Kid's Playroom - Decorating for All Ages

The playroom always provides a challenge! Decorating with a theme is sometimes hard to do, especially when your children vary in age. Face the challenge and defeat it with a space that everyone will be comfortable with and love. Your children should have a bright, airy room to play, read and relax in. Sometimes this is not possible to do with natural lighting sources as the kids playroom tends to be placed into a basement or attic area. Let's start from the bottom, and work our way up! Flooring in a basement room is generally cement or concrete, and difficult to brighten, but there is a great solution. Visit your local carpet store, and check for remnants, left overs and floor samples that are on clearance. Choose brightly colored remnants, and create a carpet mosaic from them for your children. They will love helping you place the carpet pieces in a bright pattern, and almost any color will do. If you have a mix of light and dark colors, cut them carefully with a carpet knife and mix them to form a rainbow of delight.

While shopping, remember to visit the local hardware or home improvement store, such as Home Depot. Every day, these stores provide the service of mixing paint for their customers, and they do make mistakes! When a color is not quite what the customer suggested, Home Depot places these gallons of errors (paint) on sale for $5.00 a gallon! It is a great and inexpensive way to paint a room with a bright but neutral color to accommodate families who have both boys and girls that will use the room for play time.

Lighting should be practical, and kept high for those cases of little ones who love to touch, run and cause minor accidents. Keep your family safe by using track lighting as a way to provide the safest lighting, while adding that bright feeling to the playroom. My choice for this is the Hampton Bay Line Voltage Flexible Track Lighting. Create a design with this lighting that will be unique for your home, while staying within your budget. This line allows you to follow your own style, add a touch of silly twists or turns and you will be delighted with the result!

For my family, space is limited. We planned to increase our storage space for all those toys, games, stuffed animals and more, while providing comfortable sitting areas for the kids to use while watching television and reading. To create this illusion of unlimited space and comfort, I purchased the materials to craft sturdy chests from wood, with tops that lift up to hide all those toys and the rest of the things my kids can't live without! Our plan is to line two walls in the room with these chests, one for each child. Once again, your local home improvement shop can be a treasure chest of items or ready made cabinets to do this with. Just make sure the tops are thick enough to hold your children! While out picking up supplies at the store, be sure to stop at your local thrift shop, dollar store or discount stores such as Big Lots. You will want some thick cushions to place on top of the cabinets, throw pillows and a blanket or throw for each cabinet to keep the little ones comfy. Don't forget a few bean bags! Though they are a decorating idea that is older than me (and no, I'm not telling you that!), they are a great addition to your playroom. Kids can get comfy while watching TV, reading or playing a game, and will love being able to just plop on the floor!

Wall art and shelving will be the last additions to your new playroom. Keep the wall art as neutral as possible, due to the fact that boys just don't dig Barbie, and girls generally don't dig G.I. Joe. One solution that we tried, and seemed to work, was to give each one their own "Wall of Fame". We let them pick out their own themes for their wall, decorated with inexpensive wooden boxes from the craft store for storage of art supplies and other small items. The kids painted the boxes, stenciled, added stickers and whatever else floated their boat. After craft time is over, hang them in interesting patterns on the wall, within their reach. A few of these boxes placed higher up will keep things such as knick knacks, movies and game cartridges or cd's safe from little hands. They also work great for storing those game consoles instead of watching the kids step on them, trip on them and just generally destroy them!

In a few days, you'll be ready to enjoy your very own bean bag on the floor while playing games with your kids. Have fun!