How To Make Your Home Child-Friendly

Child-friendly features encourage safety, fun, and comfort. Designing a child-friendly home is beneficial for your own children and their friends, as well as your friends with kids. Everyone enjoys a home that is comfortable and welcoming, including children. Make your home child-friendly using a few of the following tips.

Safety

As your children grow older, you can scale down some of your home safety measures. However, when toddlers and preschoolers are still running around, safety is priority number one. Use outlet covers to protect little fingers from curiosity. A found paperclip in the hands of a toddler quickly becomes a potential shocking hazard.

Check the height of sharp corners on the countertops and tables, and add a little padding if necessary. Your local home improvement store should have exactly what you need. Wooden stairs are lovely but prove a hazard to little ones still fresh at navigating stairs. Consider a runner or adhesive stair treads until they get a bit older. Keep alcohol, cleaning supplies, and medicines locked away and out of reach from little ones. For that matter, keep the alcohol locked away from teenagers too.

Comfort

The comforts of home—we know what we love, but what about the kids? Kids need soft places to land and to hang out with friends. Now isn’t the time for formal living rooms and stiff furniture. Choose something they can run and plop onto without sending mom and dad into a panic because of the price tag. Overstuffed couches and chairs in sturdy, easy-to-wash materials work best, like vinyl that you can simply wipe off or polyester slipcovers you can throw in the wash.

Carpet or rugs on the floor are softer on bare feet and little bottoms as they play games or watch movies. There’s no need to give up style. There are a lot of cool rugs to bring out the beauty of a wood floor, and carpet has come a long way, offering plenty of new innovations and styles.

Fun

Home should always be fun, and with kids around, it basically always is. By keeping the kids’ needs and everyone’s comfort in mind, you can make your home everyone’s favorite place. And when you’ve already taken care of the safety concerns, fun easily follows. Fort building on a rainy day with the couch cushions won’t make mom blink an eye if she knows the cushions will hold up.

Spills are no big deal when you anticipate spills—and the occasional water balloon fight—before you choose flooring materials. Come on, you were young once, too! Keep games and plenty of snacks around, and keep kids in mind when deciding how to use areas like the basement. Rec rooms are essential as teenagers begin to invade your home on weekends.

Making your home child-friendly doesn’t require a renovation. It only requires a desire for a fun, safe, and comfortable home that will feature in all your most beautiful memories.

image credit: making your home child-friendly by envato.com