For parents who approach design as a form of care and resilience, there’s an ongoing conversation happening with the objects that our kid-friendly spaces contain. Aperture widens with the introduction of a child into the home and considerations like visual satisfaction, ease, safety, durability, longevity, sustainability, and utility come to the fore. A global pandemic only amplifies the urgency to create a sanctuary of a living space that supports the needs of all of its inhabitants. When children are in the home, this dialogue inspires parents to creatively meet the needs of children without compromising our own aesthetic.
Kai Avent-deLeon, owner of the Brooklyn-based boutique Sincerely, Tommy, insists that she doesn’t have anything in her home that she needs to be “super concerned” about with her four-year-old “doing his thing.” So, she approaches home decor with comfort in mind, such as napping couches that are “easy to throw yourself on and feel comfortable and relaxed.” Terrestrial color choices prime the canvas of Kai’s homes in Brooklyn and upstate New York. Describing her aesthetic as a mix of modern surrealist with a bit of Shaker, she prefers to “to keep things pretty neutral” in order to “create a story that feels cohesive.”
For parents concerned about maintaining a neutral palette with kids’ toys and sticky hands, Kai’s advice is that “you have to teach them how to move around the furniture.” In her house, this instruction is not a command but an invitation. For example, she often tells her son Che that “this is still your space and I want you to move around freely.” Inviting her child to make use of their shared space freely also looks like collaborating on pieces Kai makes for the home. “I like making ceramics,” she says while remembering a period when the mother-child duo made a joint creation. “I liked how he was playing with the clay and rolled it really flat; we ended up making these candle holders.”
The conversation between the objects Kai makes for her decor line, Raini Home, and the spaces she inhabits, are largely influenced by Che and nature. “The furniture was designed with him in mind, I wanted chairs that felt functional and modern but not with sharp edges,” she adds. When play and whimsy are top of mind for aesthetically attuned parents, the alchemic combination of functionality and decor result in a creative approach to object placement and the way we move throughout our spaces.
Gabriela Noelle Gonzalez, a mother of twin toddlers, knows a lot about play. She approaches object making “from the lens of a child from the future who is trying to recreate this world.” In her work, there is a navigation away from greens and neutral earth tones towards a world where “the colors get a little wild and saturated.” This is an allegory for the Miami studio space where she lives and works—a home that is less of an example of a perfectly curated kid-friendly space and more of a sojourn replete with whimsy, inspiration, and a bit of chaos.
After graduating from Parsons School of Design, Gabriela began designing pieces with her mother, an interior designer. What emerged from this mother-daughter collaboration was a solo departure from creating pieces for quantity towards a focus on designing them with intention. She began designing niche pieces that inspire play like a ping-pong table that doubles as a dining table, a swing, a seesaw, and a mushroom-shaped stool to name just a few. Using high quality acrylic and Tibetan lamb’s wool (which is naturally stain resistant and antimicrobial), these durable products are all built for multipurpose use.
Making pieces that transport the owner back to childhood is essential to Gabriela’s ethos as a designer, as well as an extension of her parenting style. “I’m a little serious, so I have to remind myself to play,” she adds. But shifting into that mindset didn’t happen overnight, cultivating this ethos was a process catalyzed by an epiphany: “I was spending so much time preparing work that made me feel like I wasn’t enjoying the process.” Furthermore, some of the materials she used for earlier works weren’t good for the environment, so Gabriela pivoted to things that would “allow me to work with my hands, allow me to have time with the girls, allow me to embrace imperfection.”
Evelynn Escobar, spends most of her time in nature with her one-year-old Isla. She describes her decor style as youthful, expressive, colorful, and fun. “Simply, it’s giving tasteful inner child,” she says. As the founder of Hike Clerb, an intersectional women’s outdoor club, Evelynn has approached motherhood as a “natural extension of the life [she] had already created for [herself].” So her approach for home decor was no different. Inspired by the shadow work required to parent mindfully, Evelynn’s space evokes a warmth and whimsy that is indicative of the process of “surrendering to the journey and embodying what it means to be a mother, to be a cycle breaker, to rid myself of the limiting self beliefs placed on me,” as she wrote in a recent post on Instagram. “Absolutely everything changed from the moment I knew I was carrying Isla.”
And Isla, who she affectionately refers to as a “GeminIcon,” enhanced Evelynn’s journey as a new mother, but also her design choices. “We buy the pieces she may need developmentally, but in general we’re not doing major changes often because we [had already] added things into the space with growth in mind,” she says. “We already had curated a fun bright vibe for our space and Isla’s little knickknacks fell right in line with that!”
For Mai Nguyen, a mother of two under two living in Houston, Texas, there’s no tension in the interplay between kids’ objects and decor. “We let her mess around with anything with supervision,” says the designer and founder of Iamai. The I Chair, a sleek and playful dining chair that is made of solid walnut, was created with this in mind. “She climbs on it,” Mai says in regards to her daughter Aaliyah. “We make sure she understands and respects the furniture.”
Kristy Scott, a social media personality, digital creator, entrepreneur, and mother of two sons under the age of five, juxtaposes her humorously playful social media content with modern, monochromatic and minimalist decor—which notably consists of a white Restoration Hardware Cloud sectional sofa. This has been her aesthetic of choice since before she had her first child. Instead of swapping her style, and the sofa, for practicality post-baby, Kristy opted for easy to clean modular decor which stays white because of machine washable slipcovers and Ruggable rugs. “To fit [the style] I like, I had to get the white,” she adds. Kristy’s advice is to “get the durable items in the colors that you want.” As for the interplay between colorful kids’ toys and her preferred decor palette, Kristy offers another solution: lots of storage. “They are everywhere,” she says of the multiuse storage pieces placed throughout her home.
Ashley Lennon, mother to baby boy Sunny, relates to the necessity of storage pieces. Her lifestyle brand Museum of Peace and Quiet designs simplistic objects for everyday use—a commitment to “a clear state of mind.” Ashley and her husband Christion share a “love for design and minimalistic things,” so they gravitate toward vintage midcentury pieces and “rare objects that you find while traveling.” As a result, a lot of research goes into selecting pieces for their Orange County home. “If I’m looking at a storage unit I always think about pieces that serve more than one function.” Ashley considers, “How do I get the most out of this piece that I’m about to invest in?” Sustainability, therefore, is at the heart of her approach to design.
Despite the seemingly effortless and curated depiction of a relaxed and reclusive life on Ashley’s Instagram page, transitioning to life with a baby revealed essential life lessons for her. “When I was pregnant I said ‘I’m not going to baby-proof, I want Sunny to move around and adjust himself.’ But as he started to get mobile and I foresaw freak accidents happen, I had to be more open to change,” she recalls. So the couple opened up their floor plan to make space for softness. Ashley began playing with materials and textures and being more mindful about what they were bringing into their home. “Children need less than you think,” she says. “I am open to change and accepting the fact that it’s not about aesthetics. It’s more about form and functionality—adding things that could be used multi-purposely, like replacing the coffee table with the ottoman.”
Just north of Museum of Peace and Quiet’s headquarters, the artist Elise Peterson lives in an apartment in Downtown LA with “big beautiful windows” and exposed beams. “It gives loft,” she says. “I was excited to play and to create more within a space that feels a bit more rigid.” Elise describes her interior design style as midcentury, playful, warm, and really flexible. She loves to host gatherings in her home, so modular furniture, like a bright orange vintage Togo sofa by Michel Ducaroy for Ligne Roset, is key. Sustainability is also a motivating factor for Elise’s home decor choices. Though she has “always gravitated towards vintage,” Elise wanted to embrace the modern landscape of the apartment that she shares with her five-year-old son Sargent. “I was really intentional [about] bringing things [in the apartment] that I love,” she adds. “Really intentional about taking my time.”
As the founder and host of Cool Moms, a podcast featuring mothers who prioritize their passions, Elise is also very intentional about the tangible and intangible boundaries she sets in her space. “There’s a distinct line between the home and Sargent’s personal space and my space,” she explains. “I don’t keep toys in shared spaces. If he brings toys in the living room they have to be put back before he goes to bed. But I am lenient with him in his space. His walls are covered in art. As long as it is clean, it is his. He understands boundaries.”
Because of the lack of physical walls in their space, when Elise needs a quiet place to take a call, she has to ask Sargent permission to use his room because it is the only room in the loft with a door. Despite these mutually established boundaries, Elise invites Sargent to interact with the objects in their home, such as the altar upon which seashells brought back from a trip to Greece and crystals are placed alongside a candle, singing bowl, glass of water, cowrie shells, food offerings, and pictures of nature that represent ancestors.
I often flashback to my grandmothers’ French provincial–cum–Regency decor replete with decorative embroidered hand towels, plastic covered brocade sofas, and candy dishes. There was an entire room, the living room, full of decor that, as a child, I knew I was forbidden to touch. Such a cruel misnomer for a space, I often thought. Sometimes my curiosity got the best of me as I slowly opened the welded-brass-and-glass curio doors fondling heavy crystal tchotchkes collected from her post-retirement travels around the world. Growing up in a look-but-don’t-touch space inspires the way I approach home decor with my own child. Most of the pieces in my home are meant to be touched, within reason, by tiny hands as my child repurposes our home decor to enact imaginative scenarios brought forth by play. Marigold microfiber Sabai Design sofa cushions become walls of a fort, and the living room rug is no longer a braided ivory tapestry—it’s lava.
When we surrender to the transformative reality of parenting and embrace the fluidity and flow of decorating without compromising our personal style, we open ourselves to new possibilities of living beautifully that might not have been revealed otherwise. Because, as Kai so accurately describes it, “when you are in your sanctuary and home space, you need that extra layer of comfort and space to let it all go. A space where [you] could completely let go and not care and feel completely at home. Making every part of the house an altar in its own way.”
