How to Create a Home You Love Even with Toddler & Baby Toys Everywhere with Caroline Klein Designs | Ep. 118

0:00creating just in general, a home that you enjoy being in is so important. But make sure that you're not like skimping on yourself because you deserve to enjoy that space just as much as your kids deserve to enjoy their house. Hi, it's Layla, your official mom friend. And this is the Learning to Mom podcast. This is the place where you'll get the answers to all your first time mom questions. Learn from experts and feel seen in the season that you're in. We talk about pregnancy, postpartum, baby's first year of life, and beyond, with real conversations that make motherhood feel a little lighter and a lot more joyful.

0:42Each expert guest brings their own experience and background, so please note that the content presented in this podcast is for general educational purposes only. Hi, Caroline. Welcome to the Learning to Mom podcast. Hi, Layla. Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to be here. I'm very excited for this conversation. I have so many questions for you. This is one that I'm like dying to know. And I was looking for someone to come and speak on this topic. And then by the grace of God, your account popped up like several months ago. So I've been like vetting you kind of over the last few months. And I was like, this is my girl.

1:17So I'm really excited. Well, I'm very flattered, obviously. Because now you have a million downloads. So congratulations on that. I saw that a few days ago. That's a huge deal. Thank you. But at the time of this recording, we don't know when this episode is going to air. So that just happened. Thank you, Caroline. But before we get into all of, I guess, the meat of this episode, can you just tell us a little bit about yourself and your background prior to starting Caroline Klein Designs? So I came to interior design as my second career. Initially, I worked in management at Costco. I got like my first bachelor's degree and then I worked in management at Costco.

1:59And that is super funny because it's like intentionally not aesthetic. Like there's no windows. It's a concrete floor. It's like bare bones in there. And I am somebody that really cares about like the space that I'm in. But that's what I did. And then my husband and I ended up buying our first home, which was a bright, Barney Purple Victorian house that had a lime green door. It was in tough shape. There wasn't a kitchen. And so we spent all of this time like renovating it during COVID. And I fell in love with design and I decided to go back to school for to get like a bachelor's in interior design.

2:40And then I worked for like high end interior designers, like the kind of like fancy homes that are in magazines and stuff like that. And then I worked for a commercial architecture firm. So doing like hospitals and offices and stuff like that. And then I just kind of felt like I loved all of those like projects. I genuinely actually liked working at those places and on those projects. But it just felt like I wanted to work with other like families more like myself and kind of creating spaces that like your family is like truly, truly live in. Because a lot of those fancy homes that are in magazines are like beautiful, but nobody's kid is going to be like doing an art project on the dining room table.

3:28And that is the type of project that I love to do. I love to figure out where beautiful design and hardworking families kind of meet. So that's sort of how Caroline Flynn Design was born. Well, that's exactly what I want to talk to you today about. Because I think for a lot of first-time moms, I think we feel like we have two options. We either have a really beautiful home that we have to tell our toddler to not be able to be a toddler in, or we have just a complete messy, we've given up everything, you can paint anywhere, I don't care kind of home. So I guess how do we approach that balance? So when I first had my son, as I said, like I'm somebody that cares so much about my space and I had my son and I was like, whoa, kids come with a lot of stuff.

4:29And so I took a step back And I was like, do I want to spend the next 18 years of my life like jumping down my kids' throats, getting frustrated with my husband? I didn't want that for them. And I also didn't want to spend my time like my next 18 years of my life doing that. And so I felt like I kind of had to take a step back and be like, OK, how do we marry the two? Because it is possible. I think you just have to think about it from the beginning. You just have to make strategic choices from the get go. So like making sure your foundational pieces like your furniture, it can hold up to toddlers.

5:10You can make sure you're incorporating storage in really interesting ways in the foundation of your home instead of just kind of slapping these band-aids on. because I think that's where people get really frustrated is they're like, okay, my kid has all of these toys. Let's just buy one more thing to hold all the toys instead of thinking about, okay, what furniture do we have right now? And are there pieces that we can swap out that will serve our family better, if that makes sense? So kind of incorporating it in the design itself instead of just trying to manage the toys on top of the design.

5:46No, that makes so much sense. Okay, mom friend, if you've been listening for a while, this is for you. You know how sometimes motherhood just feels lonely? Like you're figuring it all out by yourself, Googling everything at midnight? That's exactly where I started the mom club on Patreon. It's where we go from just listening to actually connecting through book club Zooms, longer ad-free episodes and real conversations that go way deeper than what fits in the regular show. Moms inside tell me that they finally feel caught up, confident, and less alone. So whether you're pregnant, a first-time mom, or chasing a toddler around, you're gonna find other moms who get it.

6:35So if the podcast is like your parenting textbook, the mom club is where it all comes to life. You get early access, extra episodes, and a space that honestly feels like your mom friend's group chat and book club rolled into one. Join us at learningtomompodcast.com slash join. I can't wait to meet you inside, mom friend. And of course, that link is in the episode show notes below in case you forget. I think for a lot of the listeners today, we're like in starter homes, first maybe we have two kids maybe one kid whatever and we're still living on facebook marketplace furniture and we're still living on like maybe even our college apartment stuff and we're just like i know it needs to go eventually but the kids is gonna draw on the furniture if so i'd rather them draw on this couch than the super expensive nice bougie couch that i really want.

7:34But as we slowly like progress into the space that we do want. So you're talking about being mindful on our furniture choices and with like storage space and everything as well. So can you just walk us through that a little bit more so that when we do go furniture shopping, even though it may not be like from the get go, we do know what we're looking for. Yeah, I do think it's worth it to create a space for yourself and for your family that is I mean not just like aesthetic from like a vein point of view if that makes sense like it's not to impress anybody it's to change how your family lives in your house so when you have a home that you actually enjoy being in you are going to show up differently for your kids your kids are going to see a mom that is actually enjoying like motherhood and isn't just kind of like hanging on by the tips of her fingers.

8:31And I think that that is really, really transformational for our families to see is like I am also a priority as a mom. And one of the things that's important to me is that my home feels beautiful and that I exist in a nice space. But with that being said, let's keep our kids in mind because they also need to live them a space so when you are going out to purchase furniture this is something I feel very passionately about is that I don't want you to waste money I think so often people think interior designers just are going to want you to spend more but I have found that a lot of young parents clients are, yes, like transitioning out of kind of like the college furniture or the Facebook marketplace furniture.

9:21And they end up buying things that they really regret. Like they're spending money on things that they're just going to want to get rid of in a couple of years. And so I just want to encourage people that you can take a beat. You don't need to just purchase the first thing that you see, really think about it. And that might mean also like waiting a little bit longer until you can afford like the sofa that you really want that is going to hold up longer and serve you longer from a style point of view. We need to redo our family room. It's not just a family room. It is the everything room. Our home is open concept.

10:06So like I'm looking at one wall and now I'm looking at the other and I'm here in the middle. So it's the playroom. It's the family room. It's everything. I mean, I'm a minimalist. We do toy rotation. Like I try my best not to keep toys out, but I would still love to elevate the space so that way I can enjoy the space better and not just my kids. Yeah. Yeah. So I think with kids, a lot of times the first thing that people always want to talk about is the sofa because our kids are tough on it. I am also in the same situation. My living room is also our playroom. It is, and it's right next to the kitchen.

10:45Like I exist, our house isn't big enough to have a separate area to just like quarantine all of the toys. So we have had to figure out how to make that work for our family. So the pieces in my living room that get the most amount of use are in most people's homes is the sofa, the chairs, and then I have an ottoman for the coffee table. So that is my favorite tip to give parents of young kids is choose an upholstered ottoman, like that's pretty big, like 36 by 36 or 48 by 48 as your coffee table. And you can find ones that have storage in it. So you can just throw blankets, throw toys into it, and you can find really beautiful ones.

11:32and it also serves as like a great place for your kids to make forts or whatever. But with those big upholstered pieces in your living room, you really want to make sure you're looking for performance fabrics. So almost all brands carry like their line of performance fabrics, but there's also like name brand ones. So Krypton fabric or Sunbrella fabric are really good performance fabrics and that just means that it is much easier to clean it's more stain resistant so if your kid or your husband spills whatever on your sofa it just sort of like pills up on top of it and then if you do have to clean it's a lot easier to clean we're getting kind of technical here but this is really like helpful information is it has a higher rub count so you want to look for fabrics that have a rub count of like 50 ,000 to 100 ,000 double rubs, which means that the fabric is just going to hold up longer to the constant wear and tear of your family.

12:36So yes. So if you're looking for upholstered furniture, for sure be looking for fabric like that. And then in terms of your living room, I would also say, make sure you're thinking about like color and texture and pattern and how you can use those to disguise the sins that like your kids will inevitably get all over everything so if you use like color pattern and texture that will camouflage a lot and so I think a lot of times people think I'm just gonna get a gray sofa because it'll probably hide some dirt but you have a lot more options than that You could do like a green sofa or a navy or brown.

13:21Leather is a really great option for families too because you can just wipe that off. So there are a lot of different ways to make your space like still feel elevated as long as you're thinking about these things beforehand. I mean, that's why I do what I do is I want people to be spending their money well before they invest in these big pieces. that in a couple years, I really don't want you to regret purchasing a sofa for a couple thousand dollars. To me, that's such a bummer. So let's say we figured out our furniture, but we still have no idea what to put on our walls. We don't know what to do about our rug size.

13:59How do we actually go about then making our house feel more homey from a design point of view for someone who knows nothing about design? I'm sure you know more than you're giving yourself credit for. But I think the biggest mistake that I see is oftentimes a rug that is too small and artwork that is too small. So a lot of times people's sofas are really big and then they have like a tiny rug. So in a living room, I would say most people, there will be caveats, but most people probably need at least an eight by 10 rug in their living room. And then in terms of artwork, I just think you want to go bigger.

14:42I think people kind of shy away from some of these things because it's a little bit more expensive. But you can go online on to Etsy or Society6 and find art prints that are much larger and are really inexpensive and you can even print them yourself. but a larger piece of art is going to make more of an impact and it's going to make your space look more expensive. People won't be able to see this if it's on the podcast, but behind me, I have a print that's, I think, 52 inches by 52 inches. So it is really big and it makes a really big impact because of that. But it cost me, I think,$50 because I went to the thrift store.

15:23I found a really big frame that I loved. And then I put a print inside of it. So there are ways that you can get this really big impact without like without spending an arm and a leg on original artwork. Yeah. What about advice with different textures and the colors and stuff? Okay. So my advice, if you are about to start designing your room, the process that I kind of to help people to do is go onto Pinterest and just like pin, pin, pin, pin, pin. Like don't overthink it. Just pin a bunch of things. And then once you have a good collection, then go back and kind of look for the through lines.

16:02Is there a certain color that's popping out all the time? Is there like certain textures that you are seeing over and over again? And then from there, create a color palette for yourself. And this kind of sounds like you might want to skip this step and I promise it will make a big difference in terms of making your space feel really cohesive. So go through and pick like I would say maybe about six colors. So everything from like your neutrals like that includes cream, beige, black, brown, kind of your basic neutral colors that sort of serve as the foundation and then incorporate a couple more interesting actual colors and use that to kind of guide all of your design decisions.

16:48Because I think really often people get overwhelmed because we're looking at the internet and we're like, whoa, there are way too many options on here. And so if you start with just a color palette, it's just so much easier to kind of eliminate all of these extra choices when you use that as sort of like your North Star. Yes. Amazing. And now it's time for this week's segment of MomMail. If you're new here, this is the part of the show where I answer a listener-submitted situation or scenario. Basically, you write in your tricky situation and I give you advice only a real mom friend would give.

17:28Here's the email that we're answering this week. Hey Layla, I know my partner means well, but sometimes it feels like he just doesn't get what it's like to be home all day with the toddler. I try to explain how mentally draining it can be. The constant questions, messes, noise, but I end up feeling like I'm complaining. How do you keep your relationship strong when it feels like you're living two totally different days? Okay, this is a great question. Thanks so much for writing in. I think this is very common for those of us that stay at home. I'm going to keep this short because there was really one piece of advice that came to me.

18:06If you can swing it. And I will say that it's not in everyone's budget. I understand. But if you're able to do a weekend away or even just a day away and keep it as budget friendly as possible, even like you could go somewhere in the morning, come home at night, not even pay for lodging. Like it can be, you know, just go visit a friend out of state and then drive back like it doesn't need to be a huge, expensive girl's trip away. but I will say that my husband has had a completely new appreciation for me when I'm out. When he has to step into the role of mom, whether it be for six hours or for 24 hours, I literally come home and he has such a greater appreciation for the mental load, just like how taxing it can be staying at home.

19:07you feel like you have all of these responsibilities because you do because we're typically not only a full-time mom but we're a full-time homemaker as well and so you have that expectation as well but you're constantly being interrupted by someone needing something by tantrums by things being thrown by messes being made i don't need to continue to go on and on and on but I will say that that has helped so so much then just another piece because your question specifically asks how do you keep your relationship strong when it feels like you're living two totally different days I don't think that that's necessarily what matters because I think you're going to live two totally different days regardless of what your occupations are like one of you could be a teacher and the other person could be a lawyer and that's two completely different days or one of you could be a dentist and one of you could be a construction manager again two completely different days like I don't think that that's really the issue what really comes to mind is more of keeping your relations strong because there's a mutual appreciation for one another and I think that's what comes down to like you have to appreciate all of the work that one another is doing.

20:27And I do think that being a stay at home mom is a role that you feel very underappreciated a lot of the time. You're not getting feedback as a stay at home mom. You don't have a boss who's being like, you absolutely killed that presentation or you did such a great job. Usually instead, you're actually met with a lot of complaints. You should be doing better at this. You could be doing this. Why isn't this done? Or, oh, I didn't like this dinner. Like there's a lot there. So I think starting the conversation with being like, I don't feel appreciated or I don't feel like you understand everything that I go through and everything that I'm doing on a day to day basis because I'm actually doing a lot.

21:08It just doesn't look like that. So I would say appreciation is key. And to make appreciation even greater, I would give you the tip of be gone. Like, go take a day trip, go take a weekend trip, whatever is in the budget. I do think it needs to be more than like three hours because your baby could nap for all three hours. You kind of want them to sweat a little bit. Let's be honest. You don't want this to be extremely easy, not because you want them to fail, but because you want them to understand. So maybe not prep dinner for them to have. Have them figure that out. Ask them to also throw in a load of laundry or clean a room during it.

21:57You know, honey, I'm going on this trip. I would really love to come back to a clean home. I'd really love to come back to a home-cooked dinner. Something. Just a little tip there and the appreciation comes in. Hope that was helpful as your mom friend. I absolutely love getting the mom mail emails. So if you're looking for advice, email me at learningtomompodcast.mommail at gmail.com with the subject line mom mail and then keep your ears open because we might just answer it on an upcoming episode. So then you take that color palette and that's how you figure out what rug you want and what color sofa and what your artwork is?

22:38Yeah. Okay. So it's not like blue and we'll just be like, I want blue everywhere. But you're like, no, it can be different colors. It's not just like one shade of blue. No. Yeah. Make it varied. So think about like how you're incorporating the existing colors that you already have. So say you have a sofa that you know you want to keep. Take that color and incorporate it into your color palette. And And then look at how all of these like six or seven colors look together. And it's just it kind of I think it helps simplify things like before you get too into the weeds of like trying to imagine what things would look like when you're trying to imagine the sofa that you already have with this rug that you're looking at online and all of these different things like that can be really hard and overwhelming for people.

23:26And so if before you do any of that, you just come up with your color palette of where you want to go design wise, you can go online and go to rugs.com or wherever you're shopping for a rug and immediately be like, that won't work. That won't work. That won't work. And it's it might sound like restrictive, but it's actually so helpful because you aren't going to be wading through a million different options. which is I think where so many people get stuck and then they're just like I'm just not decision fatigue yeah and they're just like I have too many other things to think about I'm just not going to deal with it yeah so that was the color palette step was their next step yeah so in terms of textures I would go back and kind of look at like what are the textures that you're seeing in all of these Pinterest images that you really like and try to incorporate some of them my favorites to incorporate into a kid-friendly home because I think texture can be really super helpful in terms of like disguising things like little messes and things so I love nubbier textures so if you are ordering samples a nubbier texture like that has kind of a little bit more like texture and oomph to it is going to be helpful in terms of hiding messes because there's a little bit more like variation.

24:55Leather, like I said, is really great. I would say incorporating different wood tones is going to be really helpful. I would say linen is usually not something I recommend for family-friendly homes. Velvet can be great, but if you have pets, it really attracts hair. So be wary of that. But just, I also like to pull together a material scheme. I would say that's probably optional start with your color scheme but pulling together a material scheme so thinking about like when you look at a room how many different textures am I seeing and you want to be seeing a ton like you can't really overdo it on texture because it just continues to add interest and keeps your eye moving throughout the space so you want to be able to look at your room and see like different textures whether it's like a velvet a cane wood wool like you want to be seeing all of these things because that is what creates like a really interesting and designer looking space is somebody that knows how to add in more texture okay so and where do we do that is that in our curtains and in our throw pillows yeah i'm looking at my living room right now.

26:16So it can be in your curtains, your throw pillows, your sofa, blankets. If you do an ottoman in the middle of your living room, you could layer window treatments. So you can layer a Roman shade or a woven shade with curtains. And that creates kind of like that depth and that like really interesting designer look. There's texture in like everything. So your side table could have a really interesting texture too. Like you could do an iron side table or rattan. So there you can like really make sure you're picking and choosing a bunch of different textures and think about how you're spreading them throughout the space.

26:56Okay. What are the biggest misconception that parents have about decorating a home with kids? Just that they can't do it. I think really often people are like, I'm just going to wait. And to me, that is really, I don't know, it bums me out because I think it can be, it can really transform like how you live in your space. Like we are humans. There've been loads of studies about how your environment affects how you are, like how you feel, how you show up. And so to simply wait until your kids are like grown and gone to actually enjoy your space is such a bummer. And something I say all the time is like, we are creating the backdrop to your family's memories.

27:44Like when they think back on birthday parties and holidays and stuff like that, they're going to think about their childhood home. And that is so special. And they're also going to remember if like mom was totally overstimulated and snapping at everybody or just like at her wits end with the house. And that's kind of a bummer. So I think like people just think I'm just going to wait until my kids are gone. And I don't think it needs to be that way. Like we can make a house that your kids can really be themselves in and that you really enjoy. It is possible. Sometimes it takes time for you to figure out what you like and what you don't like.

28:29That's why I advise people to kind of go on Pinterest. I think that's probably going to be your best resource. And just start pinning and don't like worry about it too much. Don't overthink it. Just start pinning things that you like. And I think the more you do that, A, the more your Pinterest algorithm is going to get to know what you like and it's going to feed you better ideas and it'll get closer to kind of your aesthetic. But the more pictures that you look at, you're going to be like, actually, I really like all of these like blues and greens. And I see that over and over in all of these images.

29:04So maybe I should start incorporating more of that. No, that's good advice. So the other day I walked into my bathroom and I found my toddler proudly standing there covered in my makeup, blush smeared, mascara in her hair, foundation everywhere. And yet I didn't panic because everything she got into was non-toxic. Yes, the cleanup was annoying, but at least I wasn't worried about toxins or harsh chemicals being all over my kid. Studies have found that forever chemicals or PFAS, which are in tons of conventional makeup brands, are linked to cancer, liver disease, thyroid problems, hormone disruption, and so much more.

29:50And I'm sorry, but that's exactly why I don't want my kids touching that stuff. This is why I switched to the best performing non-toxic makeup brand that works just as well, if not better, than conventional brands. Crunchy makeup is actually clean. No parabens, no synthetic fragrances, no talc, no junk. And it still looks amazing and lasts all day. If you want to clean up your makeup bag, but still look like you actually have your life together, I made a list of all of my favorite go-to crunchy products at learningtomompodcast.com slash makeup so that you don't have to sort through an entire website and get really overwhelmed.

30:31It's all there on the page of what my favorite go-to products are that I'd recommend. I also have a discount code for you on that page. Again, that's learningtomompodcast.com slash makeup. And that link is below in the episode show notes for you. Is there anything that we didn't talk about today of like tangible nuggets or anything left that you want moms to walk away with today? I'm going to be saying this until the day that I die. But when you are thinking about like creating a beautiful kid-friendly home, I think what it comes down to, and I tell people this over and over again, is think about how are we hiding the kids stuff?

31:11And this does not mean make it look like kids don't live in our house, but how are we hiding the kids stuff and then display what you want to display? So incorporating open and closed storage. So all of those like different options that we talked about earlier and then displaying the pretty things on top of it. Not necessarily specifically on top of it, but hide what they hide their kid stuff and then display what you want to display is kind of what it comes down to. And I think if you are trying to just purchase a bunch of things to make your home beautiful, you're going to end up feeling overstimulated like you really have to start at the beginning and think about what systems do we have for our family that work with our family's like normal rhythm and how we actually live in our house so sort of like fix that problem first like otherwise you're just going to be layering more stuff on top of the kids stuff and you're just going to get like more overwhelmed i also i want to say like your bedroom is important too as the parents of the house.