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WHEN Jacqueline Brown and her husband, Gavin Friedman, were in their early 30s, they lived in a condominium in Santa Monica, Calif., with a black leather Ikea couch Mr. Friedman had bought for law school, a few modest pieces from Pier 1 Imports and assorted hand-me-down furnishings. Within a few years, though, having acquired professional and financial stability — both were litigation associates at prominent law firms — they bought a house in Cheviot Hills, an affluent neighborhood in West Los Angeles, and began remodeling and decorating. During two renovations, each costing more than $100,000, they built a two-sided fireplace to separate the living and dining rooms, put in a wine cellar and installed a sleek maple and granite kitchen. They bought molded-wood chairs in the Arne Jacobsen style, Murano glass pendant lamps and a custom walnut entertainment unit. Ms. Brown, who had become obsessed with interior design in law school, poured heart and soul into the projects. But just as Ms. Brown and Mr. Friedman were establishing their first truly grown-up residence — she was 38, he 37 — Ms. Brown gave birth to their first child, Harrison, a boy who turned out as bouncing as most. Suddenly they were confronted with a question that had never before occurred to them: given the way baby gear and toys take over households, the uncivilized habits of toddlers and the dangers posed by sharp-edged contemporary furniture, could Ms. Brown and Mr. Friedman continue to live their high-design dream? It is a question they are not alone in facing. As Elizabeth Gregory, director of women’s studies at the University of Houston and the author of the recent “Ready: Why Women Are Embracing the New Later Motherhood” (Basic Books), pointed out, “being a later parent has become part of the mainstream.” (In 2005, Ms. Gregory says in her book, 10 times as many women had their first child between age 35 and 39 as in 1975, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and 13 times as many had their first between 40 and 44.) At the same time, people age 35 to 44 are the most dedicated group of furniture consumers, outspending adults of all other ages, per household, according to Jerry Epperson, who tracks the American furniture market for Mann, Armistead & Epperson, an investment banking and corporate advisory firm in Richmond, Va. “That’s what these people are willing to invest in,” Mr. Epperson said. And when the investment has been not in cribs or other nursery furniture but in the classic “double income, no kids” fantasy of a pristine, high-style home for grown-ups, the transition can be hard. “Going from being a couple to becoming a parent, your whole world changes,” said Robin Gorman Newman, who four years ago started a support group called Motherhood Later ... Than Sooner in New York (it now has chapters across the country), after becoming a first-time mother at 42, 10 years into her marriage. “Once you become a parent, your home is not your own,” she added. “I think you mourn your previous life, at least for a while. You’re never going to have what you had.” Nevertheless, some people try. Ms. Brown and Mr. Friedman — who of course were thrilled to have a child, like all the later-in-life parents interviewed for this article — were also determined not to let Harrison “take control of the house,” Ms. Brown said. They went ahead with putting in flat-front lacquered maple cabinets in the kitchen, even though they soon had to watch a professional babyproofer drill 300 holes in them for safety latches. (Ms. Brown still cringes.) They put up silk Shantung draperies in Harrison’s bedroom, knowing that they might well end up stained, as they soon did — with yogurt. And they held onto the molded-wood chairs, which were not an easy transition from the highchair. “They have a very sleek bottom,” Ms. Brown explained. “He slides off it.” OTHERS, like Debra Cherney, 49, and Hartley Bernstein, 56, were more resigned to giving up control. They were possibly even happier than most late parents at the birth of their twins, a boy and a girl named Cole and Brooke, in 2003, having lost their daughter Raine to respiratory failure in 2001. When the twins became mobile, the couple realized that they would need to create a designated play space in their prewar Park Avenue apartment. Still, the room they sacrificed — the formal dining room — was tough. “I’m pretty sensitive aesthetically, and it does something for me when I look at a pretty room,” Ms. Cherney said. “Looking at what the room used to be was the visual equivalent of listening to Bach or Mozart. Now it’s the visual equivalent of listening to Barney.” She felt the full impact when she and Mr. Bernstein put their 18th-century mahogany dining table and chair set in storage. “When I bought the table I was envisioning these beautiful, lovely dinners with fine china,” she said. “Once you have kids and once you give up those things, it was like, ‘Who was I kidding?’ I remember thinking this room will look nice again — in about 18 years.” The issue of safety, too, can pose vexing choices for parents in thrall to design. Even before Kipp Cheng and his partner of 15 years, Mark Jarecke, arrived home with their son, Beckett, last March, they could see that many of the furnishings in their Maplewood, N.J., colonial house, including a set of four Barcelona chairs and a glass-top Noguchi coffee table, were accidents waiting to happen. But they weren’t eager to act.
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