You don't have to give up style ... or the kids

GAIL BORELLI

- McClatchy Newspapers

How do you live with children without sacrificing style? A recent issue of Traditional Home takes a stab at answering that question in an article that features a family-friendly Georgia showhouse sponsored by the magazine, a builder and an interior designer.

Among the ideas:

• Cover playroom walls with blackboard paint so children can express themselves in chalk. Of course, the designs on the showhouse walls look like the work of an adult artist; real kids are more likely to draw random tic-tac-toe grids.

• Stone surfaces stand up to kids' abuse. A coffee table top in honed limestone won't get scuffed and scratched when kids put up their feet. Kitchen countertops in quartz are a good choice because they won't stain.

• Cover sofas with slipcovers, which can be removed and washed. (If the slipcovers were any color but the white shown, they'd need to be laundered less.)

• With the dining room table, go rustic instead of high-gloss, which shows fingerprints and scratches.

• Take advantage of distressed finishes in the kids' rooms. The inevitable dings and scratches will blend right in.

On another note, it's always fun to see how unrealistically children's rooms are decorated in showhouses. One of the bedrooms in this house is supposed to be a girl's room; you can tell by the pink Hello Kitty slippers next to the bed. And the two stuffed animals atop the coverlet.

Otherwise it's a very adult-looking room, from the vase of flowers to the Granny Smith apples on the desk. The bed is upholstered in impractical white linen, and a French-looking chair (hopefully a reproduction) is pulled up to the desk.

Where are the Hannah Montana posters tacked crookedly to the wall? The piles of school art projects? The dirty clothes?