How to Approach Kids’ Room Remodels

Your kid’s bedroom is their unique personal space in your family home. It will reflect their personality and serve their rest and play needs. At its best, it can even be something of a sanctuary when they face the challenges of the world. It should be designed to meet these needs. 

But these needs will change as your child develops throughout their young life. This means you’ll occasionally have to perform some remodeling. You certainly don’t want to break the bank doing this every 6 months to meet their new tastes.

Let’s review some of the effective ways you can approach remodeling your kid’s bedroom.

Keep Your Kids Involved

Listen to what your child wants from their room. Of course, there will be elements you have to make sure are in place. An important part of successfully remodeling your child’s space includes making age-appropriate transitions. This might be furniture you can level up as they grow or items to support good study habits. But your child also has a unique personality, and they will naturally want this to impact their room. Make them part of the planning from the outset so they enhance their connection to the space through informing decisions.

This doesn’t mean you have to give them free rein. You have a budget, after all, and your kid’s tastes now are certainly likely to change. But don’t dictate their room to them. Make it closer to a collaboration where you’re the team lead, but they have a distinct part to play. This can include collaborating with them in the DIY aspects of the remodel.

Set Reasonable Boundaries

Even with something as ostensibly simple as a kid’s bedroom remodel, things can spiral out of control very easily. You don’t necessarily want to proceed in a way impeding your and your child’s ability to be creative with the process. At the same time, just letting loose is a recipe for making bad decisions and spending far too much money. It’s best to set some reasonable boundaries as you start the process.  

There are a few areas you could act on here. A sensible start is setting boundaries around providing elements your child wants. As we’ve mentioned, it’s important to keep them involved, but you need to be clear in your mind about how much control you’re willing to give them. Some items or colors they want may not be practical, affordable, or have sufficient longevity. Set standards their ideas need to meet and apply these in your plans accordingly.

Another key boundary to set is your budget. It’s easy to get enthusiastic about a remodel — it can be a lot of fun — and costs can keep building the more you do. There should certainly be budgetary boundaries, too. Costs can build when you keep adding and creating. Not to mention certain purchases you make — beds, soft furnishings, and even décor — may become quickly outdated as your child grows. So, set an overall budget boundary for the project. But also set limits for individual items you know will need to be replaced in a year or so.

Push for Practicality

There is certainly a lot of fun that can be injected into your child’s bedroom. But this shouldn’t necessarily be the priority. Particularly as your child gets older, they will have practical needs other than sleeping and playing. The space will need to serve these. As the adult in the equation, you should keep a firm handle on practicality.

A big consideration here should be keeping the contents well-organized. Your child will accumulate a lot of things as they grow, and chaos can easily descend. Particularly if you’re dealing with a small room, you can maximize the space with some simple solutions. Finding alternative storage areas for their off-season clothes and accessories can prevent the room from becoming more cluttered. This could include vacuum-sealable bags to reduce bulk and containers to keep them clean and dry.   

Aside from organizing the contents, you need to consider changing usage. As your child moves through pre-teen and teenage years they are likely to need the room to become a more multifunctional space. Review whether they will soon need a desk area — possibly in a fold-out format — for schoolwork or even personal computer programming projects. If your child is keen on visual arts, they may need a dedicated creative space that you fit with easily cleanable surfaces and floors.

Consider Longevity

Most parents are on a tight budget. So, it’s important to get the most out of the cash you spend on your child’s bedroom remodel. This means you should move toward choices promoting the longevity of the room, its décor, and the furniture.

Find items that can be easily moved around the space. Your child may get bored or uncomfortable after a year. The ability to shift things around can help freshen up the place rather than commit to more redecoration. If your kids are sharing a room, bear in mind there will come a point where they’ll want their own part of the room or a little privacy. So, while bunk beds can be a great way to maximize the use of the space, look for options where the beds are detachable. This way you can make adjustments as they get older.

Consider protecting against the child traffic of the floor, too. Carpets might look nice, but they may be subject to scuffs, spills, and damages that may be more expensive to replace. Look into laminate flooring with some rugs. There are even softer vinyl tiled floors on the market where tiles can be individually swapped out if they become damaged.

Conclusion

Your child’s bedroom is an important space for them in the home, so it’s wise to put some care into any remodeling. Make sure your kids have a hand in proceedings, but set sensible boundaries throughout. Be sure to make decisions founded on practicality and use items and materials that will stick around for as long as possible. With a little planning and consideration, you can create a great sanctuary for your kids.

About The Author: Dan Matthews (Twitter) – Writer, Content Consultant, Conservationist, and Lover of all things DIY.

Photo by Maël BALLAND from Pexels