The kids room is outfitted with built-in bunk beds.

The upper two levels of the home are set back from the street, increasing privacy and allowing light to flow uninhibited from the front clerestory window into the communal living spaces. On the top floor, the children's bedrooms are strategically veiled from the street by the slatted reflector screen.

Have your children help you go through their book collections and pick out what books they haven't read yet. If you are able to safely leave your home, you can coordinate curbside dropoff book exchanges with friends.

This sleeping area includes a bookshelf and sconce.

The couple’s ten-year-old twins have connecting rooms next to a play space furnished with Aalto stools, a table from Artek, and a Nanna Ditzel rattan hanging chair purchased at Interstudio.

On the second floor, the sliding door to one of the kids’ bedrooms lies flush with a cork-wrapped wall. In the bedroom, a colorful custom Maharam window shade rests above a window seat with a Kvadrat cushion.

The Tower House is made up of tiny houses, clustered at the southern end of the property and clad in white steel panels and western red cedar shingles. Spinning off the living room on the north side of the main house, the children’s study sits separate from the other pavilions. On its upper level, Oxley netting forms a web on which the kids and their friends can sit and read with views of the leafy street and garden.

Now UC It In the kids’ rooms, the couple has made fine use of UC Santa Cruz dorm furniture—beds, armoires, and desks have gotten a second life off-campus, and Tershy and Zavaleta report that after enduring years of freshmen, the pieces ably stand up to their kids. Outside the upstairs office, an old couch holds court on a small balcony with great views to the south.

Salminen built the bunk beds out of birch, Finland’s most plentiful tree species, for the couple’s children.

In a home in Los Angeles, a child's bedroom has been outfitted with custom carpeting and millwork, a reading nook under a staircase, a mini door and window, and a magnetic chalkboard wall.

Inside the Wibowo house in Puyallup, Washington, the space is spare but infused with color because "painting is the cheapest way to decorate." Twelve-year-old Tabitha's room is pink. Photo by John Clarke.

The kids play in the family room just beneath the stairs.

The "rumpus" and craft rooms hide a range of secrets—pin-boards, blackboards, sliding doors, cubby holes, and toy storage. A ladder in the study leads to extra storage space or a place for the kids to hide.

Herron Horton Architects converted a garage into a place for kids to study and play.

Compact bedrooms mean more space for communal areas. The room designed for the Conine’s daughter boasts a custom three-level bunkbed for sleepovers. The wool rug is by Chandra, the bedding is by Coyuchi, the desk is by Misewell, and the chair is by Jonathan Adler.

Architect Tamira Sawatzky used Ikea components—one-inch Lagan butcher block countertops and inexpensive Ekby Lerberg brackets—when designing the bookshelves along the living room wall in the home/studio he designed for himself and his wife in Toronto.

More custom bookshelves in an upstairs sitting room, cleverly inserted into the villa's extant niches.

The office, which is also Lily’s room, features a Babyletto crib and a Smileywalls wall decal applied atop Normandy paint from Benjamin Moore.

The feel of natural materials on the skin can make a home comforting. A Colour Carpet by Scholten & Baijings for HAY, made with 100% New Zealand wool, defines the play area in the child’s bedroom of this house in Hamburg, Germany.

Overhead, a 102-square-foot skylight fills the interior with daylight that streams through the catamaran net, where Ulla lounges.

Encourage your imaginative niece, nephew, neighbor, sibling, or child to grow their creativity and curiosity with these fun-filled gifts.

A copper mobile by JF Jones hangs over a Leander crib and a vintage Moroccan rag rug in the nursery. The rocking chair is by Hans Wegner for Fredericia.

The Kelleys furnished the cottage with help from Suzanne’s daughter Betsy Burbank of Betsy Burbank Interiors. Classic modernist icons, such as a Saarinen Womb chair for Knoll, a Herman Miller Eames lounge chair, and an Eileen Grey E1027 side table look at home alongside present-day pieces such as an Encore sofa (which handily folds down into a sleeping surface) from Room & Board and a Doka rug designed and produced by Stephanie Odegard. The Wohlert pendant lights from Louis Poulsen were designed by Vilhelm Wohlert in 1959, but grouped as such, they appear distinctly contemporary.

A thin wall of glass divides the entrance from a recreation area in one corner of the main floor.

It's a great time to let kids be a part of the decision-making, if that is age-appropriate, and help set a schedule. Give your child a chance to take the reins and engage in child-led learning.

Piet Hein Eek's wooden chairs add a touch of color to the monochromatic Amsterdram apartment of Hunter Hindman and Shelby Carr.

In the dining room, which opens to the backyard terrace, original tilework on the floors and walls complement decidedly modern counterparts—an original 1938 Butterfly chair by Antonio Bonet, Juan Kurchan, and Jorge Ferrari Hardoy, and a 1983 TMC floor lamp by Spanish designer Miguel Milá.

Two San Francisco art and travel addicts overhauled a loft—and customized a pair of shipping containers—to accommodate their collection and reflect their passions. The shipping containers were stacked, joined with steel tubes, and lashed to reinforced floor joints to make them earthquake-safe.

The organic bedding is from The Canopy.

Ankory and Carni designed a storage unit under the stairs with a pull-out table and bench where their kids can play and do their homework.