Teen Bedroom Makeover

Ideas on How to Transform Your Child's Private Space

© Kelly Whitt

Apr 8, 2008

A teen's bedroom is his or her safety zone. A placefor him to unwind or a place for her to do some quiet studying. It needs to find the right balance between mature and sterile, and youthful and sugary sweet. Here are some suggestions on how to get started.

Rearrange the Furniture

There are usually two or three choices for where the bed can be placed in the room, yet most kids have their bed placed in the same place all the time, and often this is a single bed pushed up against a blank wall. Try moving the bed out from the wall: put the head beneath a window and let the drapes be the headboard or angle it out of the room from a corner. Set a lamp or plant behind it to fill the corner space or for a girl's room use netting that cascades behind it and onto the bed.

If homework is often done in the bedroom, find a dedicated work space. Take a corner of the bedroom and add a desk or a comfy chair for reading. Make sure there is good lighting with lamps or near a window.

Try placing the dresser near the closet (or inside the closet, if bedroom floor space is an issue). This way your teen has discrete areas in her room for her wardrobe, sleeping, and work.

Painting Existing Furniture

If you do not have a budget for new pieces, you can breathe life into old pieces through paint. This is a great task to have the teen do himself or to make it a parent-child project. Pick a couple colors that are the focus of the room and then after priming the furniture, simply paint them on. You can do drawers one color and the base a different color, or do legs of a desk one color with the writing surface another hue. Teens love moody colors, such as midnight blue and silver or red and purple, and many are moved by the contrast of black and white.

Picking Out New Linens

The most functional bed cover for a teen's room is a top blanket that is reversible. Teens love to experiment and change the look. Businesses such as JC Penney and The Company Store make comforters and bedspreads that are solid on one side and striped on the other, or two different solid colors, or even polka dotted. Your teen can flip the cover according to whether she is feeling serious or playful.

Creativity through Headboards

Making your own headboard is a way to really showcase a child's creative talents or hobbies. Some ideas for a headboard are;

• Old screen doors draped in fabric with the screens used as a bulletin board.
• Use single earrings that have lost their mate to pin artwork, papers with good grades, and photographs onto the back.
• Create a headboard from items used in their favorite sport, such as a surfboard, hockey sticks, or a row of soccer balls mounted atop a traditional headboard.
• Let a music lover paint a plain board into piano keys to mount on the wall behind them.
• Hang a long box shelf to be filled with books for your reader's personal library.
• For a soft, feminine look, wrap a traditional headboard with pillow fill, cover it in a pretty fabric by using a staple gun to attach it to the board and then glue on silk flowers to cover the fabric.

There are many ways to transform your teen's bedroom. Find more great ideas in the links below.

• Teen Bedroom Decorating Ideas
• Dorm Room Decorating
• Tips on Teen Decorating
• Teen Decorating

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