A CHILD’S BEDROOM SHOULD BE THEIR OWN PERSONAL SPACE
A child’s bedroom should be their own personal space, somewhere they can develop, discover and express their own interests and personality. A young child’s bedroom will probably also become part of their imaginary world. A place with secret hiding places and dens. It is the room where toys come alive. As a child grows older their bedroom becomes even more important. It is particularly important for a teenager to have their own individual space, where they can be alone, entertain friends, listen to music and develop their own style and individuality.
Decorating children’s rooms - Encourage a child to help you with the decoration of their bedroom, to be involved in designing their own personal space.
Furnishing Children’s Rooms - Storage in a child’s bedroom is essential. A simple hammock can be hung across the corner of one end of the room and in it you can store all their soft cuddly toys to stop them from overwhelming and cluttering the bedroom. The back of their bedroom door is always a good storage space especially for those sturdy canvas hanging holdalls with pockets (often used for storing shoes) as this helps to keep items out of sight. You can neatly store books, small toys, other treasures and pairs of shoes on the back of their bedroom door. Underneath the bed is an enormous storage area where three or four large rattan baskets can fit neatly side by side. If you line them with a cotton fabric, this helps to keep the dust at bay.
I often place a large rattan hamper basket at the end of my children’s beds for throwing all their toys in at bedtime, to help keep the room looking spacious and tidy (and this prevents parents from tripping over things in the dark when checking up on children one last time before going to bed themselves). Another clever storage idea is to place a round table in a child’s bedroom and cover it with a piece of fabric or a plain table cloth, depending on the theme of your room, and underneath the table is a great storage space for baskets filled with toys that can be stacked out of sight. The table can then double up as a homework table later on, or can be used for storing books, displaying family photographs and for a lamp.
For me it is essential to design a child’s bedroom with a small sofa in it for parents to sit on so that they can enjoy sharing time with their children in their bedrooms, during bedtime stories, or for sitting on and sharing a last snack of the day. My children often ask me to sit in their room on the sofa and listen to a story tape with them. Having a sofa ensures that everyone is comfortable. Having a sofa bed is even better as this is useful later on for sleepovers.
Creating Themes for Children’s Bedrooms - One of my sons has fallen in love with the Sea and all things Nautical and therefore it was only logical to redesign his bedroom around his passion. Sometimes it can be hard to decide how to decorate a child’s bedroom and what I would recommend is to design it around their particular interests. One of the pieces in my son’s room is a nautical bookshelf to hold all of his story books, which has been made out of an old wooden rowing boat. It will stand up on it’s end and will have 4 or 5 shelves inside it and it will be painted to suit the colour scheme of the room and to look like an old Greek Fishing boat. At the bottom of his bed there is a large wicker toy basket with rope handles which doubles up as a bench for him to sit on and lots of wicker baskets under his bed in which he stores all his shoes and sports equipment. His bedroom also has painted white tongue-and-groove boards around all four walls – and this makes it easy for him to stick up pictures of other sailing craft that he likes without damaging the walls. We also chose a laminate wood flooring so that it would feel like a boat deck under his bare feet and we have put brass ship lanterns from a local Chandlery store on his bedside tables.
I have also placed Family photos around the room, to remind him of happy occasions and fun times spent with friends and family as I feel this helps him to wake up and fall asleep feeling secure and loved.
Girls’ Bedrooms - Decorating a Bedroom for a little girl can be themed around their love of dressing up. The main setting for a room for a girl can be a mural hand painted on the walls from floor to ceiling, nothing too intrusive and preferably using very pale colours. Mirrored wardrobe doors help to open up the space and make the room appear much larger and these can fill the whole of the length of the fourth wall. Favourite dressing up costumes (Fairy Dresses etc) can be placed on a coat stand to further create a visual impact in the room. With girl’s bedrooms you can even go one step further to create the Fairytale dream, by hanging a canopy over their bed to further enhance their special room.
Fabric Door Panels for Wardrobes - The wardrobes that we have shown in this article lend themselves really well to fabric door panels. You can attach a fabric panel to each of the front doors of the wardrobe with, for example, a pattern of a Fairytale Castle.
A clever way to change the theme of a girl’s bedroom is to place a folding fabric screen in one corner area of the room that has one image one side and a different image on the other side to help create a change of scene every so often in an otherwise plain room.
Great Hideaway - If you have an attic that can be converted into a Bedroom space as your children get older, then you can create a really authentic looking log cabin/cosy, rustic hideaway by using Log Cabin wallpaper (it’s wallpaper with a log cabin pattern – the logs do look real) to give the impression of the “Wild West”. We have found a company in America that have a magnificent collection of artistic wallcoverings and borders, that pays tribute to their rich western heritage and the America Cowboy and their range of Wallpapers provide a welcome change from the more formal décor.
My other son loves Space and wants to be an Astronaut so again his bedroom has been decorated using tongue-and-groove boards on the walls so that he can easily display images of Astronauts and his flooring is a white washed wood to represent the surface of the moon, and bedding is bold blue with white spots to represent the moon. However, he also has a Tepee in his bedroom which doubles up as a space shuttle and it’s an excellent place to store all the clutter of his toys at the end of the day.
Wardrobes for Children’s Bedrooms - It is always better to buy a larger wardrobe to avoid having to replace a smaller one at a later stage, as their clothes become longer and longer.
Flooring in a Child’s Bedroom - Because of the amount of wear and tear they will undergo, it’s a good idea to put wood flooring (laminate wood flooring is very effective and durable, or Amtico Flooring is another excellent option and comes in a whole range of exciting colours) in a child’s bedroom which can be softened with rugs. But they are much easier to maintain and keep clean. In the early years, lovely new carpets can often be ruined and wood flooring avoids this and often provides a much better surface for train tracks, racing car tracks etc.
Midnight Feasts and Sleepovers - The first time a child has a friend to stay over for the night is a very exciting occasion. As children become older, sleepover parties become very popular events for celebrating birthdays. Several children will come at once and they will all want to sleep in the same room, no matter how small the space that they will all be crammed into. Children can bring rolled up mattresses with them, camp beds and sleeping bags and inflatable mattresses, and it can also be a good idea to have a futon armchair in your child’s bedroom that flattens out to become a bed.