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Kid-Friendly Interior Design: How Far Is Too Far?

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Among all the color-coded bookshelves, TVs hung above fireplaces, and other played-out decor trends, one persistent source of interior design drama and intrigue has to do with kids, particularly the notion that outfitting a home with super whimsical features will surely delight the youngest residents. From tunnel slides to multiple floors of netting, there is a lot folks can do to render their abodes more like stylish McDonald's PlayPlaces (or really, in this day and age, the hippest wackiest tech company offices.) Anyway, these fun-focused decor maneuvers popping up with varying degrees of ridiculousness got us asking: have design-minded parents gone off the deep end?

As commenters have brought up in previous #MondayDecorRants, it's ultimately up to homeowners to dictate what they want in their houses...but objectively speaking, "kid-friendly" design can be utterly, gratuitously wild.

Let's look at some glaring examples, shall we?

The tunnel slide:

The extra-large chalkboard:

Netting overload:

The indoor "treehouse":

Now, radical kid-friendly ideas like these probably make a lot more sense in a country like Japan, where the little resale value of houses encourage property owners to build whatever the heck they want. But for homeowners without such a freedom, what sort of indoor whimsy can be sensible? What's just a bad idea?

Poll results

· What's Wrong With Putting a TV Above the Fireplace? [Curbed]
· Which Decor Trends Are The Most Overexposed Right Now [Curbed]