Children’s Bedrooms – Decorating through the Years

There’s no need to redecorate your child’s room or nursery as they grow up.  Redecorating a room with each phase of your child’s life will cost you a fortune.  Save your money for their college fund instead, and try these tips for budget makeover changes to update your children’s room as they grow up.

  • As your child outgrows their nursery theme, change the border, wall art and wall decals around the crib or eventually the youth bed.   
  • As they starts to express their individuality, you can tailor the décor or theme to match their personality.  By four or so, they’re going to have a favorite cartoon character or theme – probably mirroring  the current Disney release.   You’ll have no trouble decorating with their favorite character – they’ll be wall borders, bedding, accessories and more available for redecorating your child’s room.  You don’t need to buy all those expensive accessories – try making some of your own.  You can easily print out color pictures from the internet to use in frames or making accessories.
  • By that time, your child may decide they want to change the color of their bedroom.  Let them start expressing themselves – they can help pick out their new room color and start to give their opinion on themes.  It’s never too early to start your child’s artistic appreciation!

Now, for the difficult ‘tween’ years, they’re not a baby and they’re not a teenager, so what do you do?  When I was a young, we would ‘wallpaper’ the room with pictures and cutouts of our favorite celebrities or hobby.  Try a more supervised alternative to avoid those holes  or tape peeling the paint off the wall.  Buy inexpensive poster board to use instead of the wall for those collages.  Use poster frames or even stencil a frame around the poster board.  You’ll have instant, inexpensive wall art for your child’s room that they can update themselves as they grow up.

  • As an alternative, try cork board, it’s not plain old brown anymore and you can use panels on the wall and let their imagination go wild to decorate it. 
  • Let them choose their own accessories, with a little guidance from you, of course.
  • When purchasing new furniture or accessories for your children’s bedroom, use it as a teaching tool for budgeting, making responsible decisions and teaching math lessons.  Set the budget, have them keep track of the expenses and figuring out how much to spend on each item.  It will be a valuable lesson for them.

The years will fly by as your child grows up, make decorating your child’s bedroom a family affair, not only will it save you money, but also help them become more creative, and who knows, maybe they’ll even want to clean it!