I had a few people ask for more pictures of our prayer room after sharing a photo online the other day. We just moved in to our home and have lots of dreams for the final version of this room (built-ins, new paint, knocking out the closet and converting to a devotional corner with a kneeler…). I’m certainly no interior designer, but for now I’m just so grateful and content we have space for this peaceful room we’ve put together.
Having a dedicated, quiet prayer space has already made a huge difference in our family prayer life. Even if it’s just a corner of a room, some space on a wall, an entry nook, or a small nightstand-sized altar table, I highly recommend making a little dedicated prayer space in your home. The kids love it as much as I do.
(We recently moved our family of 5 from our California two bedroom condo to our first house [in Georgia] and suffice it to say I feel like I’m swimming in space over here.)
So here are a few of the things I love about the room.
Spiritual reading everywhere. And more superficial, but awesome things – that leather rocker recliner that my awesome grandpa gave us for free and the world’s softest blanket. We have electronic candles spread around book shelves for now and I love the way it makes the room look at night! We usually keep that as our only light during evening prayer. Plan to switch to real candles when my memory gets better and I don’t have to worry about burning down the whole house.
The altar table – we converted a mini bar furniture piece to serve as our altar table here. Here are some simple ideas and tips for building a home altar. Right now we’ve got our green linens still on there for ordinary time and a saints theme since we just got our board book Cloud of Witnesses in the mail!
In the drawer beneath the altar table we have our other altar linens for the different liturgical seasons plus some holy water containers and rosaries (though I hope to have a pretty rosary hanger to put on the wall eventually). And beneath the drawer we keep our big family Bible (wedding gift from the priest who presided over our nuptial Mass) and our book of blessings.
The whole room has an icon theme – with small icons all over the shelves and icon prints hanging on the walls. I’ve always loved the detail and prayer that goes into writing icons. Truly amazing.
We have a holy water font by the light switch which I’ll refill mostly on feast days since it dries up so fast I could never keep up with it.
The kids’ wooden saint dolls (which I painted, so pardon my amateur work) and cathedral + a low bookshelf with religious children’s books and a Mass kit (soon my shelf there will hopefully be full of First Faith Treasury books – woohoo!) – we notice our kids do much better during prayer time when their hands are quietly occupied, though sometimes they just sit and join in…and yes, we are totally normal, so other times they wildly protest or make noise the whole time with gentle correction and reminders about how we are to act in the prayer room.
Ideas for family prayer – we keep this printable on one of the bookshelves. It’s a super easy reference to have on hand, especially if you have little ones and need short but meaningful family prayer ideas to pull from each morning or night.
Our baptism photos – I mentioned this in a previous post. Probably one of my favorite parts of the room! I framed individual pictures of everyone in our family on our baptism days (with parents & godparents) and then labeled the back of the frames with our baptism dates. On our baptism day, our picture frame goes on the altar table and we celebrate with a special prayer (like renewing our baptismal vows) and the baptized person gets to pick a special treat.
We have a small desk and additional bookshelf in another corner of the room (not pictured – it’s too messy right now) which is a pretty peaceful place to work. And a speaker in the room playing Gregorian chant rounds out the whole ambience.
