Childproof/Husbandproof/Farmproof

Dogs, kids and dinosaurs somehow manage to photobomb 90% of my pictures

You hear childproof and your mind wanders to plastic outlet plugs, breakables being put away and any other possible things that may harm your precious child. Yes, I once worried about those things too and still do to a certain extent (I don’t let my kids jam their fingers in electrical sockets - don’t worry). No, now I find ways to protect my home from my children. How many times will I buy a light colored (ok white) carpet before realizing they last 6 months around here?! As much as I want to put this all on my kids, the fact is we have a messy, crazy, full lifestyle. My kids have enough toys to fill a toy store, my husband works construction, and we have a mini farm and a dirt driveway. Our life just is not conducive to white rugs. But we still can have a pretty home - IF you know how to do it!

Have kids? 18 animals? A husband who sweats a lot and works with his hands all day? This one is for you.

One of the many white carpets we have trashed.

First of all - lower your expectations. No but really, just drop those down a notch or 7. Ahhh there you go. Now you can have a beautiful home that also sometimes has a 3 foot paw patrol tower front and center in your living room.

Now that we’ve cleared that up - let’s talk about what we can do about the rest.

Pictured - my children playing in a mud puddle with enough hair brushed off my German Shepherd mix to make blankets for an entire town. This is what a typical day looks like for us.

Baskets

A lot of baskets or really any storage options you look at and think “ok that’s pretty cute, I can live with it”. Now, we have a 1400 square foot farmhouse so storage is TIGHT. I check out amazon for cheap storage solutions like the ones pictured below to hold a lot of the toys in our living room (you can get them here ). Other great options are Marshall’s or Homegoods, Target and my favorite for rope baskets - Target dollar section! I collect them whenever I see a good sale so when I need to corral toys or crafts, I have a place to put them that is organized and looks good too! Having a basket for each kind of toy is especially helpful because each grouping of toys has a “home” and therefore isn’t typically hanging out all over your house. Baskets can be pricy so I only listed places you can get some great deals and like I said, buy them when you see them on sale or in the dollar section so you’re not paying full price when you need them!

Amazon toy baskets for bulk storage of toys and movies

Shelving

I put that ish on everything. Getting a solid shelving unit was one of the best choices I made for my downstairs. I don’t have a play room and our living room isn’t all that big. It holds everything plus I can decorate it with lots of plants! All the storage baskets I was raving about above fit right on it and keep everything clean and organized. We recently added open shelving and more storage baskets to both the kids rooms as well (tutorial so you can make them yourself coming up soon!) How many open shelves and storage baskets can one house have? The limit does not exist (mean girls reference - holla). If your house is like mine and lacks horizontal space, go vertical. Even if your house is huge and has plenty of space, adding a bit of vertical dimension keeps it interesting and is appealing to the eye.

Shelving unit used to hold the boys’ stuff as well at the life size paw patrol lookout tower

Flooring

Our floors are 200 year old wide pine planks so those are pretty rugged and I don’t worry so much about scratching because they’re already pretty lived in - just the way I like them. We do however have throw rugs. If you’re someone who can have beautiful light rugs with kids and animals, more power to you, I am in awe of you. After running through two living room rugs in 2 years and 2 upstairs rugs in 2 years, I buy a bit differently.

I have an indoor/outdoor rug in my living room. Sounds pretty cringeworthy right? Wrong. It’s actually really pretty! Not only is it pretty, spills wipe right up, it cleans easy and in worse case scenario I can take it outside and power wash it. The truth is, I love it and it works for us. Best of all, I can get it in white and light grey and not worry about having to trash it every 6-12 months.

I also do not buy super expensive rugs at this point in my life. Do I want one from the Magnolia collection? Absolutely. Right now, I want to have pizza picnics on the living room floor and have my dogs come in and snuggle with us more though. Once these babies and animals are out of the house, I’ll have plenty of time for expensive, gorgeous rugs and you best believe I’ll take full advantage.

Another investment I made was an upholstery cleaner. I use it for rugs, couches, or whatever gets funky around here. I got it on amazon but you can find them anywhere!

Indoor/Outdoor rug handling kids, husbands and animals like a champ. Yes, that’s a cheetah wearing a raptor mask. My family has dubbed him cheetahraptor. No, I am not joking.

Entryway

Get yourself some sort of entryway. Even if you don’t have a dedicated room for it, carve out a few feet where you can fit a boot tray and some hooks for coats. Just having that space will create a place for shoes, coats, hats, etc to go so they aren’t all over your home. On top of that, it encourages everyone to take their stuff off at the door. We are currently in the process of renovating our mudroom but are lucky enough to have a foyer that works just as well! Like I said, you do not need much to designate this space, any size can work. Plus it helps takes some pressure off that light rug I keep talking about. We were fortunate and were able to fit in a kids craft table, bench, coat racks and shoe area. Is it the absolute prettiest use of space? No, but it will work for us in these young years. One last thing I want to point out - I didn’t attempt to hide away our coloring supplies or abundance of shoes, hats, gloves and coats in these pictures or even our vacuum. It is completely OK to live in your house, it does not need to be show quality to be beautiful. You live there, make it work for you.

I hope some of you can use the tips above. They seem simple but work really well and have made my life abundantly easier as well as my home more visually appealing!

Now time for me to show off these kids and animals I keep talking about!