Five top tips for designing a home with your children in mind

Having the ability to design and build your own home is a luxury many people do not get to experience, but the beauty of it is that it allows you to craft your home to your individual taste and needs. Creating your own home is a considerable investment, so it is important that you take the time to think about the design of your future home.

Whether you are designing your current family home, or plan to grow your family for the future, you should be sure to consider children when you are planning how and where your house will be. Here are some of the main considerations and tips you should make when designing a home with children in mind.

Layout
One of the first things you will think about when it comes to designing your own home is the layout. There are so many things that you must consider when creating a house that is child-friendly. For example, you might like the look of open shelving so that you can store items conveniently while also looking stylish. But if you have children in your home, then this is a not a good idea.

Similarly, you should take some time to consider the layout and size of your kitchen. Many people dream of a modern and spacious kitchen, but you should be sure to make it child-friendly by designing somewhere for you and your children to eat. This can be a great way to make meal times easier by having everyone sat down in one place for a family dinner. Breakfast bars and islands are particularly popular with families as they allow extra seating space and a place to serve and prepare food.

The Garden
When you think about designing your own home, you probably focus on the interior, but the exterior is just as important. Having a garden is essential to a family home and it can be the place that many childhood memories are made.

You should consider including a playground in your garden for your children, as this can provide them with a great space in the outdoors to play. There are many contemporary playground designs available to make your garden just as stylish as the inside of your home. However, there are a few things you should consider when designing a playground for your children in the garden, and one of the main considerations is equipment.

Wooden playground equipment for schools, parks and gardens can be found at leading UK supplier PlayEquip. Their wooden playground equipment offers beautiful bespoke playground designs that require low maintenance due to the long-lasting materials used. By investing in equipment from PlayEquip, you can be rest assured that your children are safe while they play.

Bathrooms and Bedrooms Placement
When considering the layout of your home and designing where bathrooms and bedrooms will be placed, you should keep in mind what best suits your entire family, including your children. For example, you wouldn’t want to put a child’s bedroom too close to the stairs in case there was an accident in the night time, but you would want to make sure that a nursery was near the master bedroom to accommodate night feeds.

Similarly, you should think about where the bathrooms are placed in your home so that your children don’t have far to go in the night time. Even if your children are small, they will soon start to grow, so you should think about how their needs will change as they get older. They may want to have sleepovers with friends that they make at school, so you should consider getting a bunk bed so that their friends have somewhere to stay overnight without too much disruption to the rest of the house.

Open Plan Floor
Open plan floor homes are a very popular form of home layout as they combine kitchen, dining, and living spaces. An open plan floor layout is a great way to create an open and bright environment where you can keep an eye on what your children are doing while in the next room. Being able to hear and see what your children are doing in another room while you make dinner from the kitchen is a great contribution to your family home and will make your life a lot easier!

Location
You should be sure to consider where you are going to locate your house before you start to design and build it. By keeping your children in mind, you should consider where the local schools are and how good their OFSTED results are.

Designing your own home while keeping your children in mind is not an easy task, but by following these simple tips you can make sure that your home suits yours and your children’s needs.