Teenager Bedroom Ideas

How to Agree on Redecorating Your Teenager's Bedroom

At some point your teenager will either need or want a more grown up looking space to live in.

This makes sense.

The problems usually start when it becomes obvious that teenager bedroom ideas are vastly different from ideas parents like.

Involving your teenager in redecorating their own room gives them a chance to express themselves.

It may even teach them a thing or two about budgeting, decision making and setting goals.

1. Make A Plan

Sit down together and work through your ideas.

Agree that you will both keep an open mind at this stage.

If your teen is up for it, you may cut pictures out of a magazine or collect some color swatches, to build up an idea of what will work.

2. What Goes Where?

How do they want to set up their room?

Will there be a:

• Study area
• Talking/relaxing area
• Sleeping area
• Storage

3. Who’s In Charge?

Decide and agree on who will be responsible for the budget (maybe your teen needs to help pay for any big ticket items out of their own money?).

Who is responsible for repainting, doing up furniture, sewing cushions and curtains, etc?

Encourage your teenager to be involved as much as possible and match them with your own commitment.

4. Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle

Here’s an excellent opportunity to show your teenager how to make the most of what they already have.

Look at ways to revamp the furniture already in their room.

• Take a look at their bed and see if it can be repainted, if it would look more grown up with a new head board, if it needs a new mattress and new linen.
• Is the wardrobe big enough? Can it be repainted for a fresh new look, or turned into storage space with the clothes going onto a cheap, funky hanging rack instead?
• Can lamps be updated with a coat of paint and new shades?
• Is there any furniture in the rest of the house that could be repainted and put to use in your teenager’s room?

It’s amazing how much can be achieved simply by moving the furniture around and freshening up the paint. Add a few new accessories, maybe new curtains and a lamp, and suddenly there is no need to spend a lot of money.

If you are having trouble finding ways to revamp the existing furniture, make weekend trips to yard sales and second hand shops together. You never know what gem you’ll find.

5. Make Some Space

Show your teenager how to organize their toys, books and clothes so they can keep their room tidy. A good place to start is to throw out, give away or store all the stuff they have outgrown or grown tired of.

It’s a good idea to do this step early on so you can see what you are working with and how much storage will be needed.

Ideally a teenagers bedroom will have:

• Shelves
• An ottoman or window seat with storage inside
• Containers that slide under the bed (or a spare mattress for sleepovers)
• An assortment of bins and baskets
• Consider a large corkboard or magnetic board for posters, postcards, notes, etc as a neat way to display things instead or sticky tape or pins in the wall any old how.

Some more thoughts on posters:-

• You can also buy really cheap frames for posters or glue them to thick card or thin board for hanging.
• If your teen really wants to be able to stick posters up and change them often, a compromise could be to have one wall coated in an extra layer or two of paint and just let them go.
• Or go the whole hog and paint the wall in a light color and let them write straight on the wall – song lyrics, comments from friends, drawings and cartoons.

6. All The Colors of the Rainbow!

It’s common for teenagers to love the idea of painting their room black, or bright red, or violent pink, or every color at once.

• Remind them that paler colors are more soothing, more relaxing and better for sleeping.
• Strong colors cost more (as they contain a greater concentration of pigment) and will eat into the agreed budget faster.
• A great compromise is the use the strong color just on one feature wall or to use it in the bed linen, curtains or cushions, rugs, book shelves, etc.
• Remind them that using a strong color sparingly means they can easily change it to another color in the future for a fresh look.

7. Let Their Personality Shine

Really let your teenager have some input over the accessories and decoration in their room.

They will enjoy expressing themselves and you may learn something about them too!

With so much input from magazines and TV it’s not uncommon for teenagers to have a fairly good grasp of good design. Let them go with their teenager bedroom ideas and see what they can come up with.

So Are You Willing To Risk It?

When it comes to decorating, teenager bedroom ideas may well start off light years away from your own.

Work together, and you may be pleasantly surprised with the result.

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Sometimes we can lose the way or habit of talking to our teens, and then, when we really need to we find we can't "connect" with them.

There is a way to keep your teen talking with you.

Read more here…

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