Designing for young families: Can you create a stylish, child-friendly home?

Well here at DASH, we are lucky enough to have young families, with their thousands of plastic toys or treasures. It poses an issue for young families, who try possible to create a space that functions well for your little ones but can switch back to a grown-up space.

So can you have an insta-worthy house with kids at home?

First of all as parents, we have a tendency to prioritise the needs and happiness of our children above, well, pretty much everything. So is it possible to set out to achieve something that can store and organise all the clutter and toys, without having to hire an interior stylist, order bespoke furniture and remortgage your home?

1. Re-use and recycle by buying second hand

Whilst charity shops and second hand furniture shops will always good places to find good quality furniture at discount prices, the best place to start is online. It really cuts down the time spent trawling through shops for a particular item, provides a great deal of variety and convenience. There are lots of places to start, such as Facebook marketplace, next-door, gumtree etc. People tend to use this when they upgrade or are moving house so you can some practically new things at a fraction of what they would others cost, whilst reducing what would otherwise go to landfill. By recycling and reusing we can all be a little bit more sustainable.

2. Buy with the future in mind

It always helps to think about how long you will use this item before buying, for example if you can see the toy storage cupboard being turned into a book case it’s probably a good buy. Or what about a high chair that can be later converted into a child’s chair extending the usage? There are lots of products on the market that can be used for alternate purposes, so its worth spending that little bit more if you can use the item for longer.

3. Create more space by letting go

We can spend forever trying to find a place for things but we can all benefit from a minimalist approach what we need to keep in our lives. For example, clothes that haven’t been worn in over a year, probably won’t be worn again. If you didn’t rock out that jumper last winter what are the chances that you will wear it this coming winter? So rather than finding endless storage to keep belonging why not give them away to your local charity shop? The added benefit of this is that those who otherwise may not be able to afford clothing (or other items you may not want) can pick something up, it raises money for charity and saves waste from landfill. Winning.

Sustainability underpins minimalism  and we here at DASH are excited to see the rise in mindfulness in all areas of life.

If you’re interested in minimalism we highly recommend the Minimalist podcast by Joshua Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus (there are lots of free resources on YouTube as well as an interesting documentary on Netflix in the UK) and Mary Kwando’s KonMari lifestyle approach (again Netflix is a good place to start).