When you have a young family, maintaining a beautifully decorated home can be a challenge. Between air borne toys, sticky fingers, and flying food, it is tempting to sacrifice style in an effort to minimize costly damage. However, a few well made design decisions can increase the durability of your decor without sacrificing beauty. Here are seven tips to help you create a beautifully decorated home that will survive your children.
1.) Accessorize with Second Hand Pieces
Whilst you have children tearing through your house on a regular basis, it is not the time to invest in expensive, one of a kind, beautiful and breakable accessories. Stop by your local thrift store and pick up inexpensive accessories like vases, candlesticks, and lamps which are beautiful as is or can be easily adapted to your design through a quick coat of paint. They look good, and if they get broken there is little harm done to your pocket book.
2.) Buy Furniture with White Slip Covers
It may sound counter intuitive but white slip covers are a great option when you have kids. Chocolaty finger prints? A misused marker? Just make sure the fabric can be bleached and the stains can all be washed away. Be sure to check the fabric labels. Some stores like Ikea sell furniture with white slip covers but they instruct you not to wash them with bleach. The opposite of this advice is to choose darker fabrics that will disguise the stains even if you can’t wash them away.
3.) Use patterned Fabric and Rugs
A busily patterned rug or fabric can hide all manner of sins, or at least diminish their appearance since the stains just fade into the pattern. Even if the pattern has a white background you have a better chance of maintaining the beauty of your decor if the pattern is busy.
4.) Choose carpet tiles over area rugs
Let’s face it. Shit happens. Far too literally if you are the parent of very young children. It’s important to have a soft surface for your children to scamper around on but area rugs are not always ideal (if you have potty trained a child, I’m sure you agree). Carpet tiles are an excellent option as you can remove the desecrated piece of carpet and hose it down. If worse comes to worse you can chuck it and replace it with a new one (always order a few extra). Flor.com has a variety of gorgeous options.
image via www.flor.com
5.) Opt for good quality furniture in well used spaces
If you happen to have the luxury of both a formal and informal living room you are likely more inclined to buy expensive furniture for your formal, less frequently used living room. While it is appropriate to have beautiful furnishings in your entertaining space it is better to invest money in higher quality furnishings for the room you use the most. If a couch or chair is truly well made it should hold up to all the abuse your children can dole out. Spend a few pennies on something beautiful and comfortable for your formal space and invest the big bucks on a gorgeous, good quality couch that you will use and abuse on a daily basis. It seems like an odd concept at first look but will save you money in the long term. An excellent place to find durable furnishings that will last you a life time is Norwalk Furniture.
6.) Wipe Easy Walls
Choose your paint finish wisely. In your children’s bedrooms and play areas it is best to choose a satin finish as it is washable. Avoid flat finishes in highly used and messy areas as they do not clean well. If you want to avoid sheen and are willing to spend the extra money, try out Benjamin Moore’s Aura Bath and Kitchen Paint in a matte finish (be it a kitchen or not, it washes well). As an additional counter offense against smudged, dirty walls, stock up on magic erasers, or the equivalent.
7.) Choose Quartz
When choosing a surface material for your kitchen opt for quartz. Design magazines make marble look like the be all, end all of surfacing options but it just isn’t practical for a family home. Unless you plan on banning your children from the kitchen and are yourself an impeccably clean cook your marble will end up a stained mess. If you are still hankering for marble there are plenty of marble-look quartz surfaces to choose from. Another bonus of quartz is that unlike granite, marble, and slate, you don’t have to seal it on a regular basis. There is nothing more family friendly than low maintenance.
Picture from Silestone USA
There you have it! Keep these seven tips in mind as you decorate your home and something beautifully durable is within your grasp (and your child’s!). Need help? Hire a family oriented decorator at www.thebestnestdecor.ca
