The Ultimate Strategy for Decorating a Child's Room!
by: Michael Holland
When it comes to decorating a child's room, the general approach should be very different to decorating an adult bedroom. That's because a child's bedroom should reflect his or her unique personality and not yours.
For children, the childs bedroom is where they read, play games, listen to music, play fight,e, display or hide prized collections, day-dream, or just go to be on their own sometimes. So try these eight strategies to help with decorating a space that will make you both you and your child happy:
Talk to your childen about decorating.
Find out what activities and games he or she enjoys; what their favorite colours are; and what's unique about their personality that a theme or trend can be built around. Then work their interests into a room design that will make them feel comfortable, happy, and safe.
Allow your child to help you with the decorating.
Let the child have a say about the colors, materials, and how they want to display their collectibles and nick-naks in their bedroom. The design should easily be flexible enough to accommodate their changing tastes, needs, and desires.
Make the bedroom multi-functional.
Since children use their room for many other things besides sleeping, it should have several different zones.
These could include a play area; a reading area; a play area with friends that's equipped with a radio, CD player, and a TV/VCR; perhaps a display area with a wall or corkboard for favorite photos and artwork; and finally, a place for shelving to display collectibles, trophies, and other personal items.
Make storage a priority in the room.
Reducing clutter will be one of your greatest difficulties that you face.You could try shelving, large baskets made of wicker, plastic see-through boxes, and closets that contain plenty of shelf or rack space.
Keep window decoration simple.
Avoid using long draperies. Shades, blinds, and shorter curtains are safer and better curtains to use. The decorating fabric should be versatile, and the designs should be repeated in other items in the room, such as in pillows, quilts, lampshades, bedding, etc.
Choose the right room lighting.
A child's room should include both a functional light for homework and reading, and soothing light for less stressful times. A nightlight is also important if your child is uncomfortable in the dark, and for safety reasons, so they can easily find their way to the bathroom at night.
Use wallpaper or paint to add color and texture.
You can apply fancy decorating borders along the top edges of the walls, and clouds or stars, or other patterns on the ceiling.
It might bea good idea to make sure the walls of children's rooms are easily washed down, so if you are using paint, choose a semi-gloss or gloss finish. Children love bright colors, but you should try to limit any strong color to only one wall. For example, decorate one wall with fire-engine red paint, and the others a soft peach or light blue.
Allow your childen to select the decoration theme.
The decorating choices are endless. Here are just a few: firehouse fun room, starry night, angels, rainbows, unicorns, baseball, a bedroom for a princess, underwater scenery, outer space, race cars, airplanes, trains, jungle motifs, wizards and dragons, and dinosaurs. You can visit our new Web site for a lot more ideas!
Decorating with your child offers a great opportunity to display your youthful side, whilst also doing something memorable for the family bonding. Make sure you have fun with decorating and do remember that even if your child's choice in themes seems strange, there's probably a way to work out a good compromise.
Michael Holland is the creator of the Web sites http://www.kids-rooms-and-crafts.com and http://www.home-decorating-made-easy.com. The sites offer lots of FREE home decorating tips and ideas.
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