Yes, I know. This is a kid’s room. But double the bed and scale up the desk and I wouldn’t mind at all if it was my room – though I might also replace the tiny little side table with this one so I could actually set a few books down. I’m sure The Beard would be just thrilled to serenade me to sleep on the ukulele. Right?
Image via
Let’s get serious for a minute, shall we? Thanks to the CPSC, I just found out that one child dies every two weeks due to furniture tipping over. One every two weeks! I love furniture, but ugh. And apparently that number is on the rise, which means something has got to give. Sometimes, when furniture keels over, the worst that happens is that you lose some books and objets d’art. But when you have kids, and they’re the ones doing the tipping, you can lose something so much more important.
Scary stuff, no? So if you have kids, take a few minutes to check your furniture and appliances to make sure that they’re secure and stable.
- Furniture should be stable on its own. For added security, anchor chests, dressers, TV stands, bookcases and entertainment units to the floor or attach them to a wall with an anti-tipping straps.
- Place TVs on a sturdy, low-rise base. Avoid flimsy shelves. Always check weight limits when buying a new TV stand, and don’t use dressers as TV stands.
- Push the TV as far back on its stand as possible. To avoid temptation, push other interesting objects like DVD players and lamps as far back on furniture as possible, too.
- Place electrical cords out of a child’s reach and teach kids not to play with them. Avoid cluttering up outlets or using power strips as much as possible since these can make it easier to pull multiple items off of shelves.
- Keep remote controls and other attractive items off TV stands so kids won’t be tempted to grab for them and risk knocking the TV over.
- Make sure free-standing ranges and stoves are installed with anti-tip brackets.
- Install drawer stops so kids can’t pull them out more than two-thirds of the way, and choose furniture with wide, flat bases instead of legs.
Can the parents or caregivers out there suggest any I may have forgotten? Pretty please?
I have a good friend who moved into her house (which is a lot like mine in terms of size and shape except for a few additions and swapped doorways) way before I did but has way more bare walls and surfaces not being used to display stuff. My impression was always that her decor choices were entirely intentional. While I can’t seem to see a bare wall or buffet top without immediately thinking of something that would just be perfect there, I also like the clean, uncluttered look that many people prefer. As it turns out, however, my friend’s decor style actually isn’t her style!
She admitted to me one day that there are all kinds of things she wants to do to her house to make it her own. But she doesn’t actually want to do any of them until she can do all of them because she doesn’t like that ‘in transition’ feeling. She’s much more interested in achieving what I call a finished-finished look, i.e., a decor scheme that is put in place and then remains unaltered until it’s time for a complete overhaul. I, on the other hand, am one of those people who is always shopping her own house for things that would fit better in other rooms. I don’t know quite how I want everything to look, but I know it when I see it, enabling me to take advantage of things like $1 signs at the thrift shop.
My friend has a concrete idea for her home. My dream house is always evolving, which is why I’m still making inspiration boards for my daughter’s room when her room is, in the eyes of everyone we know, done for now. Finished-finished, in other words.
But if my living room and bedroom (currently non-existant, but whatevs) and my kitchen will never be finished-finished, why should my daughter’s room be considered done? I like an evolving house – besides the fact that little touches keep things fresh, I will probably never have to do a complete room overhaul. Something, I hasten to add, I doubt I’ll ever be able to afford. But that’s just my way of keeping a home. As outlined above, it’s certainly not the only way, which is why I want to hear about YOUR way. Do you wait until you can whip up a whole perfect room or do you decorate and then redecorate in bits and pieces?
(Images via: Little Crown Interiors, Zachary Dickory Dock, Sproutstyle, Sugabee Lane, Modern Pea Pod, Cookie Dough Designs, and Sweet Retreat Kids)
I have to say that I am all at once inspired and mortified by this amazing girls’ room put together by Christina of Full House – inspired because oh em gee she did everything for less than $250 and mortified because I’d started to feel like my daughter’s room was coming together just a little bit and good lord it certainly is not in comparison.
I cry that I was not born with the gene that lets some people do amazing things on a tiny budget. But to all of you I say if you’ve got it, flaunt it! You can see how Christina did it here at Little Green Notebook!
Aren’t these just yummy? I love baby furniture that doesn’t look like babyish, and these beautiful changing tables from The New Traditionalists definitely fit the bill. Their elegant changing table designs are crafted to work in the nursery and then (with the help of removable changing trays) become part of a kid’s room or even move into mama and papa’s bedroom or the dining room.
Did I mention you can choose custom finishes and color combos? My fave is the first shown, in the walnut with ‘hot lips’ lacquer, but all of The New Traditionalist changing tables (along with the cribs and grownup furniture) are worth a look!
I’m not really sure how owls became a thing, but here I sit on a couch decorated with owl throw pillows. Maybe I’m getting a little zany in my old age – please look away from my sock monkey kitchen chair pillows – but I can’t help but love animal inspired decor. Once upon a time that would have meant a leopard print chair, but now it’s more likely to mean a framed quilt patch featuring stylized songbirds or a pint glass with an elephant on it.
So how cute is all this?
How awesome is this room from lakbdesign?
Love their design philosophy:
every child needs a special place at home, a place where they can learn to be alone, can have “away” space from the rest of the family, but children also need comfortable gathering spaces, where they can play board games or video games with friends, or where siblings come together to create a lego village. lakbdesign children’s spaces. easy.fun.perfect.done.
It’s the little details that really make this room for me – the elephant wallpaper… the disco ball in the corner… the zither (which is both pretty and fun).
When I was growing up, money was extra tight and my immediate family had no real eye for design, so my room was what I could make of it, which wasn’t much. Sure, there are those amazing seven year olds who manage to out-decorate the pros, but I was not one of them. That’s part of why I’ve been spending lots of time on my daughter’s room – I want her to have fond, happy memories of her childhood space.
So do like me and DIY it:
The wonderful and lovely Tiffany wrote with this query:
Um, Miss NTB? Do you take requests? If so, may I request a home entry on incorporating kids toy storage into your living room? I mean like, serious storage. Not just one or two cute baskets for decor. We have the world’s smallest living room, which is now also the world’s worst decorated (thanks, kid-proofing). I have been TRYING to come up with something somewhat stylish and utilitarian, but I end up with dumpy and cluttered. I WOULD LOVE YOU FOR A BAZILLION YEARS.
A bazillion years? I like the sound of that. Of course, before I could effectively answer Tiffany’s question I needed to know just how small the world’s smallest living room actually is. The answer? About 14′x12′, which I think is about the size of my own, so I can definitely sympathize with the very real fact that a tiny space plus childproofing plus toys can equal a major bummer of a room. The good news is that you don’t need to be all LOOKIT MAH TOYBOX!
Who else wants a Hare mat? Because I can’t be the only one! The Hare mat, designed by Ed Annink for Droog, makes use of the fact that Gerd Arntz‘s amazing statistic pictograms are free of copyright and re-purposes the image of the hare and of the hippo.
Oddly, those two animals have appeared together before here at Manolo for the Home, which makes me wonder what their relationship really is.
Can we just admit that most glider rockers are unbearably hokey? Nursery furniture has come so far in terms of design – right now I’m loving the Nurseryworks American Collection and the shop fawn&forest – that it seems a shame to insert a glider rocker that looks like something grandma bought way back in the day. And not your hip grandma, either! The good news is that things are changing, and glider rockers are starting to catch up to cribs and dressers and mobiles.
Here are two faves: the Empire Rocker from Nurseryworks and the Monte Luca Glider. What I like best about them is that they’ll look amazing somewhere in your house when the baby isn’t a baby anymore, which I think should be the goal of almost all nursery furniture.