JOIN USStuck on ideas to decorate your child’s room? Start by making the existing space more colourful or use themes that are educational and inspirational, writes Ruth Dsouza Prabhu
By the time children move from being toddlers to little school-growing adults, they enter a new milestone, that of moving to their own room. The onus is definitely on the parents to design something that they will like and not outgrow in a heartbeat.
One thing you have to know about children is that every child literally brings in almost eight times their body weight in belongings — from clothes to toys to every general thing related to them — which makes storage an all-time important feature besides several other aspects.
Starting from scratch
Remember that a child’s room is also a place he sleeps in, works in and has friends over. Children will have a strong opinion on what they want in the room and you need to pay attention to that as well. Shilpa S Srinivas Kumar is a City-based space designer and she has these tips to convert an existing bedroom into a space for kids.
Begin by adapting to the existing decor of the room and making it colourful, with curtains, bedsheets and pillow covers, she says. If you are stuck on ideas or themes for your child’s room, Shilpa suggests going with something educational and inspirational like world maps, or the seven wonders and others. In fact, investing in customised wallpaper will make it easier to change themes in the long run without damaging your walls.Children love to write and colour, so how about giving them some space on the walls, Shilpa asks. “You can create a writing space as an intricate part of the wallpaper you have by using the vinyls that is good for scribbling. Ensure that there is space for this on the walls and the floor.”
Giving the room personality
Choosing the right kind of beds too can be quite a task for parents. Shilpa suggest investing in a single unit which has a roll-out bed attached to it. It works on multiple levels — a space saver so that your child has more floor area to play on. It works when you have little ones sleeping over. If your child is just learning to sleep in his own bed, it provides a safety net of sorts should he roll off. And last of all, it works great if you plan to have a sibling for your little one. Storage is an eternal issue, considering the amount of space you will need. Shilpa says that it would work well to have customised bins with wheels that fit onto one another. Each bin can be a different colour and can store specific things. These can then be stacked over one another at the end of the day, saving on space and ensuring you don’t slip on that stray pair of skates when you come on to check on your little one at night.
A colour scheme is also what parents have to worry about. “Children today already have a favourite colour by the age of five. This key colour and its accents can be used along with other colours to decorate the room. This is important because children tend to change preferences in a short while and your paint will not be able to keep up. So, if green is a favourite colour of the child, then you can use olive green or green with hints of red-orange or blue. This prevents monotony,” says Shilpa.
All of these pointers hold good for families that have two children as well, whether it be two boys or two girls. Parents could dedicate one wall in the room to each child and their interests or have a combination of their likes made into a wallpaper to decorate the room with.
Creating a shared space
While it’s simple enough creating a room for a single child or two of the same sex, it can get a bit difficult when a room is shared by a boy or girl. “Combining elements for a boy and a girl is quite a challenge and at the same time is quite interesting”, says Shilpa. Here are some tips that she has:
Invest in a bunk bed to save space and opt for a neutral coloured one like dark grey or a red-orange which is suitable to both boys and girls.
Customise the individual bunks with their choice of bedsheets and pillow covers. Give them their own individual spaces around the room — again dedicate a wall to each one and let each take ownership. This way you have will have a room that has a doll house on one side and racing corner in the other.
When designing a space for children, it is important that you make it child-friendly as well. This is an age when children jump off or climb and you need to ensure that their room is safe enough for all of this. The furniture you choose has to be sturdy and should be able to take a beating, literally in some cases. The planning of the space has to be meticulous, only then will you be able to change its character with every growing stage of your child.