How can you remodel your home to be child-friendly? Not an easy question to answer, especially if you’re a new parent. If you live with kids, always consider them before finalizing your choices. We recommend that you involve the thoughts of your children in the early stages of planning your home remodel.
First, you need to consider where they will be sleeping. Is their current bedroom child-friendly enough? Secondly, check their play area. Is it safe and spacious enough for them to play? Here is what you should do to ensure that your home has almost everything that your kids will love: plan the remodeling properly. Consider some of these areas that you should focus on when you remodel your home!
1. Design a safe play area.
As a parent, you always ensure your home has a dedicated play area for your kids. Ideally, this area should be spacious enough to accommodate all the toys. The play area should be safe for kids as well. The materials and toys your kids will use in this room should be easy to access. Your kids shouldn’t have to climb on things to reach for the toys. The walls and surface should be easy to clean and not slippery causing falls. We recommend using washable paint, easy-to-clean fabrics, plastic utensils, and any material easy for you to wipe off spillages.
Remember that this area doesn’t have to be limited to the interior of your home. In 2017, more than 40% of homeowners used their outdoor space for entertaining. Given this, it’s a common space to remodel. When you tackle this area, consider how certain elements can be dangerous to kids and try to work in fun and soft playspaces.
2. Kitchen
Next up, your kitchen. Is it child-friendly? Your kitchen is where your kids rush to when they need something to bite on. The issue with most kitchens is that we design them without considering kids. This is no surprise since, According to Architectural Digest, kitchen upgrades offer around a 67% ROI, so that’s often at the forefront of our minds.
For instance, all the cabinets in most kitchens are too high, forcing kids to climb on chairs to retrieve snacks. Due to this oversight, our kitchens are prone to falling accidents that involve kids. You can avoid this problem by ensuring that you have at least one lower cabinet to make it easy for your children to open and retrieve healthy snacks. You might also have an under-the-counter fridge that will be accessible to them.
Your kids will be spilling water, milk, and juice. At times, expect an occasional crush of glasses. So when you choose a floor material, make sure you select a floor material that will be durable. The kitchen floor material for your kitchen surface should be safe, easy to clean, and shouldn’t take too long to dry. You should consider an easy-to-clean kitchen surface such as Quartz. It is a durable surface that won’t be hard to clean. What we like most about it is that it can endure spillages.
3. Bathroom
The other room that should be child-friendly is your bathroom. It should be safe for kids and easy to clean at the same time. When you remodel your home, you can expand it to accommodate your kids. For example, if your kids are younger, they likely require a tub to bathe in. You can always replace it with a shower when they grow older. Your bathroom should have low bars for your kids to hang their towels or retrieve them whenever they want.
Across all of these areas, you should consider design on top of structural elements. For example, According to This Old House, when picking a paint color, you should start by picking three colors from existing objects in your house. This will allow the new space to be cohesive with the existing ones. However, for kids, it’s important to forgo what you may find aesthetic for colorful areas that encourage creativity! This process will be a fine balance, but it’s all worth it knowing you’ve developed a space where you and your family can thrive together!
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