Partner with your children to enable them to make their rooms reflect their personality and interests. Not only will this be a productive way to work together, this activity will offer your kids skills that will be useful throughout life.
Have them begin by creating a collage of favorite colors, shapes, objects collected from magazines or Pinterest. Together you can hone it down to those images that mean the most or fit together.
You can do so much with paint. Fun colors, patterns or images on the walls can enliven a room in no time! When my sons, were preteens, we moved in to a new house. They weren't to excited about the move. So I was determined that their rooms would be their own special places that they enjoyed. They loved surfing together, so I painted a life size wave crashing over their bed. It was the beginning of a whole new surfer theme with hula bedskirts, surf board pattens on the bedding, white canvas curtains. We had a lot of fun selecting furnishings together. We spray painted an old wicked table for beside the bed. It turned out to be a fresh, happy place!
Boring paneled closet doors can offer a back drop for a collection of images of their favorite things. For instance,
If your daughter loves music, put images of various instruments within each panel or for dog lovers- breeds of dogs... When they move onto a new love, just paint over it!
Encourage them to repurpose items. Create a cushion for a camp trunk to use it for a bench. An old doll could serve as a place to hage hip jewelry...
I often recommend fabrics and rugs specified for outdoor use because they can handle whatever your kids throw at them and you can literally hose them down- along with your children!
Giving the kids this opportunity to contribute to designing their own space can allow them to take ownership and feel pride about their rooms that might even compel them to keep them clean!
