Decorating tips for kids rooms

Room to grow
Decorating tips for kids rooms
By Paige Fumo Fox
G
etting ready to decorate a
nursery, or remodel your child’s
room? Think sophistication,
bold colors, and some practical choices
that offer flexibility in the future.
Kid-specific, cutesy patterns are giving way to a
“sophisticated” palette, said Julie Morris, vice president
for merchandising and marketing for Calico Corners,
a fabric store that offers custom design service, with
four Chicago-area locations. She’s seeing many more
florals and bold graphic patterns going into children’s
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bedrooms or playrooms, and larents seem more inclined
to make the child’s room an extension of their own
taste while still allowing the child’s personality to come
through.
And if your child is old enough to express an opinion, he or she probably will, said Julea Joseph, interior
designer and owner of Reinventing Spaces in Palos
Park. Tweens and teens have very specific ideas and a
great eye for detail these days.
A girl might want a tropical theme and make sure
it’s reflected in every detail, Joseph said. That could
mean a hibiscus-shaped bulletin board, a palm-tree
shaped earring holder, grass skirt fringe around the
lamp, seashells on the desk, and more.
“I didn’t go too kiddy-like,”
Newport said. The room is filled
with cool blues and greens, a look
she believes will stand up for years
to come.
“You get a feeling of being
outside,” she said, with one green
area rug and an additional rug that
depicts a road, a large fabric leaf
coming out of the wall as a canopy
over a teal futon, and car and animal decals.
‘
Every mother
wants to
personalize their
child’s room.
’
- Cindy Hader, owner
of Palatine-based
World of Wren
One day, the toddler toys and
miniature trucks will be traded in
for a Nintendo set, or maybe even
yoga mats for Tracey. By then,
much of the room’s nature theme
will stand, she said.
Morris, of Calico Corners,
said good places to splurge could
be the window treatments, or an
upholstered chair, as it’s easier to
replace a duvet cover down the line
when tastes change.
Joseph agreed. She has decorated a girl’s room with hot pink or
bright lime green, for instance, but
found fabrics that can tie together a
number of colors for window treatments. When it’s time to tone down
the pink or make other changes, homeowners can pull from other colors
in that valance or curtain.
Other approaches to help change
a room without having to overhaul it
include using removable wall decals
instead of murals. Many companies
offer premade decals to reflect a
child’s favorite characters, spell out
their name, or create a theme. Cindy
Hader, owner of Palatine-based
World of Wren, has created a line
of decals on a linen-like material
that can be used to create a custom
mural based on themes of the forest, airplanes, and fairies, that look
like they’ve been painted with oils
directly on the walls.
“Every mother wants to personalize their child’s room,” Hader said.
“The bedroom is the sanctuary,”
Joseph said. “They’re trying to
make the space unique.” •
Photos courtesy of Tracey Newport
“I think teenagers are more
and more discerning and they want
their space to represent their style
and personalities,” Morris said.
A child’s room should provide
a restful place to sleep and a comfy
place to relax or hang out with
friends – think floor pillows or
cushy club chairs. It can start with
parents investing in some furniture
or other pieces that can be around
a long time.
“I teach my clients to have the
good bones pieces,” Joseph said,
like convertible cribs and classic
furniture that won’t appear babyish when the child hauls it off to
his first apartment one day.
Furniture is one of the major
investments parents will make for
their children’s rooms, but there
are cost-conscious choices. A convertible crib is one way to go; and
stick to traditional beds and not
the racecar- or boat-shaped ones.
Another, said Tina Laskaris, owner
of Bedrooms 4 Kids in Tinley Park,
is to skip the desk that goes with
the bed-and-dresser set.
Simply put, kids do their homework at the dining room table, on
the couch with their laptop, or just
about anywhere other than their
bedroom these days. They just
need some kind of surface area for
their personal things like smart
phone chargers and trophies and
picture frames.
Laskaris said she has also
noticed that more people are looking to maximize space, and more
siblings sharing rooms. Bunk beds
are much safer – and more attractive – these days, with sturdy side
staircases (which often include
drawers in them for added storage)
instead of spindly ladders.
When Tracey Newport and
her husband, Andrew, moved to a
five-bedroom home in Chicago’s Mt.
Greenwood neighborhood, one of
the first rooms they decorated was
a playroom for son Logan, 1- ½.
Logan Newport plays in his room in Chicago’s Mount Greenwood neighborhood.
tell them you saw it in the January family time magazine
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