Futureproofing your home

Most of the clients we’ve worked with over the last few months have children and are thinking about creating more space to accommodate their growing families.

When you’re thinking about renovating your home it’s easy to fall into the trap of only thinking about how you live nowadays, but what we try to do with our clients is think of how they might live in the future. This is particularly important when thinking about children’s spaces within the home.

Here are some tips for how you can futureproof your home.

Create a child’s bedroom, not just a nursery

It’s really tempting when you’re in nesting mode to go all out on decorating a nursery for a new baby. However, unless you’re planning on redecorating your child’s bedroom every couple of years it’s worth thinking about what you think your child will want when they’re 3-4 years old and beyond rather than just thinking about them as a baby.

Of course, you’ll need specific furniture, like a cot, changing table and maybe a nursing chair, when they’re really small. But when you’re thinking about the walls, flooring, lighting and storage try to think outside the baby box.

And when it comes to finishing touches we’ve gone for things that can be updated easily like Star Wars decals and framed photos of the Octonauts, so that when those phases have passed you can change things without spending lots of time and money.

Create flexible child friendly spaces, not just a playroom

Many of our clients have talked to us about playrooms for their children and what we’ve often found is that those who have them end up with storage rooms for toys, but the rooms aren’t often used to play in. This seems like a waste of precious space to us.

Although we had the space to play with in our newly renovated home we’ve decided to not create a playroom for Arthur and Edith (who are 5 and 18 months). Instead, we’ve created clever ways for the kids to play in the main living spaces while being able to hide their toys away at the end of the day. And we’ve recently converted the basement which has a ‘snug’ which we believe will eventually be the kids’ den when they’re older. But for now, we’ll be able to use it as our evening hideaway to go and watch some football, or eventually a film or two!

Create flexible sleeping spaces, not just more bedrooms

Having space for friends and family to come and stay is really important to us, especially since we’ve relocated from London to Leeds and our families are based on North Wales and Hertfordshire. We’re lucky enough to have a dedicated guest bedroom but when parents, siblings and partners and their children come to stay we needed more flexible ways of creating sleeping spaces.

Sofabeds have become so much better over the years and are now aesthetically pleasing as well as practical. In fact, we’ve just bought one for the snug in the basement which is just as comfy to sit on as it is to sleep on, and looks good to boot! Other ideas we’ve discussed with clients is to buy beds for the kids that have a pull-out day bed underneath. That means two children can sleep in the same bedroom quite comfortably while visitors can take one of the children’s bedrooms. It all sounds very simple, but it can take away lots of the stress of having people to visit.

If you are thinking about how to renovate your home and need some help or inspiration, do get in touch with us at https://www.freshstartliving.co.uk/contact. And don't forget to follow us via Instagram, Facebook and our upcoming blogs.