006. Whimsical Children’s Bedrooms
Come on… let your children choose their own wall colours!
Whimsical + colourful + comfortable + LOTS of storage = solid basic recipe for a fabulous child’s bedroom.
The colour in a child’s bedroom doesn’t have be bold and bonkers (though clearly that would be MY choice), but colour should probably be present. A Scandi greyed-out room may look hyper zen to some adults (though clearly I’m not one of those adults 🌈), but how many little kids think a grey room is their idea of FABULOUS? NOT MANY!
The colours should be colours the child loves. I think children should be involved in making their bedroom theirs, to the extent possible. If you’re going to paint anyway, give them 3-5 options to choose from. If you’re going to buy them a bed anyway, let the child choose from some beds that fit your budget and size requirements. Giving a young child complete free reign would be frustrating and inefficient for everyone, but allowing them to make REAL choices from a reduced set of options is doable and good for them.
And by REAL options, I mean that it doesn’t count if you let them choose between 5 shades of the same colour! Wouldn’t it be lovely to let them have one room in the house where they can truly see their own quirky tastes reflected in real life 3D?! Perhaps turquoise is not a colour you would put on your living room walls, but if your kid wants it on theirs, and if you’re going to be painting anyway, I say WHY NOT?! (Though, I imagine that colour psychologists might have some responses to this rhetorical question!)
As a parent, I must emphasize the importance of the qualifier, “if you’re going to be painting anyway”! For AGES I have been promising my child a Numberblocks wall mural. It’s a beautiful idea, but who has time for THAT?!? I’ll get there, eventually! Lesson learned though - I should have painted when we FIRST moved in. Doing it now after all our stuff is in place, shelves are secured to the wall, and the discombobulation of moving is far behind us… feels like A LOT. NEXT TIME!
Now of course, the children’s rooms I’m sharing here stretch the imagination and would definitely stretch the budget to make them a reality in a home. But there’s absolutely no need to go this far. These are flights of fancy and delightful eye candy. Simply painting walls in a new colour is a really economical option that can completely transform the feel of a room. And with some equally economical painter’s tape, you could even add a few fancy stripes in other colours… Or do an entire Numberblocks mural, for example! OH THE GUILT ;-).
I will end with a room option that would actually be achievable without any pricey carpentry required!:
If I had to choose just one type of room that I would have to design until the end of time, it would be children’s rooms.
If you would like to see my full week series of children’s rooms, you can take a peek on my Practically Fabulous Facebook page or Practically.Fabulous Instagram account :-). Images were made with Midjourney.
Love. "Draw me a picture, let's make a plan." Power of choice. Worry about the psychology of colors later! I want to try the idea of a nook with curtains for the bed.
I totally agree, my parents let me truly go mad in my bedroom with the decor. I painted multicolours all over the walls at one stage, and then painted it black and white to write on my favourite quotes and do more 'refined' sketches on the walls when I was a teen. I draped fabrics around the place, made oddly-shaped shelves and rearranged the furniture more times than I can count. It was so freeing to just be allowed to be creative and do what I wanted in my space, and my friends envied me so much!