Room Enough
lessons learned in small spaces
This looks like a Barbie house, I thought when I saw the kitchen of our first apartment together.
It was a small, shockingly teal box of a room.1 There was little storage space, and even fewer counters, but we added shelves and counter space organizers from Amazon, along with a small round table from IKEA, just big enough for the two of us.
It was 2020, so for the first year of our marriage, it was mostly us around our table. Occasionally, family members would join us. Time went on, and as we re-entered society, that small teal kitchen became the heart of afternoon teas and Christmas parties, Saturday brunches and New Year’s events.
Our next apartment - and current home - is significantly bigger than that first place with the teal kitchen. But with the two of us, two children, and two cats, often space feels in short supply. Half of the living room (aka the kitty house) is toddler toy central; part of the dinner table is the crap collecting station. My son’s trike and other toys encroach on my desk space, forever pushing me back to the couch or crap covered dining table to work.
And amid our chaos, we’ve still invited over 30 people to our annual Christmas cookie decorating party. In a few short weeks, our dining table will be covered by shortbread, gingerbread, and sugar cookies. Our hands will be sticky with icing and sprinkles. We’ll have mince pies, cheese boards, and a pot of warm cider on the stove. The cats will lurk angrily in the bedroom, out of sight, while friends from across our circles of life will eat and laugh and not care that our apartment is only so big. It’s one of my favorite parts of the holidays.
For anyone else out there who feels that their home is too small or too cluttered or just not right for hosting, let me assure you, you already have everything you need to make it happen. Don’t believe me? Here are a few more things I’ve picked up along the way:
It’s always worth it, no matter how badly your kids have been sleeping or how busy your week was.
Hosting doesn’t have to put a dent in the weekly budget.
No one cares if you have a teal blue kitchen or toddler toys everywhere.
It’s okay to use disposable tableware. It’s also okay to use the good china.
People will ask if they can bring anything; they actually mean it!
Food tastes better if it’s displayed on a tea tower.
Cleanup isn’t that bad.
Paperless Post invitations make everything more fun.
The cats will forgive you, eventually.
People actually want to come over.
There’s always room enough, for the people in our lives and the dreams in our hearts.
Years of living and hosting in small spaces remind me that what matters most in life isn’t the color of my kitchen or the square footage of my floor plan. It’s the laughter and love our space holds.
Please copy and paste the following blurb into the bottom of your post: This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in the series “Hospitality.”
Okay, I know that a real Barbie Dreamhouse kitchen would be hot pink. But only Barbie would choose to paint a room that vivid a color.
100% this!! Embracing a full, small home with you!!
My Nana and Grandpa lived in an 800SF house in Chicago and hosted so many family parties...card tables out in the living room, people everywhere. And somehow cooking all the food in the tiny galley kitchen. It was so fun!