As a former nursery practitioner and mum to a 6 year old I know a few tricks to keep the toys at bay and to make your kids rooms more stylish. Believe it or not “a place for everything and everything in it’s place” really does help children to relax and grow more confident. Here are a few easy tips to help you to easily inject some style into your child’s room. We shall keep tackling the clutter later….
1- Choose a palette
Deciding on a colour scheme can come from all sorts of inspiration, like your child’s favourite tv show or ice cream or an interest like space or horses. Choose a family of colours that go well together and a background colour and punchy highlight colour. Controversial as this may be I don’t hold with monochrome rooms for little ones, sure lead with black and white but add punchy yellow or turquoise or orange accent.
2- Accents
Find or make accents in your chosen colour palette. These could include storage baskets, curtains, bed linens, toys… they will help to give your palette definition. They also make it easier to transform your room later (or even seasonally) by changing your soft furnishings.
3- Lighting
Often an afterthought, lighting is very important. Have a couple of different light sources in your child’s room for different moods and activities. Task lighting at a desk or bedside table, night lights and main pendants all have a role to play in a child’s world too. remember to choose fittings that suit your feel and colour scheme for the room.
4- Plants
Bring the outside in. Children can benefit from plants in their rooms for so many reasons. They can help filter the air in a city environment, can encourage children to be responsible by looking after them and help keep children in touch with nature. Put plants at child height (from when your child is at least 3 years old) and up high to give them extra sensory stimulus from the touch and smell of house plants.
5- Displays of treasures/ vignettes
Get your child involved in displaying their treasures and favourite bits and bobs. This encourages their sense of self by providing physical reminders of past doings and helps them to forge connections with their surroundings while taking pride in their room. Help curate collections so that they don’t take over and try to suggest sorting using different criteria such as colour or a theme. But remember it is their room! In my son’s room he has an old printer’s tray which he uses to display all his Kinder Egg toys and anything special like rocks and shells he has collected. From time to time it does need a tidy but it generally survives as a rotating curation of what is special to him. I might even start taking regular photos of it to chart its evolution.
6- Art
Kids aren’t too young for art on their walls. Together, you and your child could make some family art or choose a picture or design. I find that a little whimsy goes a long way for children’s bedroom art. I frame all my son’s certificates and display them along with a colour-in map of the world in which we follow his uncle’s travels.
So take another look at the photo above. Notice how the accent pieces tie the scheme together? How the art adds a touch of whimsy to the space? How wood is used throughout? How pink and yellow are featured in a black and white background scheme? How the plants are part of the room? How the lighting is industrial and coloured to fit the scheme? You can do this too. Hopefully you have gleaned a few easy tips for creating a stylish room for your children without spending too much time or money.