Put Together an Awesome Kids’ Room with These 5 Tips

A girl's Kids’ Room with pink walls and a desk.

A child’s room should be a fun, functional space where a kid can feel comfortable, grow, and learn for years. But how can you create a room now that your kid will still love in a year or five? You have to strike a balance between what your child wants right now and what he or she will need in the future. With these tips, you can put together a personal space that your child will love — at least until he or she becomes a teenager.

1. Leave Space for Play

A child’s room needs storage for toys, clothes, and books; a place to rest; and display space for collections and prized possessions. But your kid also needs plenty of room for activities. 

Push your child’s bed into the corner to give him or her plenty of space for play with toys, or make the most of your child’s floor space and install a loft bed. You could install interlocking foam floor tiles or put down a thick, kid-friendly area rug to make the floor a little more comfortable to sit on during play. Add a chalkboard wall, turn your child’s closet into a playroom, or create a gallery wall space where your child can showcase their artistic creations.  

2. Keep It Kid-sized

Your child’s room needs some furniture — a bed, a desk, and maybe a more comfortable place to sit if your kid likes reading or spends a lot of time working on a laptop or tablet. Keep furnishings simple and to a minimum so you don’t clutter up all of your child’s floor space. A loft bed can help you free up space for a study desk, a beanbag chair, or a small sofa for kids

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Just make sure you keep furnishings kid-sized — your kids don’t need huge adult-sized furnishings, and they’ll find it difficult to use, at least when they’re little. Kids’ furniture is appropriately sized to be comfortable and easy for small bodies to use, and it takes up less space. 

3. Go Vertical

To keep furnishings to a minimum and make the most of your child’s floor space, you need to maximize your use of wall space and vertical closet storage. Kids’ clothes are small enough to let you double up on hanging rails in the closet. Install a closet system to add bins, cubbies, drawers, and shelves to your child’s closet, where you can store clothes, shoes, school bags, and even toys. Add book rails to your child’s walls to both store and display his or her storybooks. Add shelves where your child can display his or her collectibles, trophies, and favorite toys, and a hammock for the storage and display of stuffed animals.

A small Kids’ Room with a bed and a desk.

4. Get Colorful

What kid doesn’t love bright colors? Of course, you might be a little wary of painting everything neon green just because that’s what little Donnie loves right now, because kids’ tastes do change and you want to avoid having to repaint the room every year or two. Nor are your kids likely to be down with a minimalist black-and-white or grayscale aesthetic, hip as it might be right now. 

No, you need to choose a color pallet that will suit your kids’ tastes for at least several years, or longer if you’re both particularly reluctant to repaint the room and confident that you can find that magic set of colors. A good compromise is to paint the walls in a neutral color, then buy furniture and accessories in your kids’ favorite colors or in bright, rainbow colors that complement one another. It’s much easier to replace a rug, buy a few new decorations, or even repaint book rails than it is to to empty and repaint an entire room.

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5. Add a Creator Space

Your kids are going to need a space where they can do crafts, create great works of art, and, as they get older, sit down to study. If you choose a loft bed, you can add a study desk or small study table to the space underneath. If you didn’t choose a loft bed, add a table or study desk somewhere else in your kid’s room, if you have the space. As your child gets older, it’ll be more and more important to have a quiet study space — and the habit of sitting down in one space to study will help your child absorb more information in the long run.

It’s not always easy to decorate and furnish a child’s room, especially if you want to do so with the long term in mind. Think about meeting your child’s needs now and in the future, so you can minimize big changes later on.

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