Family Homes

Unlike other repellers and traps, it won’t put a damper on your dinner.

I saw another kid telling my child that she didn’t want to play with her anymore, and it was really hard to hear. My daughter was devastated. How would you approach this topic with a child?Jo AnnaDear Jo Anna,This is a tough one and I’m just going to fall back on what I learned as a teacher and not try to be a smart parent on this one. I’m rarely a smart parent, but I was a pretty good teacher.

Fall is nearly here, and we have got some brilliant, stylish ideas to upgrade your front porch!

Last year, back-to-school felt more like back-to-schoolish. My younger son was fully remote (so, fully in his pajamas), while the older one started with a hybrid schedule so complicated I needed a whiteboard to attempt to keep track. In survival mode, we missed out on the rituals: the in-person backpack shopping, the running to Staples for one more yellow folder or glue stick.

Bright colors, cute art, fun wallpapers, and whimsical accessories... Lucy Hamilton's home is incredibly happy, colorful, and pretty!

Co-Founder of Wolf + Friends Carissa Tozzi shares this home with husband Dino, their six-year-old son Wolf, and their rescue pup, Pepito.

Amazing what a coat of paint and some fresh drawer knobs can do.

This piece was created for Cubby, our weekly newsletter for families at home. Want more? Sign up here for a weekly splash of fun and good ideas for families with kids. Join us over on Instagram for more! It certainly seems there may be some kind of new normal for the upcoming school year.

My philosophy: get your system together, and let it work for you. Here's how we did it.

It’s safe to say 2020 (and 2021!) is a year we learned a lot more than we ever thought we’d know (or want to know) about disinfecting. From how to do laundry in a pandemic to how to effectively eliminate viruses from household surfaces, we all gained a lot of new wisdom about how to take care of our homes and how to take care of ourselves. And yet, chances are you’re probably still making some mistakes.

If you’ve ever wanted your home to look like a wizard’s common room meets an apothecary meets a Wes Anderson film set, there’s a name for that: It’s called dark academia, and it encompasses incredibly moody, whimsical interiors. (Think: wall-to-wall bookcases, sculptural fireplaces, tufted sofas, collections on display, and dark, dreamy wallpaper.

I always angst over kids using public restrooms while on the road! Do you have any tips? LizzieDear Lizzie,When I saw your question come in I felt really unprepared to deal with it. But since then I’ve had to stop a number of times and take a three year old to the bathroom, and YES it gave me angst at first.

We did a complete transformation ourselves, and our daughter loves it as much as we do!

It’s nearly impossible to renovate every room of your home at once, so some spaces have to wait a little longer than others for a transformation. At Michela Andrioletti’s (@casa_in_newyork) home that she shares with her husband, that space was the entryway. “We put in the first things we could find at the most affordable budget when we moved here five years ago and then we just didn’t have time to fix it,” Michela says.

Name: Geraldine, Trevor, Jojo, and MichaelLocation: North London, UKSize: 2700 square feetType of Home: Victorian terrace houseYears Lived In: 15 years, owned If you’ve been on Instagram for awhile, you’ve probably heard of Little Big Bell. The face behind those pastel-colored squares? That’s Dr. Geraldine Tan, a medical doctor by day and an interior and lifestyle blogger by night.

Mud room organization, but make it really, really stylish. And there's even a ... dog bath?!

Okay, I never thought I would say this, but some 2-in-1 cordless stick vacuums actually make cleaning fun! As a general rule, I used to hate all household chores equally. But there’s something about using these cool devices that doesn’t feel like I’m completing a tedious task. Here’s the best analogy I can think of: If a regular vacuum cleaner is a minivan, the right 2-in-1 cordless stick vac is a sports car.

It’s one thing to renovate a home — which is a lot of work in itself — but revitalizing an entire town? That’s what you call next-level. Ben and Erin Napier, who host HGTV’s “Home Town,” took the task on in their new show “Home Town Takeover,” where they’ve chosen the lucky town of Wetumpka, Alabama, to be the star of the series.

This piece was created for Cubby, our weekly newsletter for families at home. Want more? Sign up here for a weekly splash of fun and good ideas for families with kids. Join us over on Instagram for more! I was caught off guard the first time I was struck with re-emergence anxiety. My oldest and I were about to step into Target for a quick milk-and-eggs pick up when I realized I had forgotten to grab his mask from home. My usually-stocked emergency mask stash was nowhere to be found either.

Now that you’re vaccinated, you might be wondering if you can go back to your old hand sanitizer-free days. Do you still need to wash your hands every time you return home? Do you need to be wiping down surfaces? What, exactly, do we need to keep disinfecting … if anything? This is all further complicated by back-to-school season, where exposure levels are increased all around.We asked a few infectious disease experts — Dr.

It’s not hard to understand the appeal of machine-washable rugs, especially for families. Rather than panicking when you knock over your glass of wine, your kid leaves muddy footprints, or your furry friend has an accident, you can simply throw the rug in your washing machine on the cold setting and go back to enjoying your life. So, the case for buying a washable rug is obvious, but what’s not so obvious is where to buy one.

Out with the green laminate countertops, in with a bright, modern look.

My son is starting school this year — hurrah! He’s a little nervous, so I’m hopeful you have some suggestions on fun back-to-school rituals to get him excited again?AndreaDear Andrea,Nervousness around big changes like this is totally natural and it also means that your son has a healthy regard for what is about to happen.

How busy households set up their entryways!

This piece was created for Cubby, our weekly newsletter for families at home. Want more? Sign up here for a weekly splash of fun and good ideas for families with kids. Join us over on Instagram for more! Last summer, when my daughter learned to read, I wrestled with a laughable yet persistent worry: If left to her own devices, would my then 6-year-old ever venture outside again, comfortable as she was paging through one book after another?

I’ve been finding that I use television as a rescue tool too often for my 5-year-old daughter. Do you have any easy alternatives to cure boredom and/or exhaustion that don’t involve screens?Jo AnnaDear Jo Anna,This is probably the TOUGHEST problem vexing us parents in this day and age.

Name: The Three Amigos (3 year old, and twin 5 year olds) Location: Vancouver, Canada After Melissa snatched up a pretty cute playhouse from Costco, she started dreaming up an adorable upgrade. Life got in the way, as it so often does, so it took awhile for the playhouse to get an upgrade. Combine one weekend, a super creative mom, white paint and elbow grease and you get the kind of playhouse that childhood dreams are made of.

This piece was created for Cubby, our weekly newsletter for families at home. Want more? Sign up here for a weekly splash of fun and good ideas for families with kids. Join us over on Instagram for more! My wife and I live with our three young daughters in a 700-square-foot railroad style apartment in New York City. We enjoy the simplicity of living in a small space and creatively thinking about how to make the most of it.

My husband and I have really different parenting styles: he tends to be really rules-oriented, while I take a less disciplined approach. Do you have any tips on meeting in the middle?BethDear Beth,First of all, I think it’s great that you have different parenting styles and that is a real strength in terms of allowing your kids to experience and understand two different perspectives and approaches to problems that they will one day solve for themselves.

How do we incorporate allowances — and what, if any, alignment should the money have with their chores or other responsibilities? JennyDear Jenny,I have really struggled over this one too, particularly when I’m tired on a Sunday, my daughter hasn’t been the best kid in the world that day, and she says, “You haven’t given me my allowance yet!

This piece was created for Cubby, our weekly newsletter for families at home. Want more? Sign up here for a weekly splash of fun and good ideas for families with kids. Join us over on Instagram for more! Living outside the United States changed me and my family life in both mundane and profound ways. Like many Americans abroad, we adopted local and regional foods, festivals, and language in our new home of Singapore.

This piece was created for Cubby, our weekly newsletter for families at home. Want more? Sign up here for a weekly splash of fun and good ideas for families with kids. Join us over on Instagram for more! My son Luke loves bath time. And after bath, he loves to streak from the tub to his bedroom — with or without his Prince George-inspired bathrobe. This nightly cuteness turned my hallway into a Slip and Slide, and not in a good way.

I need help and ideas on how to get kids involved in helping around the house — especially because we’re all here all the time.Michelle(Hi all! I’m working behind the scenes to get ahead and taking some vacation with my daughter – three of her friends are coming for the weekend this weekend! – so I’m re-running a few of the most READ Q&A’s from the past year. See you in a few weeks!

Going on vacation is supposed to be relaxing and fun. But there is always so much to worry about before you leave — and even while you’re away! You need to check your luggage to make sure you packed everything you meant to. Then when you’re actually on vacation, you are worrying about your house and your pets, hoping that they are being good for the sitter. And how many times have you stressed about turning the stove off before you left the house? Did you turn it off?

This piece was created for Cubby, our weekly newsletter for families at home. Want more? Sign up here for a weekly splash of fun and good ideas for families with kids. Join us over on Instagram for more! Looking to create a resort-like backyard but can’t squeeze an in-ground pool into the plans? Worse yet: maybe your pool options have sold out already. You might want to take a trip down to the local farm supply store to check out their selection of stock tanks.

This piece was created for Cubby, our weekly newsletter for families at home. Want more? Sign up here for a weekly splash of fun and good ideas for families with kids. Join us over on Instagram for more! “Mama, I’ll be able to see my friends’ happy faces again!” my 5-year-old exclaimed when I told him his school planned to instate a mask-optional policy outdoors.

Keeping working from home and virtual learning presents undeniable organizational challenges for parents. Luckily, Clea Shearer and Joanna Teplin — the dynamic duo also known as The Home Edit, Instagram’s beloved home organizers — shared their easy, doable tip for helping to keep clutter at bay in shared spaces.The pair dished on how to keep home classrooms and offices well-organized, even if those two spaces are now one and the same.

You often have to get creative with the way you lay out and allocate your square footage in a smaller home. Every nook and cranny counts, and for Ella Hall, founder of Stitchroom, the cluttered problem corner in her bedroom actually became the solution to her home’s lack of space for a dedicated nursery. “When I found out I was pregnant, I knew I needed a spot for the baby, and we have limited space in our Brooklyn apartment,” says Hall.

Amazon Prime Day isn’t the only major sale happening this week. Some of your favorite retailers and brands are getting in on the fun by offering huge savings of their own on home and kitchen essentials, TVs and tech, and large and small appliances. Add Prime Day to an already sale-heavy week, and you’ve got a perfect storm of *epic* deals. To help you find the best stuff fast, we’ve compiled all the competing Prime Day sales here.

This piece was created for Cubby, our weekly newsletter for families at home. Want more? Sign up here for a weekly splash of fun and good ideas for families with kids. Join us over on Instagram for more! Summer camp — it’s downright magical. The memories of sleeping in tents, racing to plunge in cold ponds, and learning to ride horses among towering pine trees are the stuff of novels. And for some reason, those friendship bracelets were more powerful at creating BFFs in IRL.

This piece was created for Cubby, our weekly newsletter for families at home. Want more? Sign up here for a weekly splash of fun and good ideas for families with kids. Join us over on Instagram for more! The day has arrived — a day of unbelievably good deals, especially for parents and caregivers shopping for their kids. Amazon Prime Day kicked off this morning, June 21, and will run through tomorrow, June 22.

This piece was created for Cubby, our weekly newsletter for families at home. Want more? Sign up here for a weekly splash of fun and good ideas for families with kids. Join us over on Instagram for more! When I close my eyes and conjure the best elements of my childhood summers, there’s one beloved activity that bubbles up again and again. No, it’s not the Slip n’ Slide. Or the waterpark (although those are totes fun). It’s fort-building.

We’ve always had a car sickness problem — would love help with that!RobinDear Robin, We’re about to head out to a wedding in Iowa this week, so your question is perfect. With plane travel and a rented car, we’re going to be logging some long travel hours and my daughter, Ursula, regularly dislikes car rides (though she’s never been a thrower-upper).

When we decided to sell our three-bedroom, 2,100-square foot ranch, my husband and I had a few non-negotiables for our next home. We wanted a two-level house and a somewhat open main-floor layout. We’re not fixer-uppers, so a recently renovated kitchen was a must. A fenced-in backyard would be nice, we decided, and so would a finished basement. One thing that wasn’t on our must-have list? More square feet.

This piece was created for Cubby, our weekly newsletter for families at home. Want more? Sign up here for a weekly splash of fun and good ideas for families with kids. Let me paint you a pre-pandemic picture: our family of three is walking through Disney World amidst the swell of a late-summer heat wave. We wait in line for hours to see the gliding princesses and slinking villains, all clad in their (sweaty-looking) costumes.

Cottagecore, the No. 1 decor trend on TikTok for two years running, is marked by its vintage-inspired shabby-chicness. Floral wallpaper, patchwork quilts, doilies, and other whimsical, woodlands-y accessories (think: mushroom decor and dried flowers), which a few years ago you might have only found in a Hobbit hole or a very cute bed and breakfast, are now back in the mainstream — and they can add charming, cozy, comforting vibes to any space.

Name: Brooke Fitts, with my partner, and my 10-year-old daughter. We also live with our two dogs, Marley and Otis.Location: White Center, Seattle Size: 957 square feetType of Home: Two-bedroom, one-bathroom mid-century house Years lived in: 1 year, owned I found my home on Redfin! I had a great real estate agent, but had a clear idea of what I wanted and didn’t want so kept a roving eye on the market.

This piece was created for Cubby, our weekly newsletter for families at home. Want more? Sign up here for a weekly splash of fun and good ideas for families with kids. My couches are my constant. My pair of Room & Board André sofas have seen me through a new apartment, a new husband, a new job, and a newborn. I bought them long before I thought I would be a father. I lived with IKEA as-is finds and furniture dragged in off the street for my first 10 years in Brooklyn.

This piece was created for Cubby, our weekly newsletter for families at home. Want more? Sign up here for a weekly splash of fun and good ideas for families with kids. Piled among the many challenges of parenthood lie those desperate bedtime blues that leave families exhausted and just a bit defeated. Maybe you know what I’m talking about?

School is almost out and many families are planning summer plans and potential vacations after a year spent primarily inside. As more and more people try to reclaim a sense of “normalcy” in a post-vaccine world, many parents might be wondering if it’s safe for unvaccinated children to play together, hop on planes, and hug family and friends.

This piece was created for Cubby, our weekly newsletter for families at home. Want more? Sign up here for a weekly splash of fun and good ideas for families with kids. About five years ago, I was interviewing a woman for a magazine story when we veered off-topic to her family’s new-to-them Westfalia. She mentioned how life-changing the shift to the camper van had been.

Is it better to travel during the day (have to entertain kids, stop for bathrooms), or travel during the night so kids sleep? But then at least one parent has some serious adjustment to their sleep once they arrive.CathyDear Cathy,Yes! It’s road trip time finally after over a year of being stuck at home, so thanks for the question. I hope I can be helpful here, but I do want to say that any good answer could be very different for different families.

Hey, Maxwell, I heard that when you were a teacher you kept a box of your students’ artwork for twenty years. Is that true? What happened to it? LukeDear Anon,It is true! Back in January of 2000, I was in my second to last year of teaching elementary school. As my class and I crossed the millennium mark and all the fears of Y2K subsided, I had the idea of asking my class to write down where they would be in 20 years, 2020, when I would call them up to come back to school for a reunion.

My daughter wants to make over her room. She wants to hang wallpaper. Should I do it? MeghanDear Meghan,I admire your daughter for her adventurous spirit, and I also understand your hesitancy. Wallpaper can seem like a big commitment and with children changing their minds all the time it doesn’t always make a lot of sense. Here’s what I would say: go for it by transforming ONE wall and don’t do traditional wallpaper!

I am confronting an empty nest and finally have time to go through all those stashes of art. I’m ready to let go, but HOW? A Viking burial pyre of burning art? We seem to have gone through a heavy phase of paint-your-own pottery, with some hideous results … (but as soon as I think of smashing them, it’s like “Ooh! Then we could make a mosaic with the pieces!” and there’s a whole new thing to not be able to throw away).

This piece was created for Cubby, our weekly newsletter for families at home. Want more? Sign up here for a weekly splash of fun and good ideas for families with kids. When you’re in the thick of raising little humans, it can seem somewhat incomprehensible to carve out time for a creative project of your own. Especially if childcare isn’t in the cards at the moment.

This piece was created for Cubby, our weekly newsletter for families at home. Want more? Sign up here for a weekly splash of fun and good ideas for families with kids. Until I was a teenager, I was raised in a multigenerational home, with my parents, brother, and paternal grandparents, and, on occasion, an aunt or uncle or cousin who used our home as a waypoint on their immigration journey.

When my first child was born, my husband’s coworker gave us a wooden step stool as a baby gift. It was a beautiful: solid wood, about 12 inches tall, white with lavender treads and our daughter’s name carved in it in a sweet font. That’s nice, I thought, but why would anyone ever gift an apartment-dweller such a large gift?Well, obviously she was an experienced mom!

It’s difficult to imagine, in advance, the sheer enormousness of actual, physical things that kids come with: the clothes, the shoes, the sports equipment; the books, the games, and the toys. And then there’s the paper. No one prepares you for how long and never-ending the paper trail is. It starts before they’re even born, with doctors’ records, books, and all those special baby shower cards. And the deluge never stops.

Sarah and Tom Godfrey rented their small two-bedroom Victorian terrace house in a village in Nottinghamshire, England, for two years when their landlord decided to sell the house. Sarah was expecting her second child at the time, and although they thought the house was too small for a family of four, the couple knew it had potential. “Having lived in the historical village for two years we knew it was a special place to be,” says Sarah.

This piece was created for Cubby, our weekly newsletter for families at home. Want more? Sign up here for a weekly splash of fun and good ideas for families with kids. I don’t know about you, but I could look at before-and-after photos all day. Show me a messy pantry and then — snap! — perfectly labeled containers of cereal and I’m giddy. That’s pretty much what it’s like in the land of #MomHacks on TikTok.

We’ll be moving soon and I would love any tips on moving with an 18-month-old. Packing, unpacking, cleaning, everything that goes into moving to another state. I’m all ears. 🙂 EmilyDear Emily,At first I was, like, WOW, I’ve got to do some research and ask my other editors to get more info before answering your question.

This piece was created for Cubby, our weekly newsletter for families at home. Want more? Sign up here for a weekly splash of fun and good ideas for families with kids. This winter, when my 6-year-old’s plastic tiara broke into pieces before her virtual ballet recital, she asked if I would put out a call for a replacement to our local Buy Nothing group.

Every parent knows that cleaning up toys is a struggle, but the right organizing system can help make it easier.Leanna Laming, the author of the blog Life by Leanna and a mom of three, acknowledges that her family’s toy closet (above) was better looking than many, but it wasn’t working for her family. Leanne realized there was room for improvement. In particular, while toy types were arranged by bin, those bins were completely opaque and didn’t have labels.

This piece was created for Cubby, our weekly newsletter for families at home. Want more? Sign up here for a weekly splash of fun and good ideas for families with kids. As a mom with a whole closet dedicated to fabric, paper, and 14 hot glue guns, few things bring me more joy than watching my boys harnessing their own creative genius. I beam whenever they excitedly hand me their newest “masterpiece.

This piece was created for Cubby, our weekly newsletter for families at home. Want more? Sign up here for a weekly splash of fun and good ideas for families with kids. When the world shut down last year, parents and kids were faced with all kinds of challenges, and everyone learned (very quickly) that the idyllic place to work, study, and Zoom goes beyond buying the perfect desk. Some families are still fine tuning their spaces to this day.

I like to get ready before my son wakes up in the morning, but lately, he’s been waking up when I start walking around in the morning! He’s got a sound machine in his room but the floor does creak in the hallway. Any ideas on getting a creaky floor to stop creaking? Or helping a kid sleep past 5:30 like he used to? EmilyDear Emily,Thanks so much for this question, because: a.) a quiet morning with children still asleep is one of the most precious things in life and b.

Name: Jean Ross, husband, Craig, two boys, Bowie and Rhys, and a Frenchie, Hawkins (aka Toots)Location: Cobourg, OntarioType of home: Coach houseSize: 3,000 square feetYears lived in: 1 month, ownedTell us a little (or a lot) about your home and the people who live there: We just moved to a small town in Southern Ontario from Toronto a month ago! We had been looking for houses outside the city for years and couldn’t find the right one. We wanted something different and unique.

This piece was created for Cubby, our weekly newsletter for families at home. Want more? Sign up here for a weekly splash of fun and good ideas for families with kids. Spring was heralded by the first few 60-degree days in a row and we were ready. For many, the new season began with the refrain, “Mom, can we open the bubbles and sidewalk chalk, pleaseeee?” For my part, I knew spring had finally arrived when I saw the new Target collection.

Name: Vanessa Béland, husband Félix & baby daughterLocation: Saint-Hubert, QuébecSize: 1100 square feet + basementYears lived in: 4 yearsVanessa and Félix have been cultivating their first home together over the past four years. Taking the renovation process room by room, they have transformed the space into a warm — and very pink! — home that reflects their bright and fun-loving personalities.

Cleaning isn’t typically thought of as “fun” or “interesting” (or if it is, I applaud you). While the chore itself can be boring, there are plenty of clever, fun, and just plain weird cleaning tools out there that can jazz things up. We’re talking about products that are for those small annoying tasks that aren’t completely terrible, but could be made better — you just don’t think about them as much.

This piece was created for Cubby, our weekly newsletter for families at home. Want more? Sign up here for a weekly splash of fun and good ideas for families with kids. Our family is obsessed with thanking one another. We exchange gratitude for the practical acts (picking up the groceries; sharing the last slice of pizza; tidying up the toys) as well as the big moments (for being brave at school; for forgiving me when I snapped at you).