Keep your kids and your style.

Several years ago a favorite client hired me as she and her husband approached the big move from downtown DC condo to spacious new burbs home. While the house was under construction, we first plotted out the family room, creating a very kid-friendly space for her son that now includes play space for her younger daughter! Durable, distressed finishes and fabrics, out- of- reach window treatments and a stealth, custom built-in toy box were the main players of this first design phase. (click here for full story and tips: http://lizlevininteriors.com/images/HGTVideas.pdf )

Our second project took on the large– and largely unused– rooms at the front of the house, which we dubbed the ‘parlor’ and the adjacent dining room.

Before:

While not prime-time-family-hang-out space, these areas were certainly not off limits to her young children, and we designed accordingly. We created a large built-in to house their library and offer hidden storage for all the little things that need places. We popped the back wall with a bright peacock blue that peeked cheerfully through the books. We selected a fabric and leather for the upholstered parlor chairs that could resist spills from clumsy guests and stand up to children’s’ wandering sticky fingers. The dining table’s host chairs are upholstered in an ostrich patterned vinyl that sit upon an industrial strength bottle green rug that wears like metal (read: indestructible). We paired a couple of off-the-rack brown pillows with our uniquely custom, two-sided peacock ones; mixing high and low effortlessly. The finished result was not only jaw-dropping but family-friendly. Sure, we may need to wait a couple years to accessorize that round coffee table (shown here staged for photos). In the meantime, they have an adult entertaining space that I also heard makes for a riotous round of hide and seek behind those drapery panels!