Parents of young children should also be careful if their playrooms have sliding glass doors that lead outside.
"These are an easy means of escape for children," Gordon said.
Jonathan Korobkin, 10, of McLean plays a video baseball game in the family's playroom. His father, Alan Korobkin, president of Saratoga Construction, says playrooms, kitchens and family rooms "are the rooms that people now want -- rooms they actually use and live in."
(Rich Lipski -- The Washington Post)
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Gordon recommends that such doors have a bar at the bottom locking them in place. The doors' main locks should also be engaged at all times. Gordon also suggests that parents place stickers or posters on glass doors; children can smack into the glass doors when they become overly distracted by play.
Window screens can cause problems, too. They are not, Gordon said, strong enough to keep a determined child from getting out.
"They can go tearing through the streets if you're not careful," Gordon said. "Toddlers, at about 17 or 18 months, have the highest injury rates among kids. They're not old enough to know better, so they often stray from home. If you place them in the playroom and then you go into the kitchen to do your thing, they can wander off."
Many parents choose to transform spare rooms into combination home offices and playrooms. The rationale? They can get work done while their children play in the same room.
This rarely succeeds. It's not easy to work with a young child thumping around a few feet away. And children, especially young ones, tend to want to play with Mom or Dad whenever she or he is in sight, even if Mom or Dad is trying to work.
Aside from these obvious flaws, though, combination home office/playrooms pose safety hazards.
"A lot of items in a home office appeal to kids, and those items can be dangerous," Gordon said. "You have to make sure to store them up and out of the way so that kids can't get at them."
Todd Norris of Great Falls converted his basement into a playroom in the summer of 2003. The room isn't overly elaborate. It has a tile floor and looks like a classroom designed for elementary and preschool children. It's home to loads of toys and art supplies.
Norris's four children love the space, and Dad is thrilled with it, too.
"They keep their toys down there, and they are responsible for keeping them in order and keeping the playroom clean," Norris said. "It really does teach them responsibility."
