Al Heavens is a Haddonfield, N.J.- based, nationally syndicated, home-improvement writer and author whose newspaper columns, magazine articles and books have been the first word on remodeling for 50 million readers for more than three decades. He is the author of What No One Ever Tells You About Renovating Your Home and Remodeling on The Money: Fifteen Innovative Projects Designed to Add Value to Your Home and was “The Gadgeteer” on Discovery Channel’s Home Matters program.
My sons are 38 and 32, respectively, so trying to remember what their rooms looked like when they were little is quite a stretch for someone who has oatmeal every morning just to make sure that he has remembered to eat.
They each had a bed and dresser, a desk and chair, an Ikea area rug so they could play on the floor without freezing, an appropriate picture on the walls, a beanbag chair, a toy box, and plenty of bookcases, since they read books reclining in those beanbags faster than we could buy or borrow them.
In fact, I have just spent three weeks cleaning the basement, and the books that they listened to or read when they learned to do so are now being offered Wednesdays and Saturdays to my two older grandchildren (4 and 3) in London via FaceTime.
There were no TVs or tech – after all, my older son was born three years before we bought our first personal computer, and we successfully limited screen time in favor of books until they reached their teens.
Bare bones and simple, no frills – very much like our bedrooms when we were children. My grandchildren, however, have much grander rooms – Aria, 4, has a wall painted with bunnies, an electric piano, and a bed with a tent-like structure – but it is fine with us, since, to quote my wife, not our circus, not our monkeys.
So, with that in mind, let us look at what children’s rooms are looking like these days.
To demonstrate how old-fashioned our ideas now seem, I recall attending the National Association of Homebuilders’ show in Dallas in 1998 and seeing a show house in which the children’s room had a two-story model of a rocket ship with a ladder for climbing into the module.
It was, of course, a show home, but even the 2,000-plus model homes I have visited over the last five decades as a home improvement and real estate columnist have had children’s rooms with amenities that we would never have considered for a moment for our boys.
The pandemic has, of course, affected the way we look at the space in our homes dedicated to children, especially since, for more than a year, kids and adults have had to coexist physically and technologically almost on top of each other.
With two parents and three children on Zoom for many hours a day and often in the same room, something had to give. Most likely, what gave was the parents’ resolve to keep things simple.
Let us start with the boys’ rooms, since that is the source of my experience, as spartan as it must seem to most of you.
My older grandson is into trains, especially something called the DLR, which is the light-rail service he uses most often in his London neighborhood. I have a set of German-made trains that can be used out of doors, but now they are set up on my basement pool table, and we play with them every Wednesday on FaceTime.
His bedroom has a train motif, with every sort of train stenciled on the walls. He will share this room with his younger (now five-month-old) brother, so his parents can only hope that Arundel will share Aragorn’s railroad passion.
The room will change as the boys grow and their interests evolve. By the time they are teenagers, according to Elle Décor, they will be using their rooms to show off their personal styles.
“Beyond being just a space for resting, it’s where they spend time playing with friends, catching up on homework assignments, and enjoying their favorite games. It’s only right that a teen’s bedroom would be full of everything they love, whether it’s high-energy color choices, unique storage solutions for displaying their books and toys, or a striking bed design,” Elle Décor states.
The magazine then offers 20 ideas for design, which you can check out at https://www.elledecor.com/design-decorate/room-ideas/g29074281/teen-room-ideas/.
When you look at the accessories, you are talking about spending big bucks ($595 for a lamp the kid may never turn on), and you begin to wonder for whom the room is being created.
Since my granddaughter is a Londoner, I went to the website idealhome.co.uk for girls’ room ideas.
According to author Jennifer Ebert, a girl’s bedroom is her sanctuary from the outside world as she grows up.
“Putting together a cohesive, creative and practical scheme for a girl’s bedroom is no mean feat,” she says. “The key is to introduce flexible and accessible storage, colorful accents, and one or two striking elements for a look that can evolve as your little girl grows up.”
A girl’s bedroom needs to be a flexible space, accommodating her changing needs from babyhood through to teenage years. So, it makes sense to ensure that big-ticket items such as beds, wardrobes and chests of drawers will stand the test of time, Ebert says.
Since Ikea always was our first choice (two kids in private school necessitates a constant search for bargains), I turned to the Swedes for today’s inspiration and was not disappointed.
For example, for younger children, a bed designed for “spontaneous sleepovers,” reminded me of the trundle bed that was used, in turn, by each of our sons. The guest bed was the pullout that had to be vacuumed for crumbs before each use, but it did come in handy.
When you talk about the American house, every age group needs plenty of storage, and kids are often the biggest collectors of stuff that has to be put somewhere other than the middle of the floor on which a parent sometimes has to walk in the dark.
The Ikea bookcases bought for my sons remain in use in various parts of the house, and we, too, acquired the adult versions for the library (where my wife watches television), and for my basement office.
The pandemic and the overwhelming demand for workspace means that desks have become a fixture in school-age children’s bedrooms.
The desk my younger son uses had an extension that did not quite fit the space in his room. I removed the extension and repurposed it into a worktable for my wife. My older son’s rolltop desk, which we acquired from friends, was given to our next-door neighbor, a retired shop teacher, who redid it for his grandson.
The Ikea children’s room ideas https://www.ikea.com/us/en/rooms/childrens-room/gallery/ are extraordinary and include dinosaur and jungle themes as well as a “travel the world” motif, which my granddaughter’s “bunny room” reflects as well.
My daughter-in-law visited 41 countries and all seven continents before she was married, and my son began traveling to Europe and across the United States at 10 months. Before her brothers arrived, Aria traveled throughout Britain, Europe and the United States, and there are photos and maps in her room as well as in common areas reflecting that feat.
Do not forget the nursery, which should be as relaxing for parents as it is stimulating for the newborn. There is a TV commercial showing a talented new father turning a room into a nursery while his wife is giving birth in the hospital. I hate to brag, but I did the same thing for both my sons in two different houses, and still was with my wife as she gave birth.
So there, he said, lowering his mask to stick out his tongue.
The Spruce, which is a web site offering “practical, real-life tips and inspiration to help you make your best home,” suggests 17 “smart ideas” for children’s rooms that I highly recommend https://www.thespruce.com/shared-childrens-bedroom-ideas-350508.
Author Kitty Lascurain acknowledges that decorating your son or daughter’s room can be an intimidating process.
“You want the space to look great, function well, and capture your little one’s imagination, but that’s a tall order for one small space, especially if it’s a space for two,” she says.
One set of parents, hampered by the lack of space needed for a playroom, converted their son’s closet into a “mini bunkroom,” with a little ladder designed for access to the second shelf.
Another idea was using chalkboard paint on the ceilings and walls to create a space for drawing things like picture frames and stars with semi-permanent chalk marker. I remember when Rust-O-Leum first came up with the chalkboard paint in the late 1990s and it was greeted suspiciously by consumers.
Now just about every paint manufacturer has a version of it.
If your house is just a few years old, the rooms you will have to work with are probably fairly large. Older houses are typically hamstrung by small rooms and even smaller closets and will likely require a fair amount of renovation before decorating can begin.
That is where your contractor enters the equation. You need to first know what is possible in the space that may be available, and then tailor your expectations to fit what you have.
Make sure you get the kids involved in the process. They are going to have to live with it, and if they are not happy, you will have to live with the consequences.
It is their room, not yours after all.