Abi Coop
Melissa Richard
Kristen Ryan
One of my 2022 projects involved capturing every space in my home. I want my kids to remember the home they grew up in. The details of the rugs in the different rooms. The lofted beds my older boys use. The fun in closets that can only be had by small children. I ended up really enjoying this project and it evolved over the course of the year. It was a challenge to find ways to capture closets and hallways, rooms that I normally don’t shoot in. Intentionally shooting every room of my home made me fall in love with my home all over again. Even the dark rooms that I previously did not prefer to shoot in. In this post, I’ll share my tips on finding inspiration indoors through My Every Room Project!
My daughter coloring on the living room floor
When I initially began my every room project, my goal was to capture every room in my home. The bedrooms, the living room, family room, kitchen, dining room, basement, mudroom and bathrooms – 14 rooms in total.
I realized that I actually shoot in our hallway a fair amount and had a few images I wanted to capture involving our stairs. With that realization I expanded beyond traditional rooms and ended up adding our stairways, hallways, foyer, and closets in each of the bedrooms to the project, bringing the total up to 25 “rooms.”
My oldest reading on the stairs – I now also have a series of my oldest child reading in strange places
These additional “rooms” – the stairways and hallways and closets ended up being some of my favorites. They forced me to be more creative and see ordinary things in a new way.
My daughter walking down the hallway to her room
Then, I got really ambitious and decided I wanted to capture every space of every room in my home. I wanted to capture every window in every room, every wall, the stair landing in addition to the actual stairs, the doorways, the unfinished attic, etc.
My daughter playing magnatiles in the beautiful afternoon light of our family room
I had my camera ready because I knew my daughter’s bedroom gets beautiful light during at this time of year and predicted that at some point she’d step into the pocket of light
For some unknown reason, my middle son decided he wanted to brush his teeth while holding a lantern
Let this project allow you to experiment with less than ideal lighting circumstances that are nevertheless true to your home. Don’t be afraid to push your ISO to capture the beautiful moments unfolding in a dark room. Get creative with alternative light sources such as flashlights, headlamps, cell phones, iPads, and more.
My kitchen surfaces are often pretty cluttered, much to my dismay, but you can’t really tell with this perspective
Changing perspectives allowed me to see my home in a completely new way. If I hadn’t been getting down on the floor to shoot in my kitchen, I would never have found the fall kitchen light coming down in front of the pantry.
I’m only giving this rug another couple of years of life
We won’t always have the blue patterned rug in the family room (with four kids, it’s already showing signs of wear just a few years after purchasing it). We know we’ll need to get new couches soon as the ones we currently own have seen almost ten years and four homes. My kids picked out their own bedsheets – sharks for my oldest, knights for my second oldest, constellations for my daughter. But someday they’ll probably choose plain, solid colored sheets like I do.
The clutter of the abandoned toys on the floor, my oldest son’s models cluttering the art table, the shoes with holes worn into the toe boxes lined up in the mudroom, and my older boys’ shared room with their lofted beds – these are all details that make our home what it is at this point in our lives.
We line succulents on our kitchen windowsill and the afternoon light in the spring and fall hit the kitchen wall beautifully
As I note above, this project made me appreciate my home in new ways. I found the light in different rooms and now look forward to the darker months because the light changes in my home in a really lovely way. I also have a time capsule for the year and the little details (and moments) that will remind us of all the wonderful memories we made in this home.
I love our postcard wall in the dining room, but it’s often “in the way” and chaotic for pictures; this project pushed me to find ways to embrace it and love the wall even more
What beautiful and inspiring images. Thank you for sharing your tips, Krista 🙏🏻