How to design a creative kid’s bedroom

You could decorate your child’s room with a theme – maybe a popular book or movie – or perhaps their favourite colours. That might be a different colour on each wall, one bright pop of colour in the room or some feature wallpaper.

The walls and ceiling are a great place to start and YouTube is full of inspiration when it comes to finding easy-to-use paint effects.

If you’re more ambitious and fancy a wall mural, how about projecting a picture onto the wall – making your own projector using nothing more than a cardboard box with a hole cut out of it, a piece of plastic and a torch. After the picture is projected onto the wall, all you need to do is trace round it and fill in the design with paint.

Walls are also a great place to display your kid’s art. You can paint or glue a frame onto the wall and let your child pin their latest masterpiece, or hang a string across the wall like a washing line and peg a few of their favourites on the string to be admired. Family photos can also be added to the line-up.

Lighting is another cost-effective way to brighten your child’s room. There are lots of different types of string lights, themed pendant lights and children’s bedside lights – or you could even put coloured bulbs into regular light fittings.

Get creative with storage, using brightly painted baskets or bins for toys, or even a small tent or teepee. Brightly coloured bookshelves can be freestanding or attached to the wall and are a great place to line up favourite soft toys, books and board games. Shelves can also be used to display collections of shells, coins, dolls, Lego creations, or whatever your child loves.

If you have building skills, you could make a bed or customise an existing bed - adding a bright headboard, wheels to turn it into a car, or suspending a frame to hold netting or gauze curtains.

If your child has lots of sleepovers, a trundler bed that rolls away under your child’s bed when it’s not being used is a convenient option.

Soft furnishings are another way to make a child’s room more fun. You can experiment with a colourful beanbag, some brightly coloured cushions or a fun duvet. Curtains also add to a room’s theme.

An older child may need a desk for homework or craft projects, and you can pick a style that matches the room or paint an old desk to match the new theme. If you’re short on space for a desk, one solution is adding a study nook instead.

It’s great to get children involved in the design of their room and helping to create it once you’ve decided what you want. While you might not want them wielding the paint brush, there are plenty of decisions they can make and tasks they could help with to create their very own unique and special room.