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Jared Padalecki always knew he wanted to raise a family in Austin.

“My dream as a child was literally to grow up and live in Austin, as silly as that sounds,” the actor, 32, tells PEOPLE exclusively.

costar Genevieve Cortese Padalecki to a 10,600-sq.-ft. Texas lodge in 2012, the couple knew they needed to make it a kid-friendly home for their sons Shepherd, 15 months, and Thomas Colton, 3.

“We’re hard on our things and I like that our home is not delicate, but it has a refinement to it,” says Genevieve, 34. “It’s really comfortable.”

Part of their decorating philosophy included using dark wood, big comfortable couches and placing memorabilia around the house like framed copies of the boys’s footprints.

“I love the feeling of an old cabin lodge,” says Padalecki. “It feels like I’m a part of nature.”

“We have two young boys, so I don’t want to tell them they can” touch the furniture,” adds Genevieve. “Everything we have is rough so they can fool around with it and if they get some color on it, that’s okay.”

For more with Padalecki, and to get a peek inside his Austin house, pick up the latest issue of

FILED UNDER: Babies , Exclusive , Jared Padalecki , Kids , News , Parenting

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Kid-friendly? I don’t see a baby gate on those stairs behind them with a 15 month old especially a boy, still a bit risky to leave them open.

I don’t see anything that conjures up “kid- friendly!”

Do you think, ohhhh, maybe they took the baby gate down for the pictures? Or maybe they have a huge playroom/bedroom upstairs for the boys to play in, and the gate’s not visible from the first floor public spaces?

Good Lord, y’all some judgmental, limited thinking people!

The boys are gorgeous and the house looks lovely! Although 10K square feet for 4 people? Big footprint!

Kid-friendly doesn’t necessarily mean everything is like one giant playpen…it does mean safe, and perhaps for this couple, “I don’t care if you color or pee on the furniture”. Not sure how their friends might feel about that, maybe yes maybe no, but it might mean something different for them than it does for “Jennifer” or “sally”, or me, for that matter.

Since you can’t see the bottom of those stairs, you have no clue as to whether they have a gate that folds up, or not. Personally, We had stairs when I children were young, and we had more children than they do, but we early on taught our children to go up and down stairs safely, and no one ever got hurt on the stairs inside or out (high back deck, with stairs to the yard). For some of us it is teach your children how to live, not constantly being fearful of everything around them. Sometimes there is too much “padding”……

Maybe they were asked to remove items like baby gates for the photo shoot? You shouldn’t assume. They seem like loving, responsible parents!

If you follow Jared, or Gen on Twitter, you’ll get a better feeling of their home. In other words, it’s big, comfy, child proof and kid friendly. Both are great parents! Be sure to look up Jared’s sister’s child book she wrote, it’s cute!

are BOTH the parents right there with the kids? YES chill

Typo: so I don’t want to tell them they can” touch

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