The best design for the space
Children don’t always have to have their own room. Sometimes siblings have to share rooms with one another and sometimes children sleep in their parents’ bedroom. That’s when it’s worth making a corner of the room your child's own oasis. Siblings can choose completely different wallpaper patterns for their own part of a room. Wallpaper an accent wall behind the baby’s cot in the parents’ room with children's wallpaper. Sometimes decorating a corner of the living room or a secret playroom under the stairs is enough to give the children their own special place.
Picking the right wallpaper
As children's interests and tastes change the time may come to redecorate. Let the kids pick their favorite motifs and help decide which walls to wallpaper. If you want an accent wall, paint the room in the base colour, but keep the spaces you’re going to wallpaper white. For an accent wall, why not go for a playful pattern behind a desk to inspire their creativity, or wallpaper reflecting the kid’s interests above the bed?
You can be more daring when decorating a child’s room than you might be elsewhere. Choose wallpaper with a bit more colour and hang it in a slightly different way. You could have wallpaper in contrasting motifs on the chest of drawers or the wardrobe doors, or you could wallpaper the inside of the wardrobe with characters from your child's favourite book – or why not have a starry sky over the bed? If you have mini artists in the family, a plain wallpaper with figures and shapes ready for colouring in is an excellent choice so they can really get creative with chalk and paint.
Lighting for kids’ rooms
Some kids like to have a night light on. There are lots of nice children's lamps in different shapes ranging from animals to mushrooms. If you pick one with a dimmer, you’ll also be set for reading bedtime stories. It's nice to have lots of different lighting in a kid’s bedroom, with everything from wall lamps to fairy lights. If the room has dark walls, good lighting is extra important so that the children can play, craft, and read to their heart’s content.
Hot tip: How to furnish a kid’s room
The most important thing to bear in mind when designing a kid’s room is good storage. You’ll need space for all the colourful toys and crafts and all the books. It’ll make it easier to keep tidy and the room won’t feel as cluttered. If there’s space, include a wardrobe, a chest of drawers, or a cupboard. There are lots of smart solutions to try. Can you repurpose furniture as a desk, or is there space for under-bed storage? If you have storage boxes, you can make them as stylish as they are practical by decorating them with wallpaper or colourful paper.
Position the bed with the headboard against a wall so it’s facing the doorway. If you have more than one kid, two single beds work just as well as a bunk bed – make the most of the available space, but do check that there’ll be enough room for a grownup bed later. And don't forget the desk. It's a good place for crafting, and if you choose a shelving solution or one that’s height adjustable it will still be useful later for homework and as a computer desk.
Create a cosy and relaxing place to sleep with a bed canopy or curtains. Curtains are also ideal if you want to divide the room between play and sleep – or between siblings. Soft furnishings are also an invitation to play. If you have the space, why not an indoor swing, a set of wall bars or a colourful rug that can be transformed into the sea or a racetrack? When choosing things for kids’ rooms, think about whether they’ll keep up as the children grow – can those wall bars be used for clothes or art? Will the swing be needed for long, earnest conversations? Can the rug stay put and just be a nice rug?
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