Interior Design for Children

Designing your interior décor around children can create a safe environment and prevent nice, expensive furnishings from being ruined. Depending on your family's lifestyle, some or all of your rooms can be decorated with your kids in mind. As long as you keep everything simple, easy to clean, and safe for little ones, you're free to follow your own creativity.

Children in the Kitchen

You will want easy to clean cabinets, floors, and counters in the kitchen. Kids don’t mean to be clumsy and make mistakes, but their mistakes often usually lead to big messes. In addition, cooking is a wonderful way to teach your child about scents, measurements, counting, patience and even science. If you’re able, try to have a special spot where your child can help you clean vegetables and add ingredients to dishes.

Depending on the ages and temperament of your children, you may want to put locks on cabinets, stove, refrigerator, pantry, freezer and the microwave.

You will also want to design a place for your children to eat. If you have a formal dining area and use it for everyday meals, you want it to be kid friendly. You will want the floor beneath the eating area and your kitchen furniture to be easily cleanable. In addition, remember that children will often drag chairs into the kitchen to reach things up high. Your chairs should be sturdy enough to be stood on, and light enough not to cause damage to your child if they fall over.

In the Bathroom

The bathroom is a great place for playing in water, brushing teeth, and having messy accidents. Your child’s bathroom should have an anti-slip rug for the bathtub, sink and around the toilet. If your children are big splashers, you may want to make up any difference with towels you can toss onto the floor to prevent slippage.

You also may want to get a small stool for your child to stand on while brushing teeth and washing hands. This will help prevent your child from climbing onto the counter/toilet/sink to reach soap or toothpaste.

Your medicine cabinet should have kid-friendly things like Band-Aids in it. If you have medicine or other products in your medicine cabinet, you may want to consider putting a lock on it. In addition, if you have young children, you may want to put a lock on the toilet.

You can have a lot of fun with interior design for children’s bathrooms. Many decorating places have fun themes for bathrooms including fish, frogs, cartoon characters and penguins. Admit it, you've always wanted Spongebob Squarepants on your toilet seat cover.

Interior Design in the Playroom/Family Room

Your children should be able to create whole worlds in these rooms, so remember to keep them free from clutter (the kids will take care of that). Many families have a television, stereo or DVD player in these rooms. If you do, you may want to put this equipment in an armoire that can be closed off from your children to prevent damage.

You will want this room to have storage for your children’s toys and indestructible furniture that you don’t mind getting a little beat up. You may want to have a small table where your child can do homework, play puzzles or do artwork on.

Interior Design in your Children’s Bedroom

There are many ideas and many stores focused on interior design for children’s bedrooms. Pottery Barn Kids, Target and IKEA all sell furniture and décor for your child’s bedroom. Your child’s bedroom décor should have a lot of input from them. Many people decorate their child’s bedrooms with themes. Popular themes for girls are butterflies, dragonflies and flowers. Examples of boys’ room themes include animals, robots and space.

Your children’s bedrooms should be decorated with their needs in mind. If you have bunk beds, they should be sturdy enough to have multiple children on the top bunk. You will want a great deal of storage for toys and other paraphernalia in your children's bedrooms. You also may want a storage place for their clothing and special drawers your in which your child can hide things.

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