Family Style: Mom Decorated, Kid Approved
There’s something for everyone to love in this house, from pretty antique furniture to a cotton candy-colored kitchen. HGTV Magazine takes you on a tour.
By:
Emily Hsieh
From:
HGTV Magazine
Kid-Friendly Home
There are some houses where furniture — or entire rooms — are off-limits to the kids. But at Michelle and Dave Kohanzo’s Barrington, Ill., home, it’s just the opposite. Maybe because Michelle is one of the minds behind the children’s design company The Land of Nod, where color and fun reign supreme. The kids (clockwise from top left: Everett, 6, Emily, 15, Henry, 8, and Connor, 12) are not only allowed to toss their feet over the side of an armchair, but they also have a say in what comes into the house and what doesn’t.
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Cozy Red Chair
This old wingback chair got a new look when Michelle reupholstered it with a wool blanket and patched it up with vintage Boy Scouts badges. "We share every bit of space, so I’m happy for the whole family to weigh in," says Michelle. The result is a happy-go-lucky style where grown-up taste and kid-inspired spunk live happily together.
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Living Room
Inspired by her childhood summers in a woodsy part of Wisconsin, Michelle gave the living room a lodge-like feel with wool-covered armchairs and an antique oak coffee table. To balance the coziness, she had the lampshades and a wall covered with edgy black Orla Kiely wallpaper.
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Poppy Pillows + Play Zone
A mashup of pillows from Etsy, Anthropologie and Crate & Barrel brighten up the sofa. It's upholstered in black vinyl, so it’s as easy to wipe down as a countertop. The kids often sprawl out with puzzles and blocks in the living room. For speedy cleanup, toys get tossed in the yellow felt bin in the corner.
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Stripey Chair
Michelle reupholstered this Crate & Barrel chair with a vintage Swiss Army blanket, and a striped pink blanket on the arms.
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Entryway
An Etsy artist drew the silhouettes from photos. Wrapping paper serves as matting. "You see these silhouettes of us as soon as you walk in the front door, says daughter Emily. "They’re a few years old, so we’ve grown up a lot! "
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Kitchen
Instead of replacing the original dark wood cabinetry, Michelle painted it Sweet 16 Pink by Benjamin Moore and gave the entire kitchen a Neapolitan color scheme (strawberry, vanilla, chocolate). "It’s kind of silly, but it’s way more fun in here than it used to be," she says.
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Pink Cabinets + Paper Garland
An ice cream shop inspired the kitchen design. Michelle played it up with a retro pink toaster, pastel metal pails and pink gingham curtains. "The kids are crazy about garlands, so we put them up in a bunch of places," says Michelle. This one’s from Etsy.
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Dinnerware Display
The hutch’s interior is covered with floral wallpaper.
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Dining Room
The wood table and white seating are mixed in with a few dressier pieces: an antique chandelier and a vintage armoire filled with amber dishes from Michelle’s grandma. The graphic rug is from West Elm.
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Bright Walls
Michelle paints the dining room a different color every few years, which is a big hit with the kids. This time around: Rosemary Green by Benjamin Moore.
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Boys’ Bedroom
"I loved the idea of my sons bonding by sharing a room," says Michelle. She turned their upstairs family room into a bedroom for all three boys. "I split apart bunk beds and added a flea market bed in the middle. The boys each needed to be able to claim a space, so I gave them different patterned sheets and pillows with their initials," says Michelle.
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Map Wall
Maps from old issues of National Geographic are stuck to the walls with wallpaper paste. "I like the vacation pictures on the walls the best, especially the one of me with a fish I caught," says Connor.
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Make-Believe
The boys have pretend cookouts in the yard. The camper tent and faux campfire are from The Land of Nod.
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Den
"This is the coziest spot in the house," says Michelle. The design started with a Crate & Barrel sofa upholstered in a green botanical print. An Etsy seamstress made the clover-print Roman shades from fabric Michelle found at spoonflower.com. The antique rug, from eBay, was the right size but wrong color — a dull beige — so she dyed it blue.
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Kiddie Accents
Monsters and dolls from The Land of Nod and Etsy share sofa space with pillows from Crate & Barrel.
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Vintage Poster + Letter Sign
Sophisticated but colorful and cartoony: everything the Kohanzo clan wants in a piece of wall art. A metal K for Kohanzo was a flea market find. The kids like it leaning on the floor instead of hanging up high.
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Master Bedroom
Even though Michelle chose a "dreamy, muted palette" — walls are painted soft blue (Morning Sky Blue by Benjamin Moore) — this room is hardly ever calm. Every evening the family piles into the king-sized Anthropologie bed to chat and watch TV. The wall decal above the bed says "I love you beyond measure" ($40, shannamurray.com).
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Canopy Bed + Twinkle Lights
The kids love draping blankets over the top of the bed frame to turn it into a fort. "We hung little Christmas lights on the bed years ago, and the kids were so entranced, we’ve kept them up," says Michelle.
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Photo Collage
A heart-shaped display shows off Hipstamatic photos of the family and sights from Michelle’s work travels.
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Hot-Pink Table
This vintage carved wood table used to be blue. Michelle spray-painted it her daughter’s favorite color, pink (Gloss Mambo Pink by Krylon).
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