Creative Family Home: Imaginative and original spaces for modern family living

by Ashlyn Gibson

Nowadays, family homes need to work hard and play hard, meeting the varying needs of style-conscious parents, lively toddlers and everyone else in between.

In Creative Family Home, Ashlyn Gibson explores the heart and soul of twelve homes that capture the zeitgeist in family living and celebrate the magic of childhood. Whether your family consists of a single bouncing baby or a tribe of pre-teens, Creative Family Home tackles both the practical and the decorative issues and paves the way for a fun, hard-working and creative home that grows and adapts with your kids. The book starts by focusing on the varying demands of family living, with suggestions for using space creatively, color, pattern & decoration, living areas, sleeping spaces, bathrooms and storage. There are also suggestions for homework and creative zones, display, and outdoor spaces. Next, in Creative Family Homes, Ashlyn visits real-life homes that are notable for their fresh, irreverent take on modern family living and draws inspiration from their varying approaches to the multitude of demands that characterize modern family life. Creative Family Home celebrates color and originality and, above all, champions modern family life, where children, from babies to teens, are given the freedom to express themselves and to develop their individuality within the context of an imaginative and creative family home.

Genres: Nonfiction

160 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2013

Reviews

[Cat]

I enjoyed looking at this book which very much fits my own preferred colour aesthetic (playful, bursts of colour with injections of the natural world) but most of all I enjoyed the ideas of how to embrace the anarchy that small children bring to any attempts at order and simplicity (drawing on furniture, producing endless numbers of pictures that have to be displayed somewhere, wanting cushions and blankets and corners to make different variations of cubbies with). I picked up 4 solid and joyful ideas to incorporate into our own household.
I do think the pictures (as always in home beautiful style books) skewed towards families with money, but it was still fun to have a glimpse at how other (European) families like to decorate their habitats. Some nice encouragement and inspiration to upcycle and reuse which I liked.
I didn't so much enjoy the text and skipped over most of it, but the curation of images was nicely done.

[Rachel]

Enjoyable read borrowed from the library, which presented different families' homes & interiors. Sort of like an English Paumes book and I must say I do adore devouring Paumes books.
One thing I found fascinating was almost every single family had a Stokke Tripp Trapp child's high chair, obviously the must-have high chair for children!

[Maria]

There are some charming ideas in here, but by the end of this book I was kind of sick of all of these houses/families feeling a bit the same, like there was only one way to be stylish even if the house structures were all different. Everyone has an Arco lamp. Everyone has vintage prams. Everyone has an indoor swing in their living room (?!?). I spotted many of the same kinds of pillows, artwork, decor. So it’s definitely embodying a specific style. One that my five year old would surely destroy/break in short order.
Ultimately what made me knock this down to 1 star were two things that really bugged me - 1. They only feature white families; there are no families of color, no Asian families, etc and furthermore they’re all European. If you are writing a book about the modern family home, this is a very narrow slice. 2. Somewhat related. I noticed a few instances of racist decor. Vintage packaging or ads with African products; perhaps the most offensive was an actual stuffed blackface caricature doll sitting on a child’s bed. Who thought that was OK to put in a book? I know 2013 was before the summer of racial reckoning, and we’re not perfect here in America, but it kind of left a yucky taste in my mouth.

[Mircah Foxwood]

This book explores the idea of having a child-centred family home, where the interests and activities of the kids are front and centre in the design.

My criticism is that all the rooms shown feel very similar - they have an overly cluttered IKEA vibe, with lots of white walls and saturated colours.

The rooms feel like an adult’s idea of what kids would like - and although everything looks very neat for the photos, I found myself thinking that you’d have to have well-trained kids or the rooms would quickly descend to chaos. Would kids really be satisfied to have vintage toys artistically arranged around the house without actually touching them? Mine wouldn’t.

An interesting flip-through, but no real takeaways for me.

[Ruth]

Lots of lovely pictures and ideas! I liked the commentary by the kids who live in those houses.

There's a few creepy dolls and one that is... problematic. VERY problematic. Ugh.

I took a pic or two of the pictures for future ideas, but mostly, not much in here appealed to me personally.

[Becki]

Gorgeous, fun houses belonging to people with kids. Interiors books are my guilty pleasure.

[Thomasin Propson]

What colors! I'd love to see my own home develop into several depicted in the photographs. Inspired by several of the pictures.

[Kati]

Ihanan inspiroivaa ja värikylläistä sisustamista, vaikka keskittyikin liikaa lapsiin.

[Sinead]

A few great ideas for storage and colours and personalising areas but a little bit repetitive