When publicist and Kidville co-founder Shari Misher Stenzler transformed her 4-year-old daughter Kylie’s nursery into a toddler’s bedroom, she custom-designed a desk with a chair in the most delicate of fabrics. Probably not the best idea when you also have a 2-year-old son running around the house.
“It was nearly destroyed the day it arrived,” Stenzler recalls, a result of her son Colby’s chocolate-stained hands.
The desk chair is now used as a decorative piece – replaced by a more practical, wooden chair to match the desk. But Stenzler didn’t alter any of the other girlie touches in the room.
Stenzler, who worked with Sweet Beginnings of Florida, which also designed the nursery, says she “used simple colors – white, with some pink and green accents – so that I’d be able to make a smooth transition from nursery to little girl’s room.”
She kept the armoire and dresser while adding other pieces, like the desk and, now, two chairs.
While New York parents are used to the idea of baby-proofing their homes – padding sharp corners on coffee tables, plugging up electrical outlets, locking kitchen drawers and bathroom cabinets – toddler-proofing is more about protecting the home from the children.
Short of Scotchgarding an entire apartment, there are some simple steps design-conscious parents can take to make their homes both stylish and toddler-friendly:
1. Use “super-resistant” fabrics to upholster sofas and chairs, says Kim Ficaro, design editor of Domino magazine. That includes using outdoor fabrics indoors. And choose patterns; they are more forgiving than solids. Ficaro’s picks include Sunbrella (sunbrella.com) for solids, Perennials (perennialsfabrics.com) for subtle, muted colors, and Hable Construction and Nomi (hableconstruction.com; nomiinc.com) for bold patterns that “can hide even more accidents.”
2. Store all glass, china and tchotchkes, or display them on high shelves in cabinets and cases toddlers can’t reach – glass doors will allow you to see the objects, but the kiddies can’t get to them.
3. Consider flooring and carpeting that will be simple and easy to clean. Ficaro suggests Interface Flor (interfaceflor.com), which sells carpet tiles in square sections that fit together to make whatever size carpet you need. The best part: If you have a major incident, you can just replace the squares.
But just because you’re looking for materials that are easy to clean doesn’t mean you have to skimp on style, says Christina Topaloglou, mother of two young children and co-founder of Chesterfield NYC (www.chesterfieldnyc.com), which creates funky versions of the traditional British Chesterfield sofas.
“From my experience, a toddler-proof environment is created when the color palette is warm, so that kids feel welcome, and when no area is restricted, which tends to create tension between kids and parents,” says Topaloglou. She adds that parents should consider leather furniture, which is stain-resistant and easy to clean. Pieces should be “strong and made of materials that don’t break easily” and should be of a natural fiber – in a ddition to leather, cotton and linen – which will help avoid allergies and irritations.
Topalaglou has created mini Wing and Chippendale chairs and sofas that work well in toddler rooms; these are sophisticated pieces that grow with kids and are (slightly) less pricey than the adult-sized versions. (Prices range from $1,500 to more than $12,000 for hand-dyed pieces, chesterfield-usa.com.)
4. But you don’t have to spend thousands to decorate with style – all you really need is creativity.
Just ask Carter Kustera, a downtown artist who lives with his art-dealer wife and their twin toddlers in a 450-square-foot apartment in Chinatown. He buys different-sized 3M hooks from the hardware store to keep toys neatly stored and off the floor.
Kustera, known for his custom-made silhouettes of children (as well as of adults and pets), has learned to display part of his art collection higher on his walls now that he has kids. He also stores canvases by stacking them next to the couch. To keep the toddlers from playing with expensive pieces, he and his wife encourage them to create their own art collection – taking pictures from magazines and other places. The displays can change on the whims of the twins, who take pride in their collection.
Photographer Michael Molinoff, who specializes in portraits of children and families, agrees that toddlers should participate in the art that is in the home.
“Put different photos by the changing table and talk about them during the transition from diapers to dialogues,” Molinoff says. “Toddlers relate well to familiar photographs of family members and themselves. It’s always cute to see a 3-year-old point at a picture of herself and say, ‘That was me as a baby. I’m a big girl now.'”