When you ask your teen for bedroom decorating ideas for their room you may be in for a shock. If you have teens you know what I am talking about! At some point in almost every teen's life they go through a phase of wanting a black bedroom. First off...don't worry. You don't need to pack them off to a psychiatrist for analysis. This is a perfectly normal phase. But it doesn't make decorating their room an easy task unless you also happen to love black walls!

I had two teens, a boy and a girl, who both at one time requested a black bedroom. I used the same approach with them both and got two very different results but they each ended up with a room they loved, it was truly their own and, NO, I did not paint the walls black! For my daughter we went with white walls so she could create a dramatic effect and my son's room was painted a warm, neutral gray. It is the accessories where I gave them free reign to express their style and individualism.

Teens generally approach life with great passion. What they are into..they are REALLY into. For my daughter it was punk music, art and fashion. For my son it was guitars and heavy metal. Both wanted to plaster the walls with posters. Here are a few alternatives to having them tape your walls up with pictures.

• Poster frames are a must for any teen bedroom. Have one or two on the wall and your teen can display their favorite poster of the day/week/month without putting tape or thumbtacks into the wall!
• CD frames. This is a very cool way to turn your teenager's CD collection into wall art. There is space for 20 CDs in the frame, it keeps them organized AND your teen can switch them up as their taste in music changes.

Instead of a headboard I let them be creative. Here are a few ideas I came up with that kept us all happy.

• If your teen is artistic, get a prepared artist canvas approximately 40" x 24" and a set of acrylic paints and let them paint their own headboard, in their own style.
• Replace your teen's headboard with a black chalkboard or cork board so they can decorate it at will.
• This is the one my kids chose. Have a piece of plywood cut to 40" x 24", or whatever size you want the headboard to be, and paint it flat black. Then have your teens pull out their stash of teen/music magazines. Give them scissors and a bottle of podge or white glue and let them decoupage their headboard.

Next you can purchase photo boxes, trinket boxes or use shoe boxes and let them loose on those as well. They can customize them with paint or decoupage and since storage is always an issue in kid's bedrooms these accessories can be put to good use.

For that touch of "black" that they seemed to crave, I purchased some very inexpensive black poly/cotton fabric and made curtain panels and bed skirts. That was enough to satisfy them without painting the entire room black. With these simple bedroom decorating ideas both you AND your teen will be happy!

Written by Cathy Henry