Our HGTV child friendly home!

My husband and I recently did an episode on HGTV! You can find the link to the episode here HGTV “Destined for a Renovation in Destin” . It was quite the renovation, though mainly cosmetic. The biggest change for us was finally spending some money to properly decorating our home regardless of having small children!

When Lee and I got married we combined all of our college friendly furniture, it was pretty. He came with shades of blue, I came with shades of earth tones. The collaboration took some creativity! Through the years we accumulated a few pieces we both agreed upon but our home was still missing its decorative edge.

With two boys I was very fearful to buy anything that was not grey or a very dark color because they are messy! Our home just wasn’t me.

Every time I would walk through a furniture store or flipped open a home design catalogue I would spend a little too long eyeing the white/ off white couch that I envisioned so perfectly in my home. I also wanted a huge dinning room table that I knew was not practical for the messy fingers that came with dinner time.

Lee was surely tired of hearing “when the kids get bigger I want that!”

So finally we were presented with the opportunity to buy and design a home to be exactly how we wanted it!

I had been carrying around a beautiful chandelier and I was finally able to put it up in my official dining room. We went to a local furniture store called Tuskers Home Store and when it was time to pick out the new couch for my living room I went for the off white (with scotch guard). Even our dining room table has off white cloth seats!

Am I crazy?! Maybe. But I realized something, I was never at home in my own home.  It was not our style. We had built a home around our children when instead we should have been teaching our children how to behave and respect our home.  Why sacrifice the beauty of home design in order to have children? Eventually they have to learn not to touch breakables and to wash their hands when they are dirty..

Here I am almost 10 months after filming, sitting on my still white couch, looking around wondering why I didn’t do this sooner. Our house feels like a home, our home!

I know so many of my friends are welcoming their first child and I just want to urge you all to teach your kids from the beginning to take care of their home.  It allows you to keep a beautiful home and it also teaches your children great manners. You won’t be so terrified when bringing them to someone else’s house, worried about them breaking something you can’t replace.  I have breakables on bottom shelves and so far so good!