8 Ways to Make Your Living Room Kid-Friendly

Sunshine Drapery sliding glass doors window treatment

You don’t have to sacrifice your adult style to accommodate your kids in your living room. However, you can make a few changes that will make your space comfortable, safe and durable.

Incorporate Round Tables

Nothing is worse than a child falling and hitting their head on the edges or corners of a rectangular or square table. No one wants to have to rush their children to the emergency room for stitches, much less; you don’t want to see your kids get hurt at all. When you shop for accent tables for your living room, look for round tables without corners that can hurt. If you don’t want all your tables in the living room to be the same shape, you can choose a round or oval coffee table and keep your square end tables. The coffee table is the one where kids most often hurt themselves because it is in the middle of the room where horseplay is more likely to happen.

Furniture with Storage

“I have too much storage room for my kids stuff,” said no parent ever. They accumulate stuff from birthdays, holidays and can really scatter it around your living room in a short amount of time. Think tables and benches with storage for a solution to this. You can find end tables with drawers, benches that open up with lots of storage inside and coffee tables that contain shelves for organizing all the stuff. You can store some of your items in these cubbyholes and let your kids put their craft items or books that they use daily in them as well. This will help to keep your living room tidy as well, because your children won’t need to put their items away in their room and can clean up quickly at the end of the day.

Use Area Rugs

If you have beautiful wood floors, you may like the appearance of them without covering them up. The addition of rugs allows your kids to have a nice soft seat on the floor. Area rugs are a great way to manage this, keep your expensive flooring from getting scratches through play and the best part is that all the spills can be professionally cleaned so the rugs look like new. You have an unlimited choice of sizes, colors and styles to choose from to complement your décor.

Choose Comfortable Furniture

Everyone, whether an adult, teenager or small child, loves comfortable furniture to sit or lounge on. If you avoid hard furniture pieces with sharp lines that will be comfortable for people of all sizes, you have won this battle. You don’t have to sacrifice your style in any way, just make certain that you sit on sofas and chairs to see how they feel before you buy them. In addition, children love soft poufs, beanbags and ottomans that are lower to the floor for watching television or gaming in the living room. In some cases when you include these, your kids may choose them instead of sitting on the furniture.

Secure Your Bookshelves

One of the most important ideas for your kid’s safety in the living room is to secure your bookshelves to the wall if they are not built in. Other pieces of furniture should also be secured to the wall, such as tall dressers and televisions. Kids often climb up anything they can use for a leg up to reach items, which can allow a media unit or bookshelf on them and cause serious injuries. It’s worth the small amount of time and effort to secure these items because there is always a chance that an accident could happen, even if your kids are not climbers, they may have friends over that are.

Seek Durable Fabrics

With children in a room, there will inevitable be spills and dirt of some sort. You can’t always prevent these things, but you can be proactive if you choose durable upholstery fabrics. Engineered fabrics, such as indoor-outdoor types that were originally used for outdoor furniture are very durable. These are so stylish that no one will guess they are actually for outdoor furniture as they are just as supple as indoor fabrics. This type of upholstery resists spills and fading and is much better at wear and tear, which can be a great help with children on them. One exception to the rule is leather, which can stand up to spills, but not to cracking or tears. You may even re-upholster your existing furniture with these types of fabrics.

Enlist Slipcovers

Rather than shop for durable upholstery fabrics, you can use slipcovers on your furniture that you already own. They are now available in a large collection of colors and patterns and can be either tight form fitted or loosely fitted. When a slipcover gets spills or dirt on it, you simply remove them and throw them in the wash.

Minimize Clutter

If you can minimize your clutter in the living room, you can keep your lively kids from either getting hurt on them, or from breaking them. Make sure your picture frames, decorative items and vases are placed far enough back on shelves or tables when your kids can’t reach them. Otherwise, your precious valuables may not survive an energetic game in the house. Making your living room kid-friendly can also make life more pleasant in your home. If you use some of these safeguards, you’ll likely spend less time correcting your children and trying to keep them corralled and away from things that may hurt them.