apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

You know the post from the other day about the stylists' tricks? That's how my house always looks--towels "artfully" thrown on the floor, shoes strewn about, beauty supplies, half-eaten snacks and guitar picks on every surface. You wonder how I do this without a professional stylist? One word: teenagers!

we have a 10 month old and manage to keep the house looking pretty. there are buckets & bins on our shelves that hold toys, but you'd never know it :)

kate
http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/sf/room-for-color-2009/kates-lovely-light-blue-living-room-room-for-color-west-8-097713

I don't have kids, but it helps having an almost two year old nephew who somehow knows what he isn't allowed to touch. Such a smart baby - last time we had him over, he only attacked the plastic coasters and well coasters for the most part are dirt cheap and easy to clean.

I would love to see AT do some house tours of people who have big families and still manage to live small. Lots of times I see small "family" homes, but there's only one child. The difference between 1 and say, 3 or 4, is HUGE. In our family we have 4 kids and live in 1200 square feet. We manage to do it comfortably by adopting the Japanese practice of unrolling our futons every evening (parents only). But as our kids grow older (currently 13, 9, and 2yo twins), I know that I will have to continue to adjust the way we live and "fit" in our space. I love seeing solutions that are radical space savers for families but are still beautiful and stylish. More please!!

Agree with Solop above. There is a big difference between "a couple with a baby" and a family. And a big difference between a family with a maid and one without :)

One of our major wake-up calls came when our daughter started walking. Nothing can be kept under 4 feet off the ground - so that wall of books and record collection in these pics would be strewn all over the house.

Love your post idea, solop!

While I think Solop makes a good point, I do take issue with Sugarbakers translation. A couple with a baby is a family, too.

I laughed when I saw this because I remember how arrogant we were when the little guy was born. There were not going to be primary colored things strewn about, we were not going to change our decor and we were certainly not going to move books or cds or anything like that out of reach, our son was just going to have to learn not to touch things that aren't his. HA!

When your child is a baby, this kind of thinking is easy, and I'm sure that lessons of ownership and respect are possible as children get older, but there is. no. reasoning. with a 2 year old. If he can reach it and you're on the telephone, well, it's all fair game for throwing and chewing. As for the primary colored toys strewn about, well... we have a tendency to make exceptions for the little guy because as a parent you just want your kids happy, and if it's bright yellow tonka trucks that clash with the rug and the sofa, well, you just kinda get used to it. It's not so bad.

my toddler would have torn these rooms apart! anything within reach is fair game for a toddler! we have had to clear the books/decorations out of the lower shelves of our expedits- because my 2 year old would have everything on the floor, instead we put bins in them for his toys. we cant have anything on the dining table that would tempt him to climb on top and throw. no more decorations on side tables, no more floor lamps, no more floor plants, or plants on any low surface!

i know some people think you shouldnt change your space to fit a toddler that they need to learn to behave and respect your home (those people usually havent been to the toddler stage yet) but like jendavid said there is no reasoning with a 2 year old boy who is curious and into everything! especially when i'm a sahm, so we are home quite a bit. of course he needs to learn the meaning of no, dont touch, etc but in the mean time i'm not cleaning up dirt from floor plants several times a day!

What I think is most interesting about Solop's idea is that through the first part of the 20th century, big families almost always lived in houses the size of his/hers now. I was just thinking this morning, during a bout of stomach flu, how horrible it would be to go back to a house with only one bathroom (my teens and I have 1.5 in our 1200sf house). But people survived that, and worse, for centuries. We really are spoiled these days!

I'm not saying that a couple with a baby is not a family. Clearly they are (I am part of a couple with a toddler. I consider us a family!). But what I am saying is that decorating magazines and blogs always feature an awesome "family" house of a beautiful young couple with a baby under 1 who proudly proclaim that their gorgeous living style hasn't changed.

What I am (and I think Solop was saying) is that people with older children (and 2 children) often live much differently and their decor has to reflect that kind of living. I'd love for those people to be featured more often with titles like "how to accessorize your house even though you have a toddler".

Where is the house tour for the 3rd pic on the top row?
The link does not seem to match up?

Our 1 year old son definitely is forcing design modifications on a daily basis. He bangs his hands against the plasma tv, chews on tables, reaches for everything under 4 feet... it's a struggle to find safe places to put things.

I *thought* I resolved the DVD case chewing by putting them in a sleek ikea aluminum box with rounded edges that our son could not open. He somehow managed to cut himself on a hidden sharp edge (never found it!).

Toys are everywhere. We put them away, and the next morning they're all back.

In the end, living isn't about having a showcase home... it's about having a home the family likes and is comfortable. Toys are a fact of life. If you have a black, grey, and white living room like us, the colors "pop". I obviously like to think positively :-)

@Sugarbakers and Solop: you should check out this link - a house tour at a designer mom's house with a toddler and a little baby
http://bkids.typepad.com/knockknock/2009/10/it.html

My husband and I live in a 890 SF house in seattle with our 2 and 4-year-old kids. I think that living in a small house, it is both unfair and impractical to keep all of the kids' things in their room in order to preserve our "style" throughout the rest of the house. Although, I am adamantly opposed to letting our house look like a preschool classroom, our kids are an integral part of our lives, so why wouldn't we want to design our house in a way that includes them in each room?

While most of their things are in their (shared) room, we have a kids table and chairs, art supplies, and some wood boxes with puzzles, in our living room. In the kitchen we have a small wood play kitchen and food, and dare I say, a potty chair in the bathroom.

The key for us has been purchasing toys that are both fun and attractive. We opt for mostly wooden toys, and we try not to buy too many things that are big and bulky. We also let the kids play with some of the non-toy things that are sitting around. For example, we have an old typewriter sitting on a shelf that the kids love to play with.

I will admit that there are times that I feel like pulling my hair out trying to keep everything in perfect order, then I realize that my kids are far more important to me than any of my "stuff."

Hey there... I thought I might step on some toes but I certainly didn't mean to imply that a 1-child family isn't tough to design around. Just that once you bring a few more kids into the mix, at different ages and different genders, that things get more complicated. Our 13 year old and 9 year old are a girl and boy... and so can't share a room. Our twins are boys but we feel we can't subject the 9 year old to sharing his small space with two others while the 13 year old is free and clear. And how to design a common area that doesn't feel like it's devoted to toys toys toys (the older kids already feel like our peaceful family life has been hijacked).

Just would love to see some inspiration homes to see how other families more/older children into small spaces. I would say that 9 times out of 10, "family homes" feature 1-child homes---not that there's anything wrong with that! :)

Point well taken, Solop. It is hard with older mixed gender kids.

As for a big family living with one bathroom--didn't they wash hair about once a week back then? I remember my grammy had her hair done weekly at the beauty salon. No need for hair dryers, straighteners, curling irons, or 15 bottles of product at home. Not to mention, short showers that free up the bathroom. BUT 7 whole days between hair washes?--ewww!

I think it's a cop-out to say that it's impossible to have a neat/decorated home with kids. The whole "you have not met a toddler" if you think you can keep things on low shelves... Well, um, it's simply not true. As the baby whisperer said "begin as you intend to go on." If you have no non-baby items within reach when they are young, when do you introduce them back in, when they are 12? Not realistic. We had a "not for babies" phrase that we used from day one. And we made sure that A) nothing valuable was at risk, B) nothing was dangerous, and C) there was something in each area for her to play with. In the DR, for instance, among the vases and bowls was a basket of items for her. She knew this by 9 months. And, now at 2.10 she knows very well the "not for babies" and we can say it anytime anywhere and she will stop in her tracks. This is not parenting for the sake of home decor, it's just parenting. The world has lots of things within a toddlers reach - you can't babyproof it all, so teach your kid what is appropriate and what is not. Begin as you intend to live.

We have just had our eighth kid - and when we moved into our two bedroom home with two kids it felt like a good fit... the fit gets tighter but we love our small house. It has all that we need. Our kids have a huge room for all their books. toys, stuff and their stuff pretty much stays there... no roaming toys round the house. Otherwise our older kids (oldest is twelve) share a room and they have loft beds... and the younger chaps all sleep together on double futons.

I think folk have this idea that the more kids you have the more chaos but actually we have found that the more we have the more thoughtful we have become about what we need and bring into our home. We work hard to keep our house feeling relaxed without all the entropy.

Our lounge is pretty much a reading room - no toy zone! Our kitchen is huge and they do there arts and crafts there too... I guess when you have a heap of kids their stuff belongs to all of them rather than everyone having their own individual art stuff we have a dresser for all the craft goodies. And it is the same for toys... we buy very few toys (and then we limit to only certain brands, like lego's and duplos) - there just isn't space!!! And toys belong to everyone... they each have their own special treasures and passions but mostly toys and books are communal.

I am all for begin as you intend to live. Kids are a welcome part of our home but they don't run amok in it!!!

Wouldn't it be nice if AT showed family homes where there are more than two children? I'd love to see someone style a home on here in which maybe they incorporate four or more children.

as I write this there is a large group of playmobil people all over the living room floor, with 2 castles, a boat and a bunch of dragons fighting... there's stuff everywhere and I don't care. He's happy, he's playing, he's learning. This is his home too- why make it all about the adults?

I don't think style has to end when you have kids, but it may have to change. Personally, I think my style got better post-kids, because things got less "perfect" and rigid.

I have a 14-year-old, a 5-year-old, and an incontinent old dog (i.e., no rugs), so my apartment isn't at all what I'd have if I lived alone, but it works for us:

http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/chicago/house-tours/house-tour-lisa-alexs-craftsman-loft-montreal-067509

#3 link
http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/chicago/house-tours/house-tour-jacob-laurie-do-it-themselves-in-west-ridge--067022