“Kids spend so much time in their rooms – even if it's sleeping – they need a room where they become important,” says home and decorating columnist Kathryn Weber.
Designer Candace Olsen recommends purchasing quality core pieces of furniture that follow your kids through life, including into their first homes. If your child is interested in a theme, say Thomas the Tank Engine or Barbie, go that direction with affordable accessories.
Usually between the ages of 9 to high school, kids become ready for a change in their bedroom and want to create a more mature environment that expresses their personalities. Celebrate the milestones in life, like starting middle school, or hitting 16 as nice rituals for new touches in their bedrooms.
In a big, structured world, where they don’t have a lot of choices, being a part of the decorating process can really energize your child’s creative bent, create a sense of ownership and responsibility, and add dimension to your relationship with your child as well. A teen with a cool apartment style bedroom may end up staying home more and having the house where all his or her friends want to hang out.
If your child is receptive, you can even act as decorator with your child as the client. It’s an opportunity for “structured self-expression.” You can create and work within a budget, create a sample board with swatches, paint chips and photographs, and work together to manage your creative project.
The Good Bones – Simple furniture that suits your child’s needs as they grow.
Beds and Cribs – Most Amish Originals beds can be customized to twin-size. A bed like the Hudson, featured in this month’s eNews, can include storage drawers that slide under the bed. With options, our convertible cribs can grow with your child all the way to their first home.
Mattresses – Amish-made mattresses for beds of all sizes, including cribs.
Storage - Including dressers and armoires and storage benches. Amish Originals features a changing table/dresser that can be converted to a standard child’s dresser just by flipping it upside down.
Mirrors – With hidden storage or floor easels, Amish Originals mirrors reflect the changes in a kid’s life as they grow.
Nightstands – A place for a good reading light and a place for their stuff
Workspace – Having a workspace in the bedroom is a place for your child to deal with the business of life. A workspace like Amish Originals own Student Desk gives value to education as well as your child’s interests and hobbies.
Media – From laptops to music to video, all the electronic “kid interactive” should have a special place in the bedroom as just one aspect of a kid’s life.
Seating – Amish Originals has rocking chairs, comfy chairs, and kid-sized seating (including a media bench).
With the furniture in place....
Paint – With computers, your local paint supply store can pretty much match and create any color in the spectrum. Kids' favorite colors can go up on the walls, or go with neutral walls with favorite color accents.
Babies first see black, white, and gray (they see red next, but red in a room can be confusing to them - that eye and brain connection is brand new!) and find soft tones of blue, green, and pink pleasing.
Depending on the age of the child, if they’d like to participate in the painting process, all the better.
Lighting – From our quirky, fun gecko lights to full spectrum task lighting to string lights and our Switchables night lights, switch out lighting to go with the seasons and your child’s changes in age, aesthetics, or tastes.
Adding a dimmer switch is not only fun but helps especially at bedtime for little ones or offering calm comfort to fall back to sleep after a bad dream.
Accessories – Sky’s the limit! Set the tone with bedding, fathead style removable graphics, wall words, paper lanterns, thrift shop finds, mementos, pillows, bean bag chairs, wall coverings, or area rugs. Use your child’s lifestyle and tastes as a guide.
Storage – From dressers and armoires to benches and chests to baskets and storage cubes, chests, trunks, bookcases, or concealed, storage can be imaginative and offbeat or traditional.
Experts recommend that storage should be within reach for kids depending on age (“kid POV”) and that it be durable and washable.
Art – Kids love to utilize display. Use chalkboard paint to add a chalkboard stripe around a room or create a chalkboard wall, go urban and add galvanized metal sheets to the wall for magnets, create a display wall to frame your kids’ artwork, frame children’s book covers and pages, buy blank canvases and paint for your child to create their own art.
Expression - Add a fitness area with a yoga space or ballet bar, incorporate nature or feng shui, erect a shelving border around the wall for mementos and keepsakes, use wall words to inspire. With the new no stick/no wall damage hooks and hangers available, kids can feel free to display their favorite decor and change their minds with ease.
Finally, bring your kids with you to Amish Originals Furniture Co. at 38 N. State to check out our kid-friendly furniture and accessories. Truly, classic, truly built for a lifetime.
More information online:
Harmony at Home on go.family
Seventeen Magazine Bedroom Design Quiz
HGTV Design Style Quiz
Great Bedroom Decorating Ideas
From the eNews archives:
Amish Originals Furniture Co. eNews October 2010: Elementary Style.
Amish Originals Furniture Co. eNews August 2009: Kid Stuff
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