Welcome to our home! As with our last place, I claimed a little spot outside the front door for shoes, and made the most of the short hallway that leads into the main living space to facilitate the daily comings and goings of our family.

We spend much of our day in this space, whether it’s working on the couch, playing with the kids, or chatting with guests, so it was important to create a comfortable, inviting spot that is high on (multi)functionality but low on maintenance.

I like to keep my surfaces as bare as possible for fast cleaning (soooo important with kids), so the dining room and kitchen are full of functional decor that makes it easy to grab what we need while not unnecessarily creating clutter.

I refer to our home as a “2.5-bedroom” condo, thanks to this little space. It’s much smaller than a regular bedroom, but it’s enough to fit a full or queen-sized bed, which is all this minimalist really needs!

This room is unnecessarily large for us, but we’ll enjoy it for now and turn it over to the kid(s) when the time calls for it.

The kids wanted to continue sharing a bedroom, so I used what I’d learned about what kind of space works for them to optimize the design of this room.

Our entryway is probably the most functional space in our home. We keep shoes outside the door, and everything we need within easy reach so coming and going is a quick affair, especially when we have cats, er kids, to herd.

We use this room more than any other, so I (re)designed it to maximize form and function to create a space that I love spending time in.

This space is a continual work-in-progress where I periodically learn something new about my design preferences.

We cook almost daily in our kitchen, so I made clean up as easy as possible by keeping the counters and floor relatively bare so that sticky little handprints and far-flung crumbs are easily spotted and wiped up.

I truly believe the key to living comfortably in a 1-bedroom with kids is to stash them and their stuff in a place where you can close the door and walk away.

The bathroom does what it needs to and looks fine doing it, so I made it functional and called it a day.