The 11 Most Rewarding Renovations for Your Growing Family
/Here is a new blog post from a guest author contributing to
Lang’s Kitchen & Bath’s website. All views expressed are those of the author.
Welcoming additional family members to your home is exciting but has its challenges. One of them is sharing a house not designed for the new occupants. If your space doesn’t fit your growing family, consider these 11 renovation and remodeling ideas.
1. Storage Integration
Kids own lots of stuff, so improve your organizational skills to keep your home neat and calm. Leveraging creative storage designs is the most practical way to do this, such as:
Mounting narrow open shelves on empty wall areas
Outfitting doors with hooks and holders
Buying accent chairs, ottomans, stools, loveseats, and nightstands with hidden compartments
Flanking credenzas and freestanding pantry cabinets with wire-mesh file organizers
Embellishing the backsplash window with cookware racks
Hanging jewelry on tiny cork frames
Sticking makeup on magnetic boards
Keeping toys and books in children’s beds’ built-in drawers
The possibilities will be endless if you let your imagination run wild. Each nook and cranny is a storage space waiting to happen. Opting for multifunctional pieces — like a convertible sofa or a double-duty desk — instead of one-dimensional ones is the mindset shift you need to keep your home clutter-free.
2. Attic or Basement Finishing
Do you have an unfinished attic or basement? Turn either underutilized area into a functional room to increase your livable space.
Attics are often roomy enough to store your treasure trove of prized possessions you want to keep out of sight. Finishing it is an affordable alternative to buying a bigger house if you need an additional or more spacious kids’ bedroom your little ones can use until they’re ready to move out. The basement makes an excellent home office where you can work without distractions or a recreational room that can be the venue for fun-filled movie and game nights.
3. Bathroom Revamp
Outgrowing your bathrooms can cause chaos, so consider expanding them. If the adjacent room has extra real estate, use it to create a separate powder room or a utility toilet. This way, anyone can do a number one or two when somebody’s taking a shower.
If you need extra bathroom space, you have multiple options. Dedicate a portion of your sizable primary bedroom to create an en-suite bathroom. The unfinished basement is perfect for an additional full or three-quarter bath.
Do you have a spare room on the floor where your children sleep? Remodel the middle to have a Jack-and-Jill bathroom your little ones can share.
4. Open Concept Adoption
An open floor plan increases your floor space with the same square footage. Removing interior walls can make your home airy since it blurs the boundaries of your previously cramped living room, kitchen, and dining area. Natural light spreads indoors with fewer obstructions, and movement across the house becomes more fluid.
Open concept makes it easy to supervise your children, too. The absence of walls helps you scan your home.
Interior wall removal is feasible for many do-it-yourselfers, but it may be wiser to hire pros. Knocking down a load-bearing wall by accident can be dangerous and costly. Doing so without a permit will likely be a building code violation with a penalty, which varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
5. Garage Door Upgrade
Rethinking your garage door matters when you have kids starting to run around the house. A poorly designed one can endanger your children in various ways.
A faulty automatic door opener may fail to sense motion or obstruction and injure your little ones. If your wall control panel is below five feet from the ground, your toddlers will eventually reach it and may play with its open and close button.
Kids are too young to understand and remember how dangerous garage doors can be. They can be disobedient, too, so ensure it works as intended to reduce the hazards you must worry about. Get your broken one fixed or replace it with a more child-friendly design.
6. Yard Remodeling
Do you have spare yard space? Pave some of it to make a patio. It’s yet another way to bring the comforts of your living room outside, where you can create lasting memories with your kids. Think al fresco dinners under the stars and backyard camping. If you have a toddler, the patio is the perfect place for messy activities like squirt-gun painting, mud cooking, and chalk twister games.
7. Deck Installation
If your yard has uneven terrain, build a deck instead of a patio. Both outdoor features have the same function, but you can connect the former to an upstairs room. It can serve as a wide balcony and give you a better view.
8. Story Additions
Building upward can magically turn a cramped bungalow into enough room for a family of four. It also doubles your floor space without giving up your yard.
Consider adding another floor if your town permits it. A multi-story house is a perfect forever home for a multigenerational household. It will come in handy should your kids need help to afford to get their own places.
9. Open Porch Reimagination
An open porch is a low-maintenance space to enjoy the surrounding scenery in comfort. However, it exposes you to the elements, wildlife, and allergens, so add a screen or convert it into a sunroom to make it kid-friendly.
A screened porch can keep bugs and critters out and lets your children breathe fresh air and bathe in sunlight. It filters out debris and dead leaves but sacrifices a bit of the view. It’s only usable during pleasant weather, though.
On the contrary, a sunroom is the way to go if you want protection from the sun and precipitation. Tackling a four-season sunroom project makes sense if you live in a place that gets 70 inches of snow yearly — like Caribou, Maine, or Buffalo, New York. If your porch area is limited, you can turn it into a solarium to bring in more light using a glass roof.
10. Downward Expansion
Growing families can find having a finished basement rewarding but find out why your property has no floor below ground level yet. If you see zero legal restriction or obstruction like severe flood proneness, consider constructing a subterranean room when building up is infeasible to dramatically increase your interior space and boost your property’s value.
11. Home Extension
Building out is a desirable project to expand your property’s footprint. If you love the idea of living in a single-story house and have adequate yard space, a home extension is a viable option.
Moreover, home improvements generally stress out kids. A bump-out is minimally disruptive, so your little ones may hardly notice the construction and can continue their daily routines unencumbered.
Your Growing Family Deserves a Growing Home
Households grow across multiple generations these days. Your remodeling decisions today will determine your family’s safety, comfort, health, and happiness longer than you think, so use these 11 suggestions to make the right call.
