When you walk into most homes, you can tell if there are kids living there or not. Despite this, not all homes where kids are present are actually places that are necessarily child-friendly. But with a few tweaks and adjustments, almost any home can be turned into a place where children will be safe and happy.
To help you see how this can be done in your own home, here are three tips for designing a child-friendly home.
Optimize Sight Lines
As the parent in a home, it can be hard to balance getting everything you need done while also supervising your children. To make this easier, you might want to consider creating an open floor plan within your home.
Ideally, Hadley Mendelsohn, a contributor to House Beautiful, shares that your open floor plan home would have the kitchen, dining room, family room, and maybe even a game room with great sight lines into each other. By knocking down walls where necessary so you can see into each of these rooms from any other space in the area, you’ll be able to always have an eye on your kids even when you’re in the kitchen, cleaning the house, or spending time in the living room.
Help Kids Be Safe
Your number one priority as a parent is to keep your kids safe. However, some family homes have hazards that you may not have even recognized until your kid gets hurt.
To avoid this, you should try to look at your home from the perspective of your kids to see what could potentially injure them. In many homes, Katie Holdefehr, a contributor to Real Simple, shares that items need to be brought lower so that kids don’t have to climb on anything in order to reach them. Additionally, if you have anything that could be dangerous in the hands of your kids, like sharp objects or firearms that you’re storing, you’ll want to make sure that these items are up or away from your child’s access.
Keep Your Storage Hidden
Having kids at home means you also have a lot of stuff at home. And while you might be fine with your kids only having a toy or two that you can easily put away at the end of the day, more often than not, your family likely has enough toys to fill an entire room in your home.
If this is the case, Gillian Lazanik, a contributor to Houzz.com, recommends that you do away with open storage and instead opt for storage that keeps whatever’s inside hidden from view. By using boxes and bins rather than shelves, you can easily throw all your kids stuff in them without worrying about things being put away neatly.
If you’re wanting to design your home so it’s more child-friendly, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you achieve this goal.