I concede that virtually all kids have a way of taking polished out of the home design equation. As soon as they begin to walk, it's bye bye to knickknacks and other non essentials pieces adorning the house. In come the baby gates, plug covers, and cabinet locks; all of which I am fine with displaying. I am even cool with the scattering of toys.
What I'm not happy with is the other design changes, the ones I never had to make with my first 3 children. These "extra" changes are what leaves my house looking like a couple of toddlers designed it. Since each design style needs a name, I'm dubbing mine "modern chic meets demolition duo".
Allow me to give you a little tour:
Entering through the front door you can head right to the dining room which looks fairly unscathed.
Next stop is the kitchen where you'll cabinet locks, warmer drawer locks, a fridge lock, high hinges on doors, a bread box turned backwards, and note 4 counter height stools over turned when not in use to deter climbing. You'll also see an awkwardly positioned baby gate keeping the dishwasher from being opened by this toddler duo. What you may not notice immediately is that the drawers are all emptied of their contents. Instead, these items are in baskets either above the fridge or on the counter, because drawer locks were no match for these two. And if you look closely you'll notice we've added screws to all of floor vent covers since pulling them up and throwing things down their narrow openings was far too big a temptation.
My family room bookshelves are now completely de-booked. The fireplace is no longer adorned by it's beautiful grate, instead it features another baby gate with cardboard at the top. Why the cardboard? Because the 2 inch gap at top apparently scream throw your stuff inside me. After fishing toys out for several weeks, I resorted to cardboard. Looks fab ehh?
My office has to be the most dysfunctional work space known to mommy blogger. I had to turn all of my file cabinet desk components around to face the walls so the twins would stay out of them. Yes, that means I can't open them either. You'll also notice my office chair is flipped over, again this keeps the climbers down on the ground. Yes, that's beyond annoying especially now that it's been flipped so many times that the one wheel keeps flying off when moved.
I could continue dragging you room by room, but I think you probably get the current design style already. The house is clearly having a safety before style, prevention before convenience moment. Martha Stewart & Rachel Ray won't be asking to cook in my dysfunctional kitchen anytime soon, Real Simple isn't likely to feature our fireplace cover as an easy design solution, and my flipped over stools and chairs aren't likely to grace the cover of Elle Decor or land me a spot on Design Star.
However, I think the twins have taught me a lot about home decorating and I think it's something everyone can learn from in some way. Essentially, I've had to completely refine my style. Initially I felt I was setting aside my love for keeping our home "beautiful". But that's not it, I've just had to temporarily rethink what I find beautiful about our home.
I find that right now, beautifully decorated equates to rooms no one can get easily hurt exploring. This may seem like a cheesy mom thing to say to some of you, but I'm going with it regardless. "In" is having a room designed to work for the moment, "out" is a space that can't change with your family. Mind you, I'm looking forward to returning to a more elegant functional design in the future, but for now I'm going to be happy that I am at least instyle by my own definition.
Of course, if Candice Olson wants to pop by to with her crew to take on the ultimate decorating challenge (my twins), I'm certainly not going to stop her.