Designing a child’s room is a task any design lover will be happy to take on. The possibilities are many and varied, each age has its own characteristics, and there seems to be no end to the ideas. We have gathered some advice for you on how to choose the best for your child, a little about current trends and some useful tips.
A child is born
When designing a room for a baby or toddler, it is worth choosing furniture that can serve the child from infancy until first grade. It is better to paint the room in neutral colors, to which you can add special items and touches of color according to your wishes and your child’s stage of development. Storage solutions should suit the toddler and their needs – that is, things the toddler is supposed to reach should be at a suitable height. When the baby starts crawling, use safety accessories to prevent accidents from a drawer closing or a door slamming on soft fingers. Consider whether you need a changing table and, if so, how it can be converted to another use when the baby grows. Add touches of color with a rug, a curtain, wallpaper, wall stickers, a lampshade and anything else your imagination suggests.
Fantasy
If your child is five or older and their room needs an update, you can use the need for a redesign to turn their room into a fantastic kingdom designed around the things they love. Involve your child in the process, learn their color preferences, hobbies and dreams, and incorporate motifs from their world into the room. For example, if your child loves nature, you can use wallpaper or wall stickers that create the feeling of their favorite landscape: a blue sea with seagulls above it, green hills, blue skies, a jungle full of animals and more. For a child who loves vehicles, you can buy a bed designed as a car or a ship, and the bed will also serve as an exciting toy. If your daughter loves princesses, you can buy a canopy bed that will immediately give her room the atmosphere of a palace. If she loves fairies, you can add elements from their magical world, such as stickers, wallpaper, mobiles and more. The possibilities are varied, the result is spectacular, and it will give your child the ultimate room, full of imagination and inspiration. At the same time, without spoiling the fantasy, be sure to place the unusual motifs against a background of classic design, which will allow the room to be adapted in a few years to your child’s changing needs.
Safety
Many accidents happen at home, and proper design of the children’s room will help prevent them. The safety measures you can use relate to several areas.
• Electricity – cover unused outlets with protective covers to prevent electric shock. Also, be sure to hide electrical cords behind furniture against the wall, to prevent tripping, devices falling and accidents.
• Furniture – avoid furniture with sharp corners and be sure to anchor wardrobes and bookcases to the wall. Try to avoid placing the bed next to the window in the room of a child under five, to prevent falls from the window.
• Windows – install bars or window restrictors. This way you will protect your children from falling and their room from break-ins.
Furniture that grows with the child
With a little imagination, you can furnish the children’s room with furniture that will change over time according to the child’s needs. A low table in a toddler’s room can become a desk when the child grows, by extending its legs. A box table can become a hanging storage unit or a bedside table, and a changing table can become a shelf unit for storing toys. You can find more ideas in children’s furniture stores, and don’t be shy about asking the store staff for help. A piece of furniture that can be used in different ways will stay with you for many years.
Quality
Don’t compromise on the quality of the furniture: buy solid wood furniture and make sure the paints used on it do not endanger your children’s health. It is better to buy furniture from an experienced and skilled company that specializes in children’s furniture.
Space
As parents, we want to give our children all the best possible, but an overcrowded children’s room may create a feeling of suffocation and disorder. Try to leave enough space for play and movement in the room, so that when your child’s friends come to visit, they can play comfortably in the room. If the space is small, place wardrobes along the shorter walls. A raised bed with a play area underneath is a solution for increasing the space, and arranging the furniture in an L shape will create a feeling of more space. In addition, if siblings share a room, a bunk bed will leave more free space for play.
Furniture that is also a toy
Using furniture as play items is a successful solution for saving space on the one hand, and an invitation for little ones to use their imagination on the other. The ideas are endless – from a bed that is a pirate ship, through a pouf that is a giant soccer ball or a rug that is a play mat, to a cushion that looks like a crocodile or a snake. There are many ideas, and all you have to do is choose what suits your child, what will make them feel safe and loved and spark their imagination.