How a New Construction Home Was Perfect for My Family

Having a child completely changed what I wanted from my home

Pre-child me had very different ideas about what I wanted from my home. I was going to live in a charming craftsman style cottage, or a Victorian style home. Queen Ann styles were also acceptable. My dream home had loads of architectural details, carved everything, and a layout that not even the most determined realtor could call open concept. 

Everything changed when the Fire Nation Attacked I got pregnant. My husband and I moved with our baby and Boxer to a new build spec home on a ranch. 

The House Hunter dream home wasn’t what I thought I wanted in my home, but it turned out to be the perfect place for our new family and new life. As it turned out, many of the new home features I thought were lame or basic make life with a toddler much easier to manage. 

My Open Floor Plan Come-To-Jesus

One of my biggest beefs with modern homes was the obligatory open concept layout. Before my son was born, more traditional floor plans with many defined rooms worked better for my life. Plus, all my favorite design influencers denounced open floor plans. Those of us who wanted unique, quirky, niche houses quickly grew to hate the near ubiquity of the open floor plan in the housing industry.

However, by the time my baby could crawl, I came to realize that open concept homes are popular for a reason. The bigger and more able he became, the more I loved my home’s open layout. 

Many Small Rooms Don’t Work With A Toddler

The most important thing a parent with an increasingly-mobile child needs is a clear sightline to said child. As it turns out, cottage style homes and older houses with a lot of small rooms don’t give you the clear visibility you need to keep track of a baby. 

Our completely open kitchen, dining, and living space gives me a manageable space to childproof, and give my son a safe and fun area to explore. The open living area is easy to clean, and its spacious dimensions allow us to create zones through the room that are better suited for adults or babies.

Because I can keep an eye on my baby from any point in our main living space, here are some questions I don’t have to ask myself on a regular basis:

• Why is it so quiet?
• Where did the baby go?
• Is he licking an outlet right now?
• Is he trying to eat plastic?
• Has he gotten into his diaper pail?
• But really: why is it so quiet?

Eat-In Kitchens Are Actually Lovely

A major sticking point for me with open concept housing was eat-in kitchens. I love to cook and bake, and in my pre-child dream home I could close the door to the kitchen, and nobody in the house could see what a mess I made.

This never would have worked post-baby. 

This fantasy kitchen would have forced me into one of three options: 1. Trap my son in the kitchen with me while I worked; 2. Let him roam around the rest of the house unsupervised; or 3. Never cook or clean the kitchen, and shut the door on a big, smelly mess.

However, in my actual kitchen, I can cook, bake, and wash the dishes while keeping an eye on my son as he toddles around, climbs on our couch, plays on his play set, or tries to help me work. We can coexist in the space without either of us getting in the other’s way. 

As a bonus, my husband and I can pull our baby’s high chair up to the kitchen island and make him feel like a really big boy eating with the grownups.

 Main Bedrooms

What do people do with all that space? Pre-child me frequently asked this about spacious owner’s bedrooms. I certainly didn’t need a large bedroom, a spa-like bathroom, and a walk -in closet. 

Everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked our child was born. Let me tell you, my big master bedroom became my new best friend. 

While having a child doesn’t mean that your house has to be all-baby-all-the-time, the fact is, children can quickly overtake your home. And why shouldn’t they? It’s their home, too! However, it is wonderful to have a space in my home that is no-baby-none-of-the-time. With a spacious bedroom, my husband and I have a serene space where we don’t have to dodge toys or kid-proof every inch. 

A spacious bedroom also means we can have all our impractical home décor out on display, and we can have fancy bedding and rugs that won’t get covered in kid gunk. After the baby goes down, I can shut the door, soak in my ginormous bathtub, and pretend that I’m in a fancy hotel, without having to wrangle a babysitter. And while I don’t have a ton of clothing, or spend much time getting ready, it is nicer than expected to have a spacious closet. 

Flooring Fouls are Worse than Party Fouls

Babies make messes as they begin to explore the world. Thanks to gravity, this means that most of a child’s mess ends up on the floor. The amount of stress this can cause a new parent depends entirely on the flooring material in their house. 

My condolences to any parent with carpet in their house. You’re going to need a heavy duty vacuum cleaner, a carpet steamer, and a whole lot of free time to scrub inevitable gunk and goober out of the flooring fibers that are glued down onto your foundation.

Tile and vinyl flooring are infinitely better than the pit of sadness that is carpet. With hard flooring options, you don’t have to worry about the nasty mess that gets trapped in carpet, and you can easily wipe up spills, crumbs, play dough, marker stains, and, well, bodily fluids. Crap will happen – literally – when you have a child. 

If you’re building your family home, I cannot recommend enough prioritizing your upgrade budget to install porcelain tile. This hard-wearing flooring material can keep your home looking beautiful and survive your family. I was a carpet hater before my son was born, but I had no idea how the different kinds of tile could affect my life. We were incredibly fortunate that our spec home had porcelain tile already installed when we moved. 

Our hard, durable porcelain tile has survived a high chair getting dragged all over the house, a dog with long claws chasing a baby around, the baby banging a stone coaster on the floor, and a wide range of other family related hazards, without getting a single scratch. While scratched tile might just be the ultimate first world problem, it is really nice to live in a home that still looks pristine, even when three humans and a dog are living and playing hard on it. 

Is flooring material really something you need to get this fired up about? 

Yes. Yes it is.

You can pry my porcelain tile out of my cold, dead hands. 

Architectural Details Mean Your Baby Will LITERALLY Climb Up the Walls

My pre-child hypothetical dream home was chock full of beautiful architectural details. While my actual home wasn’t quite as ornate as I wished, it had upgraded kitchen hardware and stunning wainscoting and baseboards. After my one true love, porcelain tile, these fancy finishes were my favorite things in our home.

Everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked my baby began to crawl and walk (an event only slightly less chaotic than a bellicose fictional empire).

At first, it was super cute watching him use protruding wainscoting to pull himself up into a standing position. As he got more capable, however, it got less cute as he began to literally climb up the walls, using our home’s beautiful architectural details as footholds. 

Spider-Toddler didn’t stop at the wainscoting. He moved into the kitchen where the beautiful and ornate hardware served as the perfect footstool. Absolutely nothing on the counter was safe. This was a devastating development in our journey as new parents, because our beautiful hardware already made our floor level cabinet space incompatible with child-proof locks. 

Knowing what I know now, I would want a much more simple family home. Upgraded architectural details are truly beautiful, but the stress of keeping my toddler, well, alive and safe, makes the added beauty not worth it.

To add insult to injury, I realize now that maximalist detailing makes for really easy and fun DIY projects. If I could go back and redo my decisions, our home would have had fewer of these stunning, intricate features when we moved in, and as our son grew up and out of the Spider-Toddler phase, we could do fun projects like:

• Swapping out more minimalist hardware for fancy upgrades
• Doing any of the easy wainscoting DIY projects available online
• Trying an easy wood paneling project
• Adding a DIY window seat 

The Finishing Touches

However, not all of the final fixtures in our home are conducive to our son’s life as Spider-Toddler. Here are some of my favorite finishing touches on our home that make life with a child easier:

Magnetic Latches for Cabinets

As mentioned, our fancy kitchen cabinets and hardware put us in the position of not being able to use child locks. The only cabinets that do have any baby-stopping power are the ones with magnetic latches. If you’re thinking about buying or building a family home, magnetic latches are a fabulous way to keep small children out of low cabinets – without the annoyance of baby-proof latches. 

Floor-to-Ceiling Windows

Floor-to-ceiling windows are another wonderful detail that make parenting easier in our new home. Our son loves saddling up to the massive windows and watching all the exciting things going on outside. He spends hours watching storms, watching his dad do yard work, bird watching, and just watching day-to-day life go by. 

Watching the world through giant windows is a great way for our child to entertain himself without resorting to screen time. It was also a wonderful way to show him the great outdoors when he was still too little to go out and explore.

If you want to invest in homeownership and have a family, a new construction home might be the perfect fit for you. Let us know what you love about having a new home for your family in the comments below!