Creating a modern, child-friendly home

When my husband and I bought our first home in 2021, the excitement I felt was overwhelming. We’d been renting in excess of 15 years so buying our first home was, and still is a really big deal.

One of the main benefits of having rented many, many different properties is that over all those years, quickly came to realise what does and doesn’t work in a home. With this in mind, when we first stepped into our new home, I knew exactly how I wanted to design it.

Our last rented home was lovely but very dated. In addition, we had so much ‘stuff’. I tend to think this is because we moved so often, mainly down to landlords deciding to sell up. It’s because we never really stayed anywhere long enough to make the places we lived in feel like home. As a result, we just collected stuff.

Too many toys, too much storage for all of the toys that rarely got played with. Far too many kitchen accessories and cake tins. Too much clutter! That was my main focus when we were handed the keys to our home. No clutter!

I wanted simple, clutter-free, fresh, modern but cosy living. My husband and I had a lot of work on our hands. We had to completely gut the place! That meant knocking down a pantry, stripping all of the wallpaper from all of the rooms, re-wiring the whole place, ripping the entire kitchen out and re-plastering it and so much more!

Thankfully, my husband is a dab hand at DIY as that is literally his job! This definitely made things a lot easier for us. My husband, quite often accompanied by his son, would do all the labour and hard work while I was left to the designing!

When it came to our children’s bedroom, I wanted to make it extra special for them. My husband and I agreed to give our daughters the bigger bedroom. That means they have a lot of room. We wanted to involve our girls so they decided on everything. From the colour paint to their beds and other furniture.

They also chose some rather gorgeous beanbags from Big Bertha Original. This gorgeous classic kids’ beanbag chair is super soft and just £79.99.

I absolutely love the bedroom our girls designed. They really thought everything through. From the folding desks and chairs for their homework that fit neatly behind their wardrobes to their lighting and the fluffy floor rugs!

I can’t wait to have our bathroom done this year as that will mean the whole house will have our own stamp on it.