The interLiving project was a three-year participatory design project under the EU's Disappearing Computer Initiative. We established long-term relationships with six multi-household families in France and Sweden and engaged in a wide variety of participatory design activities with over 70 family members. Our goal was to explore a design space, not driven by a particular technology but rather to discover their real needs and desires and to design technology that meets those needs. In contrast to the current trend toward larger and larger social networks, we found that what they really wanted was much more subtle and varied access to a small number of people who they know well: their 'intimate social network'. Rather than addressing emails or dialing phones, they wanted dedicated, 'always on' communication channels with their loved ones. We designed a series of 'communication appliances' that enabled them share explicit information, such as handwritten notes, photos and even video, as well as implicit information, such as presence and activity. Our goal was to make the technology as simple as possible, while leaving it open to reinterpretation and exploration. We successfully tested several communication appliances across households, over periods of weeks or months and are now collaborating with a startup in France, creating communication appliances for the elderly and their families to better support 'aging in place'.