Why hire a decorator when you have one of the most creative people you know already living under your roof? If you’re asking, “Who?” — it’s the little person whose room you’re getting ready to decorate. Instead of letting the grown-ups take over decorating duty, enlist your child’s help and turn it into a fun-filled family project!
Depending on your child’s age, she can help out with everything from creating a new floor plan to painting and putting together finishing touches.
Thoughtful Themes
Keep in mind, decorating a bedroom is a completely personal process. Just because you saw the sweetest little giraffe design scheme in a home décor magazine doesn’t mean that your little one will love it as much as you do. This is your child’s space. While you do need some rules when it comes to what the room does and doesn’t include, encourage your child to help you pick a theme.
Brainstorm your own ideas or consider some of these options:
- Enchanted garden. Use a lush green color scheme, include floral prints and add a few shabby chic rustically styled furniture pieces.
- Animal antics. This gender-neutral theme can include your child’s favorite furry and feathered friends on the bedspread and window treatments. Add wall decals or stencil on a cute creature mural.
- Night sky. Make it bed-time all day long with a night sky theme. Add glow-in-the-dark star stickers to the ceiling or create your own with special craft glow paint.
- A,B,C 1,2,3. Create a learning lesson to the room’s décor. Stencil on letters and numbers, pull up an alphabet-themed area rug and accent the design with number-covered throw pillows.
- Young artist. Splatter paint across the walls, pattern out a Picasso-esque wall mural or add a soft water lily-covered bedspread to make an artistic statement.
Toddler Art
Even though your toddler isn’t exactly ready to pick out a design scheme, paint the walls or build a new bedroom set, he can help you to add a pinch of style with hand-made (literally) art. Create a zoo, farm or jungle filled with animals to adorn the room’s bare walls.
Dip your child’s hands (palm-side down) into tempera paint. Press his palms onto pre-stretched canvases (you can get these at most arts and crafts supply stores). When the paint dries, glue on googley eyes, craft feathers or other embellishments to transform the handprints into creative creatures.
Preschool Planning
Your preschooler is growing more independent by the day. Celebrate her newfound confidence by asking her to plan out the room’s décor. Cut out paper shapes that represent each piece of furniture. For example, a long rectangle is her bed, a shorter rectangle is her dresser and a circle is a chair.
Puzzle out where she wants each piece of furniture to go by placing the shapes onto a sheet of poster board (the poster board represents the room’s floor). Along with the floorplan, your preschooler can help you to decide on the color scheme. While she probably isn’t ready to paint the walls for real, she can dot a few doodles, testing out different hues. Choose a few sample paint colors (the teeny tiny bottles that most home improvement stores have available to try out different shades). Help your child to paint swatches onto one wall, reviewing a rainbow of possibilities. Work together to pick one color that she truly adores.
Options for Older Kids
Older children, tweens and teens can take on more responsibilities when it comes to room décor. For example, an older grade schooler can repaint a dresser. Punch up a boring old piece of wooden furniture by adding a playful design. Take the drawers out and help your child to paint the frame a solid color. Use painter’s tape to create a geometric design on the fronts of the drawers. Let your child paint each shape a different hue. Another option is to keep the drawers a solid color and paint splatter the fronts ala Jackson Pollock!
Tween and teens can move on to more adult-like tasks. Let your tween or teen help paint the walls. Pick an unexpected color and create an accent wall. Weave the color throughout the room in the bedding, window dressings and pillows. Name your tween or teen as project manager, encouraging him to help his younger siblings carry out the family’s designer dream.
You don’t need to score a spot on a home décor reality show just to change up your child’s room. Whether redecorating means turning bare walls into beauteous creations with child-made art or dressing up the dressers with playfully pretty paint, the kids can get in on the act and help you to switch up their rooms with a fanciful, fresh style!
Are you proud of the DIY décor you dressed up your child’s room in? Show us, so that we can inspire other parents with your imaginative eye! Submit your kids’ room décor photos to us at connect@angelibebe.com for us to share.
