Stylish Swaps: How To Childproof Your Home Without Compromising Your Taste
Everything changes when you have kids, but just because you need to adapt doesn’t mean you also need to sacrifice your aesthetic. As you childproof your home, then, it’s important to remember that safety can be stylish. With the right new pieces and basic tools, you can ensure your home still looks like adults live there – though perhaps adults with an awful lot of toys.
Round Out The Edges
One of the most common safety concerns among young parents is that their children will fall and hurt themselves on the corner of the coffee table; many have even heard stories of toddlers smashing through glass tables and suffering serious injuries. As such, safety-minded parents sometimes overcompensate by cushioning everything in unsightly babyproofing foam, but rest assured, there’s no need to go to such extremes.
Rather than padding all the edges in your home, swap out your square coffee table for a wood table with rounded edges. Yes, it’s still possible your child will fall and hit their head on it, but rest assured, your little one is more resilient than they seem. As long as there are no sharp corners, they will be fine.
Don’t Play With Fire
It’s one thing to take a conservative approach with some elements of babyproofing, such as the coffee table hack featured above, but sometimes you have to take a hard line when it comes to childproofing décor. This is particularly the case with any fire in your home, from candles to fireplaces. With candles, ditch the real ones and replace them with battery-operated flameless candles. Today, flameless candles come in realistic styles and may even smell like normal candles, allowing you to enjoy the gentle light without the risk to your little one.
As for your fireplace, there are few good ways to use it when your child is small, unless it’s gated off – and at that point, it can be hard to use and enjoy. During those early years, then, consider cleaning out and transforming your fireplace, treating it as a toy chest, a cozy hideaway, or blocking it off with a blackboard or whiteboard where your child can doodle. You can always convert it back to a traditional fireplace in a few years when your child understands how to interact with it safely.
Subtle Style Hacks
Finally, avoid some of the most glaring – and unsightly – childproofing elements with their more subtle alternatives, such as no-show cabinet locks and sliding outlet covers. No-show cabinet locks sit behind the doors, and you can open them with a magnet, making them much more appealing than the locks that are placed on the outside. They also won’t ruin the exterior of your cabinets, meaning you won’t find yourself refinishing your entire kitchen when your child gets older, or you’re preparing to move out.
Similarly, while most people use plugs to cover outlet openings so that their children can’t stick anything in them and electrocute themselves, the plugs are unsightly and inconvenient, often getting lost when removed. Swap these out for sliding covers like those made by Jambini. They are just as affordable as the plugs.
The childproofing process lasts long past the toddler years and for those with more than one child or relatives with young children, it’s often easier just to keep the home in this safe state. By making fashion-forward safety choices, then, keeping childproofing practices in place is more sustainable. When your home is childproof, friends and family can visit with peace of mind, no matter if they have little ones in tow.
