katiefleck's Unofficial Guide to Surviving 3 or more children under the age of 6
Volume 2: Children Proofing and Decorating Your Home
read Volume 1: The Diaper Bag
It is not impossible to have a nicely decorated home that is also children friendly. Unless you have 5 or more children under the age of 5. In that case you should pack up all your belongings, pour concrete floors, and use plastic furniture for the next twenty years with plans to burn the house down at that point. Just kidding! Sort of...
Today I'm going beyond the basics of "put plastic covers on electrical sockets" and "how to mix-n-match pillows" (and pillows aren't great of an idea anyway, more later). I expect that you know to put the cleaning supplies out of the children's reach and how to paint a wall. And if you don't, then you should stop reading and call Child Social Services and an interior designer right now.
Children Proofing: The idea here is to make the house children friendly but not to the point that you feel like you live in a maximum security prison.
- Put away the breakables- This can be a touchy subject because many parents start out with the belief that a child should grow up learning how to be careful around Great Great Grandma's antique china and Mom & Dad's precious Aztec Indian artifacts found on their exotic honeymoon in Mexico. However I will be blunt. Do you ever want to have the remote possibility of showering without 3 or more children standing in the bathroom with you? Then please pack away the fancy breakable stuff for a few years. Even placed on a high shelf probably isn't safe enough because every toy has the remarkable ability to become an airplane. This step will save both you and your child the heartache of Aunt Zelda's porcelain poodle figurine being broken during an innocent game of Lego Thunderstorm.
- Put away everything you don't want your children playing with or eating-Little kids see everything as either a toy or something to eat. You might think your children won't want to play with your 100+ CD collection when they have every toy sold in Toys-R-Us but they will. There are not many more tedious tasks out there than matching up 100+ fingerprinted CDs to cracked jewel cases and torn song lyric books. And just wait until the toddler feeds kitty litter to the baby. Which is oddly non-toxic but call your pediatrician and watch for signs of constipation. I also recommend keeping all writing utensils under lock and key. Or stock up on WD-40 (takes crayon off everything), finger nail polish remover (for non-washable markers), and Mr. Clean Magic Erasers (for pen and anything else).
- Gates- Another sensitive item. Who wants to live in cages? But if you find yourself constantly corralling the children back into one area of the house or yelling at them to stay out of a certain room because of Mommy's scrapbooking supplies or Daddy's home office, invest in a few gates for your own sanity. You should already have one at the top or bottom of all stairs anyway. Besides the two for the stairs, I also have a gate for my kitchen and another for the front room which serves as my scrapbooking area. You're on your own keeping the little monkeys from climbing over the gates though.
Decorating: Two words, SIMPLE and WASHABLE. As in not dry clean only or calling for some special cleaning solution that can only be made with purple Chinese male frog hair. You want everything to be as easily cleaned and non-breakable as possible.
- Furniture- Sofa and chairs should be washable slipcovers or leather. Slipcovers are wonderful because when they get really messy, throw them in the washer and dryer and voila, clean! You totally skip steam cleaning or spot shotting. Patterned fabrics also hide stains better than solid colors.
Buy sturdy wood furniture (because you know they will climb on it even though you've said one million and six times not to) and get rid of that glass & metal coffee table.
Also no fabric in the kitchen/dining room! (a washable tablecloth is permitted, even better a vinyl/flannel backed picnic type one) Everyday I curse our fabric covered kitchen chairs. *#&@^!)% - Walls- Obviously you have them and they are going to get fingerprinted and dinged. White is actually okay because every color is going to show fingerprints. (There's no "Kids' Fingerprints" shade of paint, I asked.) However I don't recommend dark colors because when the walls get dinged (and they will), the white drywall is going to stick out like a sore thumb until you can spackle and repaint. Light shades of any color work well, just keep either an extra pint of paint for touch-ups or the paint formula.
Wallpaper is tricky because first it's a pain to put up and then nearly impossible to fix if torn or badly stained. I'm also not a big fan of chalkboard paint. Sure they may understand that they can only write on that wall at home but what about Cousin Fred's dark green painted hunting lodge? Save that paint for when they are school-aged and no longer psycho 2 year olds coloring themselves with black Sharpies. - Accessories- Ah... Remember those pre-kid days when you and your spouse would shop all afternoon for the perfect complimenting lamp and picture frame to set on an end table? Yeah, me neither...
Following the SIMPLE theme, the minimalist look is great here. You have to be some sort of masochist to decorate Victorian style with 3 or more kids under 6 years old in the house. We literally had nothing on our coffee & end tables for years until six months ago when I desperately dug out a reading lamp to set on one table after the overhead light bulb burnt out in the family room and I couldn't take the 5 children out through the blizzard snow storm to buy a replacement. The lamp is still there although it gets knocked over on a daily basis.
Pillows are great accents but only for those with children who don't think they belong on the floor and not the sofa. And there's always the obvious problem of pillow fights.
Books and magazines are iffy. Definitely put away the first addition Dickens because Junior will want to read it while you are doing something frivolous like using the potty by yourself and his arm will get bumped as he turns a page and it'll rip.
Picture frames, hang on a wall at least, not set someplace where they can be carried off by a young child (use your imagination for what happens next). Hanging art is actually one of the few decorating ideas that I recommend. My kids completely ignore it in favor of hiding under the rugs. Just in case, use heavy duty hangers.
Most decorating shows recommend candles as accessories but never let the kids know that they can be lit or you will be playing "Happy Birthday-Let's Blow out the Candles" for mind-numbing hours until the candle is gone. Or worse, you'll find out if your smoke alarm really does work.
I'm probably the exception but live plants are actually a good accessory in my house. I should clarify, pothos plants do well in this house. Kyle did knock over a container once but in 7 years to have a little green in the house, I'd have to say it's worth it. Keep above kid level so they aren't digging in the dirt. - Floors- I swear I'm not getting kickbacks from the company but I love Pergo. Looks like hard wood but without the maintenance or possible splinters. Washes up with water. And nothing stains Pergo, even dried oil based paint (man, I freaked when Kyle made that mess but true to their word, it came off). I'd Pergo the walls if I could (see I love it so much, I made it a verb).
I personally have a love/hate relationship with carpet. There's something to be said about stretching out with the kids on the carpeted floor to play Candy Land. But then someone pukes or walks in with muddy shoes and I remember why I hate carpet. If you must have carpet, plan to have it cleaned every year and replace it all after the kids get past the pukey/muddy shoes stage (please don't tell me they don't, a girl needs her fantasies). I don't have any real experience with other flooring options, explore at your own risk. - Window Treatments- I mention these because some people might have nosy neighbors or not be exhibitionists like their children. Mini-blinds seem to be the way to go, being cheap, easy to install and replace, and they match everything. Just do that thing with the cords so the kids don't hang themselves. Valances are great but full drama stage floor length draperies are just begging for trouble.
There you have it, my unofficial guide to making your house a happy place for all. I'd post pictures of my own home as examples but first I'd need to replace the carpet, put the pillows back on the sofa, repaint the walls, straighten the art work, wash the slipcovers, water the plants, mop the Pergo...
All Content at katiefleck.com is Copyright 2003-2008 by Katie Fleck, All Rights Reserved.
