Hi Friends! First, thank you all SO much for the sweet comments on our maternity shoot yesterday. You all make me feel so special...especially during a time where I am feeling more like a beached whale, than a glowing preggo lady! ;) It really means a lot to me, so thank you!
I have a special treat for you all today...the talented peeps over at Houzz have written a guest post for all of us...talking about something pretty pertinent to my life right now...how to live in a family-friendly home without sacrificing style. Hope you all enjoy!
Hello everyone! My name is Becky and I'm a contributor at Houzz, a home design site focused on helping design professionals and homeowners manage the remodeling and decorating process. Thanks so much to Natasha for having me!
Beautiful home design and having kids around — often it seems like these are two things that cannot coexist. However, just because your home is filling up with backpacks, toys, diaper genies and science fair projects, it’s no reason to lose track of your own personal style. Popsicles, GoGurts and Capri Suns will have to live alongside your sofas and rugs, so it’s best to toughen up your interiors a bit. Here are five tips for going kid-friendly without losing your own sense of style.
Use durable fabrics. The wide variety of outdoor fabrics on the market today makes this easy. Ali Davin of Jute Interiors decorated this entire flat with the clients' toddlers in mind. She used durable outdoor fabrics almost everywhere throughout the space.
Go for sophisticated wallpaper. As your family grows, you'll likely be shuffling bedrooms and offices around. Thus, you should think beyond duckies when decorating a nursery (actually, you should be thinking way beyond duckies anyway!). Choose a wallpaper that you know you'll love for years, whether the room is a nursery, an office, a guest room or an older child's bedroom.
Choose neutral colors for the big, permanent pieces. Jennifer Jones of Niche interiors has wisely chosen a beautiful dragonfly paper in a neutral color palette and added color via more portable accessories. This is always a wise move in a room that will need to grow and change with your child.
Have a place for everything, and teach your kids to put everything in its place. Interior designer Rachel Reider flanked the fireplace in this playroom with shelves for books that include baskets for toys. Establish a strict "one in, one out" policy for toys and keep a donation container handy for those that are on the way out.
Use carpet tiles in kids' spaces. If one is stained or otherwise damaged, it's a cinch to tear out that one tile square and replace it rather than having to buy a whole new area rug.
Have any great tips for going kid-friendly without sacrificing your design aesthetic? I hope you'll share them below!
Find more kid-friendly inspiration for your home from San Francisco interior designers and more design professionals at Houzz.
Wow...so many great tips and things that I hope to instil in our home, once the little guy gets here! A special thanks to Becky for her post today!
xo natasha
Wow...so many great tips and things that I hope to instil in our home, once the little guy gets here! A special thanks to Becky for her post today!
xo natasha
I agrreee great post and god bless you belly please vist my blog www.muahhwhosthatchic.com
ReplyDeleteGreat tips! There are so many ways to have a kid-friendly home but keep it looking chic + mature.
ReplyDeleteAnd seriously, your maternity shoot was my favorite ever.
Such great suggestions. I definitely don't want my house looking like a daycare... but I don't want Noah to not have any toys or a place to play either.
ReplyDeleteWe chose gray for the walls of her bedroom so it could grow with her as well as not look like a baby room whenever we put our house on the market.
I am already storing all her toys in baskets and love it!
I am totally crushing on that dragonfly wallpaper, so amaaaaaaazing!!! And I couldn't agree more, kids shouldn't mean you can't have style!!!
ReplyDeleteGreat tips! I have a little one coming in July and definitely want to keep a majority of the house looking "adult".
ReplyDeleteLove the chevron rug and the deep purple walls!! Great tips!
ReplyDeleteI would also add to invest in Scotchguard for those pieces of furniture you already have :)Carpet tiles for kid spaces are ingenious!
ReplyDeleteThis is so incredibly helpful (and reassuring). Matt and I love our space, we've decorated with lots of goodies and art we found on our travels and have managed to pretty much keep it this way. Another good tip is if you have bookshelves in your living room (we have a wall of bookshelves and I of course had pretty and breakable things all over the shelves), is to change out the breakable things - on the lower shelves for some of Mila's toys...especially the wooden ones, which are like decor anyway. And Mila just grabs them when she wants to play with them. :)
ReplyDeleteThe carpet tiles is a genius idea!!
ReplyDeleteThere was a time when we thought we would have to super-glue all our decorations and accessories, but thankfully that phase passed. Our house still has style and our toddler now knows his limits. : )
ReplyDeleteLovely....stylish and cozy all at the same time.
ReplyDeletethese are all great ideas! Again, I LOVED your maternity pics!!
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ReplyDeleteAmazing post, great tips, loved it!
ReplyDeleteHi Natasha -- I was so happy to find your blog. I'm a fellow SoCal to Tahoe transplant, though we're on the north end in Truckee.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree that you don't need to sacrifice style to make things family friendly. Though we don't have kids, we've tried to make everything in our house up here super guest-friendly (including their kids), as well as generally mountain and dirt resistant! A far cry from how we decorated our place in LA. :-)
xoxo,
tanja
Natasha - what a good idea! Also there are so many beautiful nursery designs out there! If you would like ideas or inspiration I'm happy to assist... it's something I've been thinking about a bit lately!
ReplyDeletexoAmy
What caught my attention is your beautiful and well cleaned fireplace. It looks like you've been contacting the Long Island chimney cleaning on a regular basis because it looks so safe for your kids too.
ReplyDeleteLOVE the first one! Great colors!
ReplyDelete