When decorating a child’s bedroom there’s no reason to limit colors to the traditional ‘pink for girls, blue for boys’ theme that began back in our great grandparents’ time. Children are naturally attracted to fun bright colors; choose a bold energetic palette that’s more in keeping with their age and developing imagination.

Primary Colors for Babies and Toddlers

Blue, red and yellow are basic primary colors and they provide the basis for other favorite hues like green, lavender, or orange. These intense cheerful colors are appealing to children, and you’ll find them in toys, games, clothing and wall decor art for children. With white or a pale neutral wall color, you can mix primary colors to your heart’s content or build a theme based on one or two colors and display them in bedding and accents throughout the room.

Easy-to-Decorate Character Themes

Toddlers and young children will often have a favorite theme or character that can inspire the colors and theme of their room. Start with a bedspread in a favorite character or theme and repeat the colors of the bedspread throughout the room in pillows, painted wall shelves, wall art, framed posters, wall initials, window treatments and bedding accents. It’s very easy to create a coordinated look this way; blend solids and patterns along with the character pieces to avoid having too much of the same thing. Or create your own theme, such as a favorite children’s song, then use a paint-by-number wall mural and music notes wall hanging to echo the theme and colors throughout the room.

Color-Based Themes

If your child has a favorite color, use that color as the basis for your theme. Bright fire-engine red would be too much for the walls, but can be used in area rugs, window valances, closet knobs, picture frames and other small doses throughout the room. If the window trim is painted instead of natural stain, you could paint the trim in the deeper color and leave the walls a complementary neutral shade. Mix in another bright color, such as yellow, and vary patterns, shapes, and designs, such as wide stripes, polka dots and squiggles, to get a coordinated look.

Let Older Children Help Choose their Decor

Let your older children help decide on a favorite theme for their room and work on the project together. From horses or dogs, space travel, beach themes, fashion, science or movies, music and celebrities, kids know what they like and they’ll have lots of creative ideas about how to express their personal style. Let them help with color choices and give them an allowance to spend on accessories so that they can learn about budgeting and comparison shopping while decorating their room.

Decorating a child’s room doesn’t have to be about spending a lot of money. Make it more about creativity and repurposing bargain pieces by giving them a funky new attitude. For example, old album covers from the 1960s can be framed as wall art for a teen girl’s retro look room. NASA posters that you pick up at a garage sale can be the inspiration for a space shuttle bedroom for a budding astronaut. Let your kids interests and hobbies inspire you to create a perfect bedroom space.

All text copyright Relica. Photo from Flikr - "Beach House Kids Room" courtesy of Posh Living, LLC.