Spruce Up Your Child's Room

Unique and affordable decorating ideas

By Stephanie Elliot

In this article:
Using Accessories
Bargain Hunting
Painting Power
Pictures to Posters
Consider This ...

These great suggestions will make decorating your child's room easy and cost-efficient! Creative ideas for your child's bedroom or playspace that brighten up any space!

So you're decorating your child's room. You may be surprised how much your young child's ideas about decorating her room may clash drastically with yours. You may envision something floral or sports-themed, and your daughter may want a Dora the Explorer room (complete with Dora and Boots comforter and curtains). Or your son may choose a blue and green Buzz Lightyear-themed room. If you let your children go with their own ideas, you will be allowing them to assert their independence and uniqueness, but you will also most likely be redecorating within a year or two when they decide they no longer want rooms full of Dora or Buzz.

How to come to an agreement where everyone is happy with your child's room? A child's room is his haven, the only real place in the home he truly owns (or thinks he owns!). There are ways to negotiate and turn a ho-hum room into a room where you'll be just as happy as your child with the choices your child has made. You' can work together and agree on what will be done.

Using Accessories

Your child's tastes will most definitely and dramatically change as she gets older, or she may become interested in different or new hobbies. Stick with basic colors for the majority of the room, but get creative with the things that are easily and inexpensively changed.

Sheets (or even just pillowcases), throw pillows, lampshades, drawer pulls, small accent frames, and wall hangings are a perfect way to jazz up a room without it costing a fortune. Keep the drapery and comforter a neutral color and then let your child make some inexpensive decorating decisions of her own.

Bargain Hunting

Discover unique items on eBay as Gail Dukas, of Teaneck, New Jersey, did. "As a parent of three little boys, I've had a lot of fun, and success, finding kids' room décor on eBay." Dukas says it's a great way to find discontinued or hard-to-find items, and she only purchases items that have never been used. Through eBay, she inexpensively decorated her toddler's room in an Elmo theme and found everything from a light switch cover to valences and a diaper stacker. She bought her seven-year-old superhero fan, Benjamin, a Justice League comforter, which was the perfect way to distinguish his side of the room from that of his sports-obsessed preschool brother, Joshua.

Painting Power

If your child's room has a lot of wall space that needs some pizazz, consider doing what Sarit Catz did for her children's rooms. Catz, of Short Hills, New Jersey, painted simple murals on the walls that can be easily and inexpensively updated as her children get older.

She painted butterflies with sparkle paint in her daughter's room. "On Ethan's walls, I painted things you'd find in the sky, so there's a helicopter, an airplane, a hot air balloon, and clouds," says Catz. To create a 3-D effect, she tacked up baby toys such as a soft butterfly rattle and puffy balloons. Star ornaments (a 25-cent post-Christmas find) hang from the ceiling and create an interesting effect when the nightlight is on.