Make Your Home Family-Friendly and Child-Proof

Making your home family-friendly basically means making it kid-friendly. While you cannot simply choose any design for your family-friendly home, there are some interesting decorating tips you most likely didn’t know about. There is nothing more important than creating a nest, where your kids will be safe. What this means is: no sharp corners, no fragile items in your kids’ reach, no slippery surfaces and an obligatory rug below your staircase. Here are some decorating ideas for creating a family-friendly home.

Think Multi-Use

Immediately, the moment you bring your newborn baby home, you’re already going to be bringing some new, extra stuff. Even before your beloved toddler so much as proverbially sets foot into its new home, most parents have likely already prepared a room and baby paraphernalia for their new son or daughter. Okay, so new items, yes; but this puts a lot of strain not only on your budget, but your space, in general and isn’t likely to cause less clutter anytime soon. This is why you need to consider getting furniture that does double duty, such as side tables with drawers, dressers as changing tables, benches as storage trunks and the like. You should think about all the items at hand, such as diapers, baby clothes, toys and other baby-related stuff.

Lock away the Dangerous Items

Now, I’m not necessarily talking about firearms here (these definitely count), but every other item that isn’t used on a daily basis, such as vacuum cleaners, pins, needles, magnets and the like should be safely locked away for obvious reasons. Think about child-proofing your tool box and put it out of children’s reach – toddlers are curious creatures and as soon as they’re able to walk or even crawl they will get the desire to explore, which is potentially harmful.

Open Floor Plans are Great!

Now, not every part of making your home family-friendly is child-proofing. There is more to designing a home with your loved ones in mind – you need to make it both comfortable and educate your children to bond with the rest of you. Coming up with an open floor plan is an extremely good idea – this way, everyone will get a chance to mingle. Now, although the open floor plans are basically three rooms (the kitchen, the living room and the dining room) connected into one large common area, you should still provide a feeling of separation here. This is best done by painting the walls differently (although it is recommended that you choose different shades of the same color, rather than a variety of them, in order for your home not to look too goofy) and opting for different types of furniture and homeware online for each room.

Stain-Proof Your Home

Your old family home, from back when you were a kid, is probably still decorated by what you considered art, back when you were about 4. Well, expect nothing less from your kids – in addition to all the regular stains that the devil-may-care youngsters tend to accidentally make, they will love drawing on that brand new sofa, especially if it’s in bright colors. In order to nip this in the bud, opt for fabrics that prevent stains that will stick forever. Think linen fabrics, leather, ultrasuede and performance velvet here.

Making your home family-friendly means both child-proofing, as well as making everyone feel comfortable and keeping the stains away from your furniture. Naturally, nothing is more important than making sure your kids are healthy and safe, but why not keep your furniture clean and fresh while you’re at it? If you are expecting, start preparing your new home design right away, it is never too early!