Which statement rings most true for you:
Hell hath no fury like a child who comes home from school to find their beloved seashell collection banished from the dining table
OR
Hell hath no fury like a parent who has endured six weeks of their children taking over the entire house for the school holidays
Summer holidays are the best, no doubt about it. Long, languid days of relaxing with no school lunches, very minimal commitments, routines and rules relaxed, lots of unhurried time to hang out with the family and again, no school lunches. Bliss, yes? Puzzles and board games replace the Christmas tree for pride of place on the living room floor, and creative projects of all sorts of description take over the dining table.
Alas, all good things must end, and so too summer holidays. With the kids back at school, February is the perfect time to reclaim the space, and Sophie has been busy working with families from both Melbourne and across the Nullarbor via our online service to do exactly that.
As tempting as it is to get a massive big garbage bag and simply sweep the remnants of the kids’ projects and clutter directly into it, a better approach for the long term, we’ve found, is to get the children involved as part of (re)establishing their routines for the new school term. Have allocated places for their belongings such as school bags, homework requirements, and of course add ‘put away your belongings’ to their daily routines to put ownership back on them. The next step is to have places clearly designated for their stuff! We use big wicker baskets and inbuilt storage in a lot of our designs purely for the reason of them being stylish, functional and super family-friendly.
Another way to reclaim your space from the kids is to support them to create their own sanctuaries within their home, which our Tween Stylin’ package does so beautifully. It’s perfect for older children who are exploring their own style leanings without inflicting/including their experiments with colour and texture on the rest of the family home. Rather, we work with tween and parent to create a style solution that’s aligned to the rest of the home, harmonious and stylish.
Some creative and logical design solutions equals family harmony, no fury required.
You’ll find a ton of gorgeous and family-friendly storage solutions on our Houzz boards. If you’d like some support creating a family space that’s for the family, not just the Monopoly board and summer seashell collection, please get in touch.
