4 Tips for a Kid-Friendly Custom Home Design
December 20, 2018Having the chance to design your own custom home allows you to get a home that is built to your specifications and needs. This can be particularly useful when you have children or are planning to have children. With a custom home, you can build family-friendly and kid-friendly elements into the design. Here are some tips for a kid-friendly custom home design:
1. Consider Your Daily Life and Activities
When starting to plan out what you need in a custom home, it’s important to consider your daily life and activities in each room and in the home overall. It may be tempting to go for an Architectural Digest-style beautiful home design. However, when you have an active family with children, you need something that is functional as well.
Your home design and decor will need to stand up to indoor games, accidental messes, and more. Keeping your daily life in mind will help you and your custom home designer come up with a design that will look great and serve your family’s needs. This is why taking time to consider these things is one of the top tips for a kid-friendly custom home design.
2. Keep Things Simple and Comfortable
Keeping up with your kids and everything else can get hectic and chaotic at times. Complex rooms with even more complicated decor often end up full of clutter and a pain to clean and organize. Keep things simple instead. A large, open area makes it easy to keep an eye on things while you are getting other things done.
It also decreases the number of narrow hallways and sharp corners your kids have to navigate and you have to deal with. Low-maintenance and comfortable design and decor will help make your life a little less hectic.
3. Choose Tough Materials and Finishes
Another one of the tips for a kid-friendly custom home design is to choose tough materials and finishes. Family life can take a toll on your home and daily activities can be rough on your furniture, walls, floors, and more. Flooring that holds up to heavy use and is easy to clean will be a lifesaver in the long run.
If you need softer flooring for younger children, you can always start with something easy to clean like tile, wood, laminate, or linoleum and put a darker-toned area rug with a stain-protective finish over it. This will give your young one some cushion while they are crawling and learning to walk, but also gives you the flexibility of easily transitioning to a more durable floor later that is also easy to keep clean.
Also, choose a wipeable paint or a washable flat paint to help keep your walls and baseboards clean. This allows you to clean dirt, smudges, crayon, and anything else off the walls with a damp sponge without having to worry about damaging the paint. Another consideration is your furniture. Invest in high-quality, heavy, and solid furniture to make sure it can stand up to energetic children and potential rough play. Look for furniture with rounded corners as this can help reduce the potential for injuries.
4. Create Strategic Storage
When you have to consider an entire family, you have to get strategic about storage if you want to avoid a lot of clutter. A mudroom can help contain some of the clutter that often results after entering the house. Dedicated and accessible storage areas for toys, games, sports equipment, and more can help reduce clutter and keep things in easy reach when you need them. Plenty of storage options are also kid’s bedroom design ideas.
You can also make space for your own accessories. A plate rail or display shelf sits on the wall close to the ceiling and creates the perfect place to show off fragile knick-knacks and accessories. High shelves and cabinets in a room or in a closet can give you more storage space for things that you want to keep out of your children’s reach. There are plenty of ways to incorporate more storage into your home design – you just need to figure out how much you need and which options work best for your family.
Life is so much easier when your home’s design meets your needs. With these tips for a kid-friendly custom home design, you can create a custom home that is built to your specifications, looks great, and helps contain the chaos on a hectic day. If you’re ready to bring your dream custom home to life, contact Custom Home Group at 717-284-4090!