Babyproofing without Sacrificing Style

Interiors & Decor

At what point do you start to babyproof your home? For us, it was about a month after he began to “crawl.”

The Peters define “crawling” very loosely because while our baby is on the move, he’s opted for a bizarre barrel-roll style of transport around the house, which is both inventive and dangerous. I’m doing my best to not freak out over every bump and bruise.

With mobility comes the additional terror of babyproofing. Admittedly, we were incredibly lazy with making our home safe for our child. It wasn’t due to lack of caring, but a general sense of confusion on exactly what we had to do. Joe and I wanted to strike a balance between wrapping August in bubble wrap and a “walk it off, kid” mentality.

We did the obvious safety measures: cover up outlets, baby gate before the stairs, you know, simple stuff. Because both of our respective sets of parents were of the “Bleeding? No? You’re fine” type; we didn’t have many resources for safety, except the internet. Bad idea. I made the horrible mistake of Googling “how do you babyproof” one night, and was overwhelmed by the seemingly innocuous household items that were waiting to harm my child: dressers, plants, pots, his mattress, blinds. According to certain websites, I shouldn’t be drinking coffee around him.

Thankfully, I was able to get past the notion that I was a horrible mother for not letting the mattress off-gas or that my home was full of lead paint, and take action on the safety items I could control. One of them is investing in cordless window treatments.

We reached out to Hunter Douglas during some initial research into the product, and after seeing the designs, we didn’t look any farther. What Joe and I both liked about the brand was the clean and modern design of the shades. You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to find window treatments that are functional and stylish. We selected the brand’s Vignette Modern Roman Shades in White Dawn, a classic style that complements the traditional yet modern look of our home, and work not only in the nursery but in our bedroom as well.

Aside from aesthetics, we liked Hunter Douglas’ PowerView Motorization technology, which lets us customize our shades to automatically adjust throughout the day. We use this technology to close the shades in the nursery midday, a must with the harsh (but beautiful) late afternoon sun in August’s room. As an added security bonus when we travel, we’ve set the shades to open and close at various times throughout the day, to appear as if we are home.

As a first step, Hunter Douglas sent out a team to install the shades in our home. Afterwards, the team walked us through how to program the shades and operate the PowerView system an.

We were so pleased with the window treatments and the technology for our home that we ordered Hunter Douglas Skyline Window Panels to dress the huge floor-to-ceiling window panels in our studio—a game-changer for controlling the amount of natural light we get in the space, especially for photo shoots.

The shades are not only safer than our previous ones with cords, but we are all sleeping better, and longer since the installation. That is when there are no 4:30 am wake up calls from August our new Vignette Shades.

(A small, but critical note: we adjusted August’s crib to a higher position for the sake of these photos. We are in no way, shape or form promoting or want to convey unsafe sleeping habits and want to be clear that we DO NOT recommend this crib position for children of August’s size and age. What you don’t see in the image, is me, directly left of the crib ready to pounce. And yes, I grasp the irony of titling the image “babyproofing” and leading with this image.)


Ed. note: This post was sponsored by Hunter Douglas. The compensation received in exchange for placement on Wit & Delight is used to purchase props, hire a photographer, write/edit the blog post and support the larger team behind Wit & Delight.

While compensation was received in exchange for coverage, all thoughts and opinions are always my own. Sponsored posts like these allow for the development of additional dynamic content to be produced, unsponsored. Thank you for supporting our partners!

BY Kate Arends - June 13, 2017

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The shades looks good. Your house is so much nicer than mine, and we don’t even have a baby in the household!

Charmaine Ng | Architecture & Lifestyle Blog
http://charmainenyw.com

June 13, 2017 11:13 am

Oh, you have definitely a wonderful house!
xx from Bavaria/Germany, Rena
http://www.dressedwithsoul.com

June 13, 2017 9:35 pm

Thank you for this! A friend and I were just talking about this.

– Greta
http://www.mintyfrosting.com

Tyler
June 21, 2017 7:45 pm

Where is that beautiful branches wallpaper from?

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