Expectant parents envision rocking a sweet, sleeping bundle in a picture-perfect nursery, reading by cozy lamp light to a pajama-wearing toddler and other heartwarming scenes. Unfortunately, parenthood doesn’t normally look like a postcard. Building kid-friendly homes near Laredo helps parents organize the clutter and chaos that comes with having children.

WestWind Homes prioritizes family-friendly home design because we know that it makes life better. Parents want beautiful homes they can feel proud of, and kids need space to move, explore and grow. Kid-friendly homes near Laredo offer features that work for both groups.

Challenges Parents Face Building Kid-Friendly Homes

  • Kids are messy. They don’t think about what wet towels and muddy shoes do to surfaces. They forget to leave their juice cup on the kitchen counter. They walk in the door and drop whatever they’re carrying where it falls. They bring “treasures” from outside covered in muck you wish they’d leave where they found them.
  • Kids are destructive. They don’t mean to be, they just run a lot. And run into things. And swing hard objects around at high velocity. They don’t think through the fact that if they use their baseball bat for indoor swordplay, one hard hit could punch holes in sheetrock and dent trim.
  • Kids love animals. They’re going to want at minimum a puppy, a kitten, a turtle, and a pony. You don’t have to give in on all counts, but kid-friendly homes can stand up to furry (and scaly) friends. But the thing is, animals are even messier and more destructive than kids.
  • Kids multiply. Even if you don’t give birth to more than one, they travel in packs. Kid-friendly homes near Laredo are comfortable places for children to gather.
  • Kids grow up. They fill their space, seemingly getting bigger by the minute, then one day all of the sudden they’re gone. Then they come back, bringing spouses and children of their own.

All of that creates challenges. Solve them one by one with the following family-friendly design ideas, all of which you can get in a WestWind Home.

Kid-Friendly Homes Near Laredo Have These Area Features

Some of the most important features of a family-friendly home aren’t inside four walls. They’re facets of the community in which your home is built.

Kid-Friendly Homes are in Kid-Safe Neighborhoods

Remember back when you were little and you didn’t have smartphones and video games to keep you entertained all day? If you dared tell your parents you were bored, they shooed you outside. And you made some of the happiest memories of your childhood.

You rode your bike up and down the road, knocking on doors until you found someone who could come out and play. You used your imagination until nightfall. When you returned home, it was with dirty fingernails, skinned knees, new grass stains and a happy heart.

It’s still possible to give your child those types of experiences, if you prioritize buying kid-friendly homes near Laredo in safe neighborhoods. WestWind Homes only builds in safe parts of town, and our communities have safety-enhancing features like brightly lit streets and neighbors who are as vigilant as you are.

Top-Rated Schools Give Children the Best Education

Kids might not think tough teachers and a rigorous curriculum is fun, but a good education prepares them to reach their future goals. All Laredo WestWind Homes communities are in United Independent School District, whose mission is to “inspire all students to become responsible world citizens by pursuing excellence through lifelong learning.”

We plan communities near top area elementary, middle and high schools so parents can feel good about their child’s education. We provided a breakdown by school in our article on school districts in Laredo.

Best Homes for Kids are Affordable to their Parents

When parents are stressed over money, it impacts everyone. Parents have to work longer hours, so they’re tired when they’re home and they have less time for their children. Money worries hurt relationships and are one of the leading causes of divorce. Sometimes when parents struggle to make ends meet, they don’t even have enough left over to meet their children’s basic needs.

At WestWind Homes, we’ll never counsel families to take on a mortgage that could threaten their family’s well-being. Instead, we provide families with incredible value. Because we build so many homes every year, we’re able to purchase materials at wholesale prices. We pass those discounts on to the consumer. Here’s the cost of kid-friendly homes near Laredo:

As you can see, WestWind Homes builds new construction homes in family-friendly communities in a variety of price ranges. Schedule a tour to find the one that fits your lifestyle and budget.

Must-Have Features of Kid Friendly Homes Near Laredo

Once you’ve narrowed your search to safe neighborhoods in good school districts, these features will make it possible to design a dream home that’s also family-friendly.

Choose Kid-Friendly Flooring

When they’re infants, you’re not going to have much time for running the vacuum and mop. Then they’ll be toddlers and you won’t believe the amount of mess they can generate. For years they just get bigger and seemingly grungier. You need flooring that’s equal to the task. Anticipate problems like the following:

  • Water everywhere when they come in from the sprinkler or the rain
  • Gritty dirt and small pebbles on shoes and boots
  • Stains from beverages, sticky sucker sticks and whatever the brushed up against on the way home
  • Food debris because even though you prohibited it, they smuggled snacks to their room and forgot them in hidden places
  • Gouges in soft flooring from when they led your Great Dane on a romp around the house

Install hard surfaces in common areas to protect high traffic zones. Ceramic tile is almost indestructible. Vinyl can mimic the look of stone or wood, and it’s moisture-proof and impact-resistant.

Make Bathrooms Kid-Proof

You want your kids to brush their teeth twice a day, but even though you constantly remind them, somehow there’s always toothpaste everywhere. And why knows why can’t they keep soapy water in the sink and the tub, but it seems like more ends up on the walls and the floor. There are a few things you can do to help.

Use ceramic tile everywhere you can. Tile the walls too, not just the floor.

Realize when little ones struggle to reach, they can’t aim. Give them a stepstool for the sink and anything else they’re having trouble reaching.

Design for accessible storage. Make it easy for kids to put dirty laundry on the hamper. Install towel hooks where they can reach. Provide a place to stow bath toys when not in use.

Think Soft and Round

Kid-friendly surfaces don’t have hard edges. They’ll find more ways to damage themselves than you would have dreamed possible, so limit the possibilities when they’re home.

Choose solid furniture with rounded edges instead of square corners. Upholstered is even better. For example, substitute a big round ottoman for a coffee table, and you have a room that’s both stylish and safe. Ask for rounded corners on countertops as part of your home design so even hard surfaces are more child-safe.

Easy-Access Storage

The more individuals in your household, the more stuff they’re going to have. Thoughtful storage can make the difference between a home that’s cluttered and one that always stays neat.

WestWind Homes come with open storage you can configure to meet your family’s needs. Our design experts can help you design and plan storage spaces that fit your lifestyle. That way sports equipment, shoe collections, backpacks and hobby supplies don’t end up in a jumble or on the floor, each item has a place.

Another way to make storage easy-access is by using hooks. Hang hooks in the garage for outside toys and sports equipment. Put hooks in the laundry room for coats and hats. Hang hooks in closets for backpacks and robes.

Conceal Messes

Not all storage should be open. Some items just aren’t pretty, no matter how organized you are. WestWind Homes come with plenty of closet space, so you can stow life’s messes and seasonal items out of sight for a neat interior.

Kid-Friendly Homes Near Laredo Built For Making Memories

When your children are grown, it won’t matter whether your home looked like what you saw in magazines. You won’t care about the scuffs on the walls. You’ll laugh about the time you didn’t know your son brought home a snake until you found it a week later.

What you’ll remember is the precious times baking together in the kitchen, the first steps in the living room and the holidays gathered around the table. And they’ll remember the same.

WestWind Homes has been building kid-friendly homes near Laredo for more than 25 years. Get in touch to find yours today.