“We appreciate what a gift our home is and feel called to open it up to friends (new and old) and family as often as we are able. Our prayer is that it is a place where relationships are nourished, and many good conversations take place.”

By Noelle Mering

Kelli Seeley is a professional photographer as well as a wife and mother of four living in Sacramento, California. She shares the care and intention she put into this lovely room. You can find her and more of her work on Instagram.

This little corner of our home is our main living room. It’s the room that you first see when you walk into our house, and the room where we spend the most time together as a family. I wanted it to feel warm and inviting, bright, and a place where you feel like you can relax. We appreciate what a gift our home is and feel called to open it up to friends (new and old) and family as often as we are able. Our prayer is that it is a place where relationships are nourished, and many good conversations take place.

With four kids, It can be a challenge to find furniture that is both practical but also aesthetically nice to look at. I wanted a modern/mid century couch - but I also wanted it to be big enough for all of us to gather on and watch movies and lounge around. We love our cozy couch and it has been a good fit for this room. It was the first thing we purchased for the room.

The walls of our home are really big with a lot of space and it has taken a couple years to figure out what to hang on them and how to arrange them. I’ve always been inspired by the way museums display photographs and so I have that in mind when thinking about what to hang on the walls and how to display pictures. I think ideally a few larger pieces of art work well when you have a lot of wall space, so over the years, I’ve purchased bigger frames and mats, and I always try to keep an eye out for artwork that I love.

With that said, when it comes to art, I believe you should pick pieces that have meaning to you or you have some sort of special connection to them. For example, one of the first things I hung on the wall was an old photograph of the little town in Massachusetts my Portuguese relatives settled into when they immigrated to the U.S. I also have hanging a drawing of boats from that same town because my relatives came from the Azore Islands and were in the fishing industry.

I have a couple of faith inspired images that are important to me and a few pieces (and a 3rd one on the way) from one of my favorite female artists who I discovered on Etsy a few years ago. I like having wood accents like our coffee table and the hanging plant holder because I think it adds nice contrast to the room. My favorite color is green so I love to add Trader Joe's plants and flowers around the room to add color. I think it helps the room feel more inviting.

On the other side of our room is our TV (eventually we plan on adding to our house and moving the TV into a different room, but until then, here it stays) and more seating.

There is one other corner in this room that is special to us, and that is our prayer table in the corner. We’ve had it in other areas of our home in the past but we found that when It was in other rooms, it didn’t flow with our family prayer routine and rhythms. We all like it better now that it’s present in the room we are most often in and where we say our nightly prayers. We keep candles on the table, prayer cards, and a little dish that holds our rosaries.