Organized Kids Playroom

Guest Blog by Victoria Crowdell

A happy and harmonious home isn’t something that is just going to fall out of the sky and into your lap: it’s something you have to strive for and accomplish through hard work and clever planning.  While learning how to handle inter-family relationships is an ongoing process and a rather abstract one at that, there are specific things that you and your family can do to improve the home and make living in it that much more enjoyable.  Various DIY home improvement jobs can be concocted and executed that will provide the various members of a family new ways to interact with each other and new things to do at home.  Let’s take a look at a handful of such ideas and see how they can contribute to making your home the place everyone would like it to be:

• The playroom: This project is a major winner and is guaranteed to be a smashing hit with the kids.  Many homes have certain spaces that just don’t get used much or don’t get used properly, and converting such areas into play spaces is going to make a big difference.  The extent of the project will depend on the condition of the room at present and how much of a budget you want to put into, though even a bit of money can go a long way here.  Most basements and cellars can be converted without hiring any labor, as it’s not that difficult to prep the room on your own; however, if there are serious water filtration problems then a DIY project here may be a bit more risky.

• The garden: Landscaping is a DIY home improvement project par excellence, and it is an activity where the whole family can come together and participate.  If you’re lucky enough to have a home with a yard/garden area then you should make the best of it, always mindful of the psychological benefits of being surrounded by greenness.  It’s not necessarily about having the most beautiful flower bed or the most sculpted hedges on the block; it could just be a project of increasing the grassy (usable) area for the kids to play, putting in a jungle-gym, building a dog house, or creating a vegetable garden.

• Shared spaces: Any home with many people in it and with a decent bit of space (specifically shared space) is likely to have a lot of clutter, and that clutter can begin to have negative effects.  For communal spaces like the kitchen, the living room and the TV room it is important to have efficient storage solutions to make sure this clutter doesn’t get out of hand.  You can overcome this problem by installing more cabinets or shelves, by rearranging the furniture, or even through donating unused/unwanted possessions to charity!

• The green route: Finally, it’s worth thinking about implementing some green solutions in your home.  Teaching your children (and yourself for that matter) about environmental issues and fostering a sustainable lifestyle among all members of the family will offer more rewards than you can imagine.  DIY projects that can get you going in this direction include setting up your own solar panels or parabolic solar oven, or putting in a tank to gather rain water for gardening purposes.  The options are many, and your imagination is really the only limit.

Author byline

Victoria Crowdell works for Construction Chemicals UK Ltd, who are experts in their field – from basement conversions for the serious renovator to DIY timber treatment products for protecting your home from insects and mold. With depots around the UK and an in-house chemistry specialist, they are the ideal partners for anyone wishing to undertake a renovation project, amateur or professional. When Victoria isn’t working full-time helping people to transform their homes, she uses her experience to create articles which can be found around the Internet and also teaches little scamps to sing like angels – quite a transformation!