Peace in our time

A house filled with the ringing laughter of children is a pleasure, but it is amazing how many large possessions a small person can build up and how much devastation this can unleash upon a tidy family home.

One of the best solutions to ensuring that you retain your sanity is to create a designated play area: you do not have to make it the biggest area in the home. Indeed, it is a good idea to adapt their bedroom to make it more dual purpose with a raised bed to create more floor area.

To ensure that your children want to be there (and own the space themselves) an indoor play area needs to be fun. Little minds have fairly short attention spans and require plenty of sensory stimulation so create a vibrant area with fantastic and interesting colours and designs to create a light, invigorating area.

Consider, an inspiring wallpaper that contains a lot of images so that young minds can pick up their own patterns and create their own stories (such as ‘ere be dragons wallpaper by PaperBoy Wallpaper; £60 a roll – www.paperboywallpaper.co.uk, 0207 193 9135).

Avoid harsh primary colours, which can quickly become boring for a child, limiting in terms of further decoration and are unlikely to appeal to the adults of the home.

It is important to source play furniture, such as chairs and tables, which is the right size for your child so that they can use them unaided. There is a move back towards traditional wooden furniture (such as the Noah’s Ark group from Becky and Lolo; £149.99 – www.beckyandlolo.co.uk, 01420 511405).

However, there are plenty of good quality plastic alternatives which can often provide innovative solutions. Cost need not be prohibitive – Ikea has some incredible designs (if you can cope with the scrum at the checkout). Alternatively, check out www.awhiteroom.com where items such as the Magis Puppy or Cat offer a funky alternative to the traditional chair.

Seating and storage are two vital ingredients that you can combine to maximise space using an Animal Bag. Essentially, a big plush bag that has zipper windows to allow you to tidy all the soft toys away, the bag can then be used as a soft seat. Simple idea, great designs (from £44.99; www.boonuk.co.uk – 0845 618 5954).

You want to create a safe area for your children to play unsupervised. To this end, ensure any bookcases or cupboards are sturdy and well secured to avoid accidents, but at the same time make certain that they are accessible so that your children feel independent in their own space.

A great way to encourage creativity is by creating a blackboard wall at home. Use MDF cut to a height a little higher than you expect your children to grow in the next three years and of a length to span an entire stretch of wall. Coat the MDF in black board paint (available from hardware stores) and fix to the wall. Your offspring will then have a great space to draw with either traditional chalks or chalk markers (as used in many pubs) both easily available from stationers. When your team are fed up with their art, simply wash down and start again. Store the blackboard paint to use for an annual refresher to keep the surface easy to use.

If you have enough space above the blackboard fill it by enlarging a special family picture (or have a digital image transposed onto a custom made wallpaper, from about £39 per square metre) to create an individual feature. Enlargements are available from most high street photo processing shops, or for terrific canvas prints at reasonable prices visit websites such at www.yourimage2canvas.co.uk; here you can upload your image over the web and have it delivered to your door in under a week. A good site for personalised wallpaper is www.printedspace.com.

There are many options to use on your flooring. Soft play mats are particularly good and are now available not only in bright colours, but in sets that incorporate letters, numbers and even working piano keyboards to allow a little rough and tumble, but plenty of creative play (check out www.softfloorkids.co.uk or www.thechildrensstore.co.uk). You can also soften a wood floor or introduce a fun focal point to a plain carpet by adding a rug. This also helps keep costs down and allows you to change you feature as your child’s tastes change. Companies such as Arte Espina have an incredible range available including treasure maps, mazes and beautiful butterflies at price points from £95 (01226 753300; www.carpetcentrewombwell.co.uk).

When you have designed this space your little ones can create havoc, while you can just shut the door on the mess at the end of the day.

Jamie Hempsall, BIID, is an award-winning interior designer. To contact him call 0800 032 1180 or visit www.jamiehempsall.com