Your child’s room starts out as an expression of your own personal tastes, since your baby or toddler isn’t old enough yet to really make choices about his or her room. As your child grows, though, he’ll want to change his room to suit his new interests and tastes. Giving your child some control over his own personal space is a great way to make him feel more comfortable in his room and, possibly, to take better care of it, too.

Choose Color over Themes

Themed rooms are all the rage for most kids. Little girls have princess rooms, and little boys have action figure rooms. The problem is that if you want to carry a theme all the way through, you have to buy everything – new furnishings, bedding, lamps and other accessories, window dressings, border for the walls, etc. It can get really expensive, and your older child isn’t going to want a themed room for long. When planning your child’s next room upgrade, work with color instead and work her own personal interests into the room with framed prints or posters and a few inexpensive accessories she picks out. Paint isn’t all that expensive, so your child can change the paint color every few years. For younger children, it’s a good idea to be part of the paint-choosing process, but older kids can be trusted to pick out their own paint color.