How To Decorate A Kid's Bedroom
The Basics of Decorating Your Kids Rooms
If you're decorating a room for a child who lives with you or visits often, you may feel like you're facing the ultimate challenge-but it can be done with style and on a budget, we assure you!
To start, consider the age of the child (or children) who will use the room and carefully ponder their needs, likes, and dislikes. The best advice on setting up a kid's room (or any rooms they'll use often) came from a Montessori school teacher. She said, "Imagine living for one day as a child in an adult world." She encourages people who live with children to study the environments they create and decide whether any obstacles can be removed to make it easier on little ones.
Creative Furnishings for Kids
Okay, you have to create a comfortable, safe, functional, and great-looking room for a child. You have many choices and much work to do!
First, consider furniture. If you're going the traditional, new furniture route, check out local furniture stores, especially those specializing in children's furniture. Also be sure to check the Internet for furniture, but don't forget to factor in shipping charges when you're working on your budget. (These could be considerable, depending on the size and weight of the items and the company you're purchasing them from.) Web sites are an especially great place to locate specialty items, such as hand-painted furniture.
If your budget is very limited, try consignment shops, flea markets, and yard sales first. Also check with friends, family members, and anyone else you know who may have items they are ready to part with. A word of caution: Always be very careful when purchasing used furniture for children, particularly cribs and other baby items. Such items may not meet current safety standards and should be passed up, no matter how great a bargain they may be.
If you're picturing something a bit more inventive for your kid's room, here are some ideas you might try:
- Beds. If you love Country, place the head of the bed against a wall, hang a quilt behind it, and you won't even need a headboard. Iron gates, curtains, and gathering netting suspended from your ceiling can also work nicely and create one-of-a-kind bedding any kid will love.
- Containers. Here's a simple solution: Try an umbrella stand (available at discount stores). Long items tucked into these containers won't fall over and end up on the floor like they would with shorter containers and toy boxes, and you won't have these items lying horizontally in a closet taking up a lot of floor space.
- Cling-ons. Several companies offer wall decorations that stick (like wallpaper) or cling on (with static) to walls. Some even come in complete theme kits. Visit decorating, paint, and home improvement stores, as well as Web sites that sell wallpaper and other decorating elements to locate these clever wall decor items.
- Artwork. A child's room is the perfect place to display artwork created by children. Another inexpensive art solution for children's rooms is to cut artwork from storybooks, frame them, and create dramatic groupings.
- Size them up. Attach a yardstick or two to the wall with small nails or even Velcro, and you'll have fun seeing how quickly your little one grows. Dress up the sticks with paint, ribbon, buttons, and other embellishments.
- Reading corner. Team a couple of bean bag chairs, a small homemade bookshelf, an inexpensive area rug, and a collection of great books, and you have a cozy corner for reading and quiet play.
- Hang-ups. Peg boards, shelving with pegs, or even just fanciful hooks in low places are great inspiration for kids to hang up caps, dress-up clothes, and accessories.
How To Decorate A Kid's Bedroom
How to Decorate a Kid's Bedroom
Decorating kids’ bedrooms can be so much fun because when it comes to colors, patterns and designs, there are no limits. You probably wouldn’t want to incorporate a pirate theme or a color scheme that consisted of neon pinks and greens in any other room in the house thus making your child’s room the perfect candidate. A kid’s room is like the free-for all in regards to outrageous and unique decorations. You can even have the wackiest theme in your child’s room and they’d still love it without hesitation.
Having an awesome room will definitely encourage kids to spend more time in their rooms, which means more quiet time for you and other grownups everywhere else around the house. It’s a win-win situation for everyone. If you’re planning a redesign on your kid’s bedroom and need a little guidance then the following are a few pointers you might want to incorporate.
Colors of the Rainbow
You cannot be afraid of color when it comes to decorating a child’s room. The last things you want are white walls and beige furniture. Can we say boring? Choose colors that are pleasant to the eyes and that coordinate well together. A good place to start is asking your kid what their favorite color is or you can work with the colors of a specific theme, like a cartoon character or a Disney movie.
Functional yet Fun Spaces
Make your child’s room a space that’s highly functional where they can do their homework, play games, do arts and crafts, pretend play, read books and take naps. Don’t forget the fun element as well. Some children’s room is designed in a way that they could camp out, go on a wild safari, play on a playground, or pretend to be pirates on a pirate ship.
Personalized Touches
There’s nothing like having your child’s personal touches in their room that really makes the space their own. You can personalize your child’s room in so many ways like hanging a photo montage of them, stenciling their names on the wall, or displaying an art gallery of their arts and crafts.
Element of Surprise
Children love surprises and incorporating neat surprises throughout the room’s design can be very exciting. You can create a hiding place for them to discover, build hidden storages for all their toys and treasures, or perhaps a secret passage? Basically anything that looks one way, but functions another is the key.
Outside In
Children love the outdoors. Playgrounds, amusement parks, swimming pools, camping and others are all fond memories many of us have as children so why not bring outside elements inside your kid’s room so they can relive those special moments every day. How about a starry night ceiling? Or a treehouse bed? Maybe even a slide or a swinging rope hanging from the ceiling? It’s all good in the eyes of a child.
Accommodating Features
A lot of children love to have their best friend spend the night, host sleepovers, or maybe their favorite cousin is visiting from out of town. Another great decoration idea is to make your kid’s room guest friendly by incorporating clever accommodation features. This includes things like a pull out bed, bunk beds, a convertible sleeper, and so on.
Kid's Bedroom Design
Decorating Themes For Kids' Bedrooms
I've seen some fabulous kids' rooms over the past ten years, as many of my friends and associates have had children and decided to decorate wonderful rooms for them. I've seen magical castles, incredible murals, and just about every theme I can think of, tackled in many different ways.
Do you know any kids that grab your hand when I enter their home and insists, "You have to come see my room!" These kids are so comfortable in their space and so proud of it that they want everyone they know to come see and enjoy it too. What a wonderful compliment to the adult who put it all together!
If you're looking for a fun kid's room theme and ideas for how to pull it off, consider these:
Circus. Drape your walls (or one wall, or a window) in strips of red and white fabric (sewn together) to create a Big Top feel. Hang a few small swings from the ceiling with animals perched on them to simulate trapeze artists. And a wire stretched across the room with a doll balancing on it (hang her from the ceiling with fishing line and secure her feet the wire) gives a "walking the tightrope" feature to the room.
Nautical. Salvage an old canoe (make sure to take safety measures, like sanding rough spots), and use it to store toys, or insert pieces of wood and create a shelf unit with it. Also hang oars, life floats, and buoys on the walls. Create a valance of nautical flags lined up and sewn together with the points facing down. (You can make your own nautical flags from sheets of felt!)
Western. Decorate walls with wallpaper that looks like the inside of a log cabin. Pick up old cowboy boots at flea markets (any size-adults or kids) and use them to create lamps, hold potted plants, or just place them on a high wall shelf as decoration. Also display a lasso on the wall, and use cow-print fabric to create window treatments. (Be careful with long ropes around young children.)
Garden. Use picket fencing for a headboard; a place to hold jewelry, purses, and accessories; or as decoration by just leaning up against the wall. Books and toys can be stored in oversized terra cotta (or terra cotta-like plastic) pots, and kid-sized plastic Adirondack chairs can serve as seating. Other low-budget, garden-inspired accessories include floral-patterned wallpaper borders; watering cans; sap buckets; floral design stencils; and, of course, silk and plastic flowers!