Tips for Decorating a Boy's Room

Decorating a boy's room can be a lot of fun. It is also something that the family can do together as a project. Make sure that you take into consideration your child's favorite colors, his interests and how he really uses the room. Make sure that he is a part of the planning process and the project once it starts. The more involved he feels, the more enjoyable it will be for everyone.

Color: A boy's room gives you permission to go crazy with color. Bright reds, blues and greens are often popular choices. If you child is not fond of bright colors, tone it down a bit by using more muted colors. Neutrals are ok, but they are boring!

Themes: There are so many to choose from! Here are some ideas: Nautical, Sports, Under the Sea, Firetrucks, Construction, Surfing, Cowboy, Jungle, Dinosaurs, Pirates, Fishing, Race Cars, Outer Space, Camping/The Great Outdoors, Farm...the list goes on forever.

Paint, Murals or Wallies? After you have decided on a theme and colors, you need to decide if you want to paint and use a wallpaper border, or paint 3 walls and do a mural on one wall, or maybe you will not have to paint at all (you wish you were that lucky, right?). If you are short on time, painting and then using a border is the quickest way to pull a room together. But if you really want a special room, why not consider a mural? I personally love them! I painted a tree, bees and bugs on my son's bedroom wall and had a blast doing it. I had help from the artistic one in our family, my grandma. When we were done, my son absolutely loved it and we get compliments on it all the time. Now that he is a little older, he wants his room redecorated in aliens, but he wants to keep the tree! If you are not especially artistic, there are many sites online that sell ready made murals, or you could paint by number and do it yourself. Remember the little paint by number pictures that we all did when we were kids? Well now they have them for walls! Walnutz has a great selection of reasonable priced mural paint by number sets that have everything except the paint and brushes. They also have Wallies, which are basically wall stickers that you place randomly until you get the effect that you want. Look everywhere for inspiration. Check out websites for pictures, read articles, books and magazines for ideas that you can use. If you have friends with kids, look at their kid's rooms. Most of all, ask YOUR kid for his input.

Furniture: Preferably, you would like furniture that your child will not outgrow in a few years, but if you are wanting a fun look and willing to spend the extra cash, there are some really cool beds and other furniture out there. Rooms to Go Kids has some really cool furniture that is reasonably priced. Kid's Quarter's has some very unique car beds.

Here are some great websites for kid's bedding, wall decor, furniture and other accessories

http://www.allposters.com/: Huge variety of framed artwork and posters

http://www.potterybarnkids.com/: Absolutely the cutest kid's bedroom decor that you will ever see

http://www.walmart.com/: Nice selection of the most popular TV and Movie character themed bedding and accessories

http://www.storybooklane.com/: Upscale items;

http://www.wardskids.com/: A little bit of everything

http://www.ebay.com/: Great place to find anything that you could want for a kid's room

When decorating your child's room, just remember to have fun with the whole process, use your imagination and be creative, and your child (and you) will very proud of the results.