Cooper and Emily are two moms with six kids between them. They live in different states (Pennsylvania and New York) and have known each other forever, so, naturally, they started a blog, Been There.

When Drew asked us to contribute to the ‘Baby Blogapalooza’ and talk about design and kids, it struck us both that when it comes to all things décor, kids have immediate and definite preferences, which appear to be formed early on. When you are a kid, who you are – your identity – is defined, in good part, by your favorite color, right?

And, if you want to wear pants under a dress every, single day, or Spiderman boxer shorts, a red cape and dark green socks, well, then, why not? Your design sense is all about what is comfortable and what makes you feel good.

Read the rest of this entry »

Laid Off Dad. The layoff was long, and demoralizing, and laden with stress and penury. But it also gave him 15 months of hands-on parenting that he’d never trade.

A design blog for parents is a daunting paradox, since interior design and small children go together like Purim and pork chops. If you have young kids and/or geriatric pets, you don’t have many design options. On one end of the limited spectrum, you can do as my aunt did and create a tasteful, pristine living space that no one was allowed to do any “living” in. On the other, you can give into the chaos and [literally] let the chips fall where they may.

Read the rest of this entry »

Kris Bernard blogs regularly for BLTD.org, a daily online magazine about affordable design.

One of the best things about having kids (aside from the intrinsic joy of getting to nurture them and watch them blossom into young adults) is getting all the miniaturized things: tiny shoes, itsy clothes, and small furniture. The latter can be extremely tricky since 98% of children’s furniture is over-designed (and you could be unintentionally teaching your child all the wrong concepts about life: propagation of design error, disposable consumerism, primary colors as a fundamental design scheme, etc.)

Read the rest of this entry »

Melissa Summers writes to Suburban Bliss, a blog about, well, Suburban Bliss. She first sent us the following post, then retracted it explaining, “I sent this and then realized this has nothing to do with the topic. I guess I didn’t realize it earlier because designing a house with [my husband] Logan is a little like designing a house with a child.” Ta-da — there’s the tie-in.

My sister in law has exquisite taste and she pretty much makes the design decisions in the house she and my brother share. She once asked my brother what color he thought would be good in the dining room. He replied, “Anything but yellow.” The dining room is yellow.

They told us that story over dinner one night and I stared at them and at my husband and I wondered, why the hell I married an artist. There are no simple design decisions in my house, rather there are complex design battles.

Read the rest of this entry »

Kyra and her husband Robertson founded Twenty2, a Brooklyn-based design shop producing a variety of textiles and wallcoverings. Their latest creation is Wallbands, a line of easy-to-apply, pre-pasted, washable wall patterns.

Kids really seem to dig our Wallbands. When we showed our 5-year-old nephew Brooks some early samples of our Wallbands collection, he immediately said, “I want to see all of them” and proceeded to spread them out on the floor and choose his favorites.

Read the rest of this entry »