A tour of The Mad House – Living with kids 69

 in parenting  tagged competition / family / home / house / kids / The Mad House by

Every wednesday morning after the boys have gone to school, I grab a pot of tea and log online and take a look at Design Mom’s living with kids post from the previous night.  It is a regular treat for me, like getting a new magazine.  I love looking at peoples homes round the world and how people uniquely live with kids.  I know that my photo’s will never be good enough to feature on Design Mom, but as we were recently featured on At home with Hillary’s I thought I would share a glimpse in to our home with two boys aged 10 and 8!

living with kids 1

+Jen KITCHEN

Blackboard

The kitchen is the heart of our home and the chalkboard wall was added not long after we moved in and is currently in the process of being repainted with magnetic paint!  We use it to leave family message and the week’s menu now.  When the boys were small they used to love colouring on it.

Crafts

Our home is filled with the boys artwork and things we have created.  Instead of precious ornaments we display things that we have made.  The hanging wires were from when we had an art nook when the boys were smaller.  The small chalk table was replaced with a slimline bureau which we found on ebay and painted.

Crockery and pots

I adore my kitchen shelves, although they don’t like me and have fallen off the wall once destroying a lot of precious kitchenalia (but hey it is an excuse to buy more)!

Flour

We keep a lot of our baking supplies etc out on open shelves as cupboard space is at a premium, plus I want to encourage the boys to  get involved as much and often as they can.

happiness

These choose happiness decal is one of our recent additions and I adore it.  Keep on reading to find out how you can win a £40 voucher to spend with Wall Pops who supplied it to me.

kitchen

I am not a minimalist, must to the husbeast’s dismay!

sitting room

The sitting room is often filled with a host of boys playing on the Xbox or just chatting away to each other and is the home to our colourful rug from The Rug Retailer.  That wicker hamper that you just see in the top right corner is our charging center and  houses all the family’s tablets and phones.  We have a screen free rule after six pm and that is where they are all placed overnight.  We are trying hard to be a creative family in a modern world and balancing tech is something we are still working on.

books

We try to have lots of books and games through the house.  I love reading and have passed that love on to Mini and we are a pretty competitive family when it comes to board games.  No one likes to lose!

Family sign

Have you guessed that yellow is  my favorite color yet?  The beautiful lampshade in the background was a custom make my the amazing Karen Lewis Textiles.

Big anglepoise

Our home is pretty neutral on the face of it, but most of our accessories are bright and colourful like this fab super sized anglepoise light from Tk Maxx.

sideboard

I would love to have a carefully curated sideboard in the dining room topped with beautiful things, instead I have learned that it is better to have things that we use on it!  We eat in the dinning room together to most of our meals and we love lighting the candles and making an occasion of it!  The sideboard as my mums and is filled with our art supplies.

food

Food plays an important part in family life in The Mad House.  We cook from scratch most nights and love eating together.  One of my missions as a mum to two boys is to teach them cooking skills that will see them through life.  I have learned boys are like dogs and they need good food, exercise and lots of praise!

Daffs

cons table

One of the best things we did when we moved in to our home was add a conservatory on the rear. It has become our family room.  It is currently filled with LEGO, board games and lots of toys! It might be be a beautiful room, but it does allow me to close the door on the chaos of the day and worry about it in the morning.

So this is the downstairs of our home.  We love it.  The school is in walking distance, as is the park and the high street.  The estate is filled with kids and you can find the boys playing outside with their friends in fine weather.   We live on the same street as my best friend who has four boys and our children come and go in both homes.  If you want to know more about our home, then do pop over to the Hillary’s website.

Win a £40 voucher for Wall Pops

wall pop

So now for a fab giveaway.  You can win a £40 voucher from Wall Pops.

world 2

world

Both of the boys have wall pops in their bedrooms.  They are fab repositionable stickers.  This is why it doesn’t bother me that mini’s has wrinkles in as he installed it himself and I know I can go and reposition it!

Wall pops

living with kids


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