the kitchen. Originally it was covered in a thick tablecloth and served as extra counter space. The problem was it was too low to be used effectively as counter space and it really just took up space. We moved it to the living room, where it became our two person table. I guess it's done its job because we sit at the table nearly every evening. Sometimes I use the table as a laptop desk or spread out a crafting project, but whatever is on the table always gets put away stacked somewhere else when it is time to eat dinner.

Crafting on the Dining Table in January

I've already mentioned that we moved the table from the kitchen to the living room. We also did another bit of rearranging in this space after we'd been in the house a couple months. We moved the sofa from facing the TV to facing this room. This helped open up the room, but made watching TV a little less comfortable.

View from the Kitchen

The sofa wasn't all that comfortable to begin with, though. It's lumpy, feather filled cushions make for an inconsistent sitting experience, especially when you have the pleasure of the sharp end of a feather stabbing you in the leg. While it is tolerable for the time being, I'm looking forward to our larger sectional at home, where Mr. Traveler and I can sprawl out and cuddle with the dogs.

From the whole room pictures above, you probably won't be able to see one of the other irritating things about this room that we are just tolerating. At first glance, the room seems to have nice hardwood floors. Well, they would be nice if they were installed properly without large crumb-catching gaps between some of the slats. (They could use a good polishing, too, but I'm not complaining about that!)

Crumb and Dust Catcher

One thing I really love about this room is the lighting during the day. Even on cloudy days, plenty of light streams through the windows on both sides of the room. The first thing I do when I wake up is open the windows to let in the natural light. Sometimes, if I'm lucky, I can even spot a cat sitting on the window sill.

Rainy Day Hideout

Overall, I've gotten a lot of use over this room for the past 10 months. It's served as my main hangout when I'm at the house, whether I'm reading, spending time on my laptop, watching TV, crafting, eating, or playing a game with Mr. Traveler. While I probably wouldn't choose to have a multipurpose room like this long term, it has served its purpose for our short stay.