Wednesday, June 27, 2018

Decorating trends with young children

I swear our house was nice when we bought it. Nothing fancy, but it was a pretty nice place and we were proud of our first home. In the past decade we have made many upgrades, but we have also had two children and they have had some decorating ideas of their own. I thought I would give you a tour of some of the fabulous additions that they have brought to our decor.

One of the biggest trends we have embraced have been natural wall embellishments. Notice the fabulous chips in the paint of our living room wall, accented by Sharpie marker and a hint of crayon. Notice the red paint in the shade of 'zombie appocalypse'. This was a decorating trend for about 5 minutes when the previous owners lived here but we have been hesitant to let it go because new paint would be colored on 5 minutes later and also we're just too tired to even think of moving all our shit out of the way to repaint.



In the dining room we have featured a lovely scratch that spans the entire back wall where the chairs have been dragged repeatedly across the wall. We also showcase a random hole where a child has crashed into the wall at high speeds, probably on a plasma car.



Our real pride and joy is our dining room table, where people leave a gorgeous assortment of random shit for me to spend mind boggling amounts of time putting away on a daily basis. The beauty of it is that it's always changing. One day you might find a cutlass and a party hat, the next some Halloween bug antenna and an old kleenex box that has been converted into some sort of 'craft'. Also, no dining room table is complete without a wet balled up swim towel, which really ties the room together.



Here is a feature we are constantly adding on to. Stickers go with everything, from the dusty baseboards leading up the stairs to every piece of furniture in our house. Any time the girls get a pack of stickers they are diligent in sticking every single one on a window, wall or piece of wooden furniture. There is no doubting their dedication.



Along with stickers, you just can't go wrong with things scotched taped to every surface. If it can be scotch taped to the wall, it has.



While our bathroom may or may not boast globs of toothpaste in the sink and splattered on the mirror, we always feature a broken toilet paper dispenser. What makes this feature so versatile is that now the children can rip open the entire package of toilet paper and partially use every roll so we can have an assortment of different sized rolls peppered throughout the bathroom.



The bathroom also lacks any towel racks. There are some remaining holes in the wall to remind us of where they were before the children swung from them, but without them they are free to throw their towels on the floor every time they use one and can often manage to get 15 on the floor after washing their hands before my husband and I notice.



Directly under our bathroom we have several prominent water stains on the ceiling from all of the times the children have flooded the bathroom by stopping the sink and walking away with it running or trying to make ocean waves in our bathtub.



Our house always hosts an assortment of flies and other bugs. We managed this by having both the front and back screen doors ripped out by constant slamming and overuse. The empty hinges add a nice accent to our otherwise understated front door.



Our living room follows not only the latest loot bag sticker trends, but also accent pieces that change daily. Today we have various bits of rice on and under the coffee table, a piece of trash with a dirty sock on top and what room would be complete without a random plastic IKEA plate left on the floor for no reason.



This week we have the added bonus of play dough which was a recent birthday gift. Notice how every single tub and accessory have been dumped on the floor and the tiny bits of dried play dough surrounding it. It's an added bonus that they actually put the lids back on and haven't ground any bits into the floor yet for me to spend hours of fun scrubbing out. Give it time.



Here we have a custom hole on our staircase where the banister has been ripped out of the wall. I really enjoy this feature because it has removed the need to nag the children every 10 seconds to stop swinging from this particular banister before they rip it out of the wall. I do still get the opportunity to nag about the one on the lower half of the stairs which still remains attached (although just barely).



In the kitchen we have an impressive collection of clean dishes that nobody has had time to put away yet. Soon they will be replaced with dirty dishes, once the children are home for summer vacation and demanding snacks every few seconds. Notice the 12 pounds of cherries in our fridge, which I purchased because every time I went to eat some they would all be gone. This guarantees that my children will no longer like cherries and I will become sick from trying to eat all 12 pounds of them myself.



Here we have the latest in top of the fridge and pantry looks with a random assortment of contraband items that the children have been fighting over or are itching to break and tantrum inducing candy that other parents feel the need to send home with them from every birthday party they go to immediately after eating cake with frosting. This collection piles up until it all comes crashing down, then items are redistributed as needed.



Some of my favorites in furniture include mysterious upholstery punctures with gaping stuffing and cracked lamps that have been knocked over multiple times by yanking on the cords for reasons unknown. I am always amazed every time I pick up a lamp and it still works.



The piece de resistance in our home has definitely become the children's rooms themselves. While once considered 'the nursery' and done in a minimalist and careful style, the children have adopted a style more aptly named 'piles of shit everywhere' and 'I couldn't find it so I dumped out my entire dresser and all my shelves'. A very popular choice these days in children's decor when mothers realize their kids should be picking up after themselves already but don't have the energy to fully nag it through.



I hope you have enjoyed the tour of our home and look forward to hearing your own decorating tips. Also feel free to pipe up about your children who have never destroyed anything and were ironing their own socks by age 2. My friends and I can never get enough of sanctimonious comments of perfect parenting and are looking forward to hearing from you!