Where did the time go?
The problem with nesting
In an effort to avoid the mistakes of others, I’m often asked by my customers the number one error couples make when renovating their homes. While it’s difficult to pick just one, I think one of the toughest things to steer our clients away from is their wish to renovate for their new babies – those small bundles we love, want to spoil, and hope will stay wee forever.
We all love babies. And when it’s time to nest, it’s human nature to want to make everything perfect for the littles. But here’s the thing – and as a father I know this – they aren’t little for long.
In the blink of an eye, we go from baby, to toddler to teenager. Each age and stage of life requires either a flexible home that grows with our young ones or a renovation based on resale plans. Today, I’m talking about the former, making sure your renovation works as your kids grow older.
This issue of renovating for a specific age of child pops up often among my clients looking to renovate period homes in Calgary’s most sought after inner-city neighbourhoods.
Over my 25+ years as a custom renovation and homebuilding contractor, I’ve had clients ask me to build:
- bathrooms with pint-sized bathtubs and no shower
- bedrooms designed with crazy expensive, child-sized built-ins and fixtures
- huge playrooms away from adult living spaces
- study desks in the kitchen
- and so on ….
I don’t at all blame people for wanting these sorts of features in their family home. So often, people have seen and show me dreamy baby room photos in magazines and imagine what they would have loved growing up in. It’s easy to romanticize the nooks and crannies of some of the period homes in the inner-city.
But reality is different than our imaginations and fantasies. Kids do their homework at the kitchen island, they grow quickly so the cute and tiny toddler built-ins are outgrown in a flash and, most importantly, they want to be with you and you’ll want to keep an eye on them as they grow so open concept play spaces nearer to family living spaces work much better than out of the way playrooms.
I know, it all looked so great on paper!
When you’re planning your dream renovation, it’s so important to start with the big questions. How long will we live in this house – three years or 30? How many kids are we planning to have? How does our lifestyle impact our plans? How do we want to engage our kids in our everyday life and when we’re entertaining?
Once you have answers to these questions and many others, we’ll sit down with you and design professionals that will help ensure the renovation you’re planning lasts as long as you own your home and for all the ages and stages of your family.
Oh. One thing. Despite doing some great planning well in advance, you’ll still end up scratching your head and asking yourself how all those years passed so quickly.