How do you keep your house clean with growing kids, pets and assorted other life forms living in it? Camouflage. No, not the kind hunters wear, the kind that allows you to have a beautiful home that doesn’t show every spot and smudge. You may never get that white couch you want, but you will be more relaxed if you are not always worrying about something getting ruined.
For furniture prints are the way to go, they will hide just about everything. While prints may not be your first choice you will find that a couch covered in a sturdy fabric with a print will be much more family friendly than that cream colored suede you’ve had your eye on.
Throw out those white walls! I’ve yet to meet a child who can enter a room without running their hand along the wall. Even if their hands are clean eventually the oils from their fingers will leave smudges behind. If you don’t want your whole room a darker color, go with a chair rail, paint the darker color lower, where the kids are, and paint something light or bright up higher.
Get your drapes off the floor, yes I know they look pretty puddle on the floor, at least until the kids walk on them ten or twelve times. Shorten the drapes to just below the window sill and this will keep the pet hair off them as well.
Carpet is wonderful, so warm and cozy and easily stained. If you have carpet where you have kids, go for something variegated, it will hide the dirt a little better. The easiest solution is laminate flooring, no matter what they spill a quick mop and it looks good as new.
In the kids rooms forgo all the pretty matching bedding, buy a comforter that can be thrown over the bed in some semblance of order in the morning. Kids don’t care about tucking the sheet and arranging the pillows just so. Make it easy for them, Hailey has never slept with a top sheet, I think it’s weird but she thinks top sheets are just something else to pick up off the floor.
It’s hard to give up on having a beautifully decorated house but while the kids are little sometimes it’s the best option. You don’t want to be that mother who is always screaming about the mess so make it easier to hide the mess. Besides, once they are grown you can have a beautiful home, at least until the grandkids come to visit.