Beautiful Dreaming – The Fun of Decorating a Child’s Room

I have found one of the fun things about having kids is decorating their bedrooms. With a child’s imagination and yours, the sky is the limit! In fact you can even paint a sky in their bedroom. There are worlds of possibilities.

I know many parents are afraid of doing a “theme” room because they know their child will grow out of it quickly. The best solution is to paint a favorite color and accessorize with their favorite theme or character. Do not buy a Spiderman bedspread, instead purchase red or blue bedspread and a Spiderman fleece throw. Don’t buy a Dora the Explorer comforter set, buy a lavender comforter and a Dora sheet set. We have various character pillow cases at home. My kids really enjoy being able to pick a new one on laundry day and they only cost about $5.00. It is a safe buy when their interests change.

On the color wheel, there are certain colors that compliment each other and when combined create a cohesive color environment. Red compliments green, purple and yellow look great together and blue looks awesome with orange. So the compromise in my son’s room would be that we would introduce the color blue into the mix so we did not have to paint the entire room orange.

We started with an 14-inch border that had a construction vehicle motif. The border was placed at a chair rail level on the wall. The top and bottom edges of the border were a royal blue color. I expanded the blue by painting both above and below the construction border 4 inches of royal blue. I left another 4 inches the original white wall color, then painted an 22-inch orange stripe around the perimeter of the room, both above and below the border/blue portion. The remainder of the wall at the very top remained white. In essence the room has large horizontal stripes around the perimeter of the room – white, orange, white, blue, border, blue, then orange at the bottom. I also trimmed out the edge of each stripe with black electrical tape (easier than painting) and it gave the room a crisp, finished look. It was a solution that made us all happy and the end result looks fantastic.

The rest of the décor came easy. We used an orange bed skirt, blue comforter, and a large orange pillow on top of the bed. The orange stripes were still a little bold, but are a perfect backdrop for artwork, shelves or creative alternatives. My creative alternative was to put some hooks on the wall and I hung his dress up hats on them - cowboy, firefighter, construction etc. I placed five in a row and it also helps to keep them off the floor. On the far wall in his room I put large wooden letters that spell out his name. On the last wall I used vinyl stickers of construction vehicles to place in the orange area. These are a great invention because they stay on where you put them and come off easily when you are done. They are a lot easier than painting stencils.

Some simple solutions for other quick-change options are beanbag chairs. Stores sell replacement covers for these in a variety of styles and fabrics, to change as your child does. For artwork, pick a neutral frame and you can rotate pictures for the rest of their lives. I’ve matted and framed a few of my five-year-old daughter’s paintings and you would be amazed at how they take on a whole new look by just being framed. For embellishments elsewhere in the room, try adding stick on jewels found in craft stores. By adding these jewels along the edge on the ceiling I creatively covered up some of the paint spots I made on my daughter’s ceiling while painting her walls. When she has trouble falling to sleep at night, instead of counting sheep, she counts the jewels.

Your options are endless, look to your children for ideas and then come up with creative solutions to implement their ideas. If they are old enough let them help you paint or hang a picture. My son and I had great fun choosing where to put the vinyl stickers and my daughter handed me every one of those jewels. It makes for a special time together and they love showing off their rooms to friends and relatives who come to visit. They always make sure they mention how they helped.