Small Changes, Big Impact: Transforming Your Home for Family Life

Small children can bring a lot of mess with them. That’s not a bad thing, it’s just a fact thing and I love it that children and messy and chaotic, that’s how they are supposed to be. I adore that the smaller the child, the more things they need too. Like a juxtaposition isn’t it?! But they also need you more when they’re little, and that’s a massive merit in my book! I don’t think I even spoke to my teenager once yesterday, we were like ships in the night, and yet it feels only 5 minutes ago that she was toddling round the living room, playing with her own overloaded toy box, the time goes so fast. That’s really sad, so when I get frustrated about the mess I do try and remind myself of that. However, when I look at the houses of friends with children the same age as my older two, without younger ones in the mix too, I do notice most people have a much more organised look to their home’s aesthetic and it might be said that it looks a lot more relaxing! So I’m not knocking it! My house is home to a tween and a teen, a toddler and a 7-year-old, naturally we have more stuff than most people! And herein lies the issue – it’s the stuff!

Teens and tweens, though they do, of course, have “stuff” too, it’s often a lot smaller. More expensive “stuff” I’ll give you, but it comes in smaller packaging and can therefore be hidden away and “not seen”! The “mess”, the chaos, the millions of “things”? Well, that ALL belongs to the little ones. I wouldn’t have it any other way, truly I wouldn’t! I love a loud house, with bustle and hustle to run alongside the toys and books, people and the noise they bring, this is all I ever wanted and exactly why I created my big family. That’s not to say however, that I’d not like to invest in some clever storage to tidy away sometimes and get a little bit of the “calm” aesthetic those with older children seem to have. So that just occasionally it could look a little bit tidier, know what I mean?!

In step drawer boxes – now listen, there’s a lot of reasons why you’re going to want to take note here but the first is that you can have a lived in home, with small children, and still tidy away at the end of the day to make your homely house look as good as you want it to!

Choosing the right furniture to maximise space has to become a bit of a speciality when you run a ship with four children on board. From cabin beds so that things can go under them, to toy boxes to hide away things when not in play. I’ve become a bit of an expert over the years, and what we all need to create that “squash and a Squeeze” release (if you’ve not read that Julia Donaldson classic then I doubt you have kids so you might not have as much mess as me) is to make clever, practical, versatile and smart furniture choices. Not to mention stylish, because we do not have to skimp on looking good in order to get the desired effect!

We all want clean lines and masses of open space, that’s a given. But we all live in the real world and “live” is the key word here. We can’t live in show homes, let’s be realistic, but we can use our heads and buy furniture with purpose!

Drawer boxes can transform wardrobes, maximising how much can be stored with really clean, and neat lines that you’d never even know were there! They can accommodate kitchen cupboards, any cupboards really and can be made to a bespoke design if you’ve got one?! Or you can buy ready made with really clever features like glass fronts so that you can immediately see what’s in them!

My kitchen is as overflowing as the rest of my happy house! We have so much plastic “tat” (not tat, necessary but my husband likes to moan) for the little ones and things don’t stack well, look good or fall easily into place. I’m forever rummaging and extra kitchen storage would be a magnificent addition. Frankly, I’d like these clever ideas placed all over my house, now wouldn’t that be neat?! Because it really doesn’t have to be a big purchase or change of furniture that makes the difference, small changes can make big impacts and transforming my home to harmoniously run with family life while still being neat and tidy sounds just about brilliant from where I’m sitting!