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A Perfect Study and a Playroom Combined
School introduces children to a new sense of structure and responsibility, and their bedrooms need to reflect this change. "Everything in its place" is a hard rule to enforce without a place for everything. Built-in closet organizers with flexible mounting systems can solve immediate and future storage problems. Built-in beds and desks make efficient use of space. Include children in the decorating process will bring out their creativity and teach them planning and spatial arrangement skills. To help children understand spatial relationships, take measurements of the furnishings for the room. If you haven't already done so, outline the room's dimensions on a piece of graph paper, and indicate window and door placement. Give your child a tape measure and measure the room together; depending on your child's age, this may be an opportunity to work on adding feet and inches. Your child can apply those dimensions to visual images of the room. An ever-escalating desire to acquire takes children from rattles and stuffed animals to building blocks, books, and collections of shells, CDs, and movie magazines. You should contain the sometimes overwhelming flood of pint-size pleasures and adolescent indulgences that are part and parcel of childhood. Attic loft would be a great cover for your young teen: he or she can create there a small den and use it as a cozy reading nook, secret headquarters, or private game room. Loft beds create a similar effect in a bedroom: By raising the bed, the loft frees floor space for playing. Even better, make for your kid a kind of a jungle gym, with rungs and handholds that anyone - even grown-ups - can clamber up and down. Giving kids a say in designing their space is part of the fun. Let them pick a paint color or give them permission to paint a mural on a blank wall. Having a voice in the look of the room gives kids pride of ownership, something that pays off in big dividends when it's time to clean up. Some tips on furniture items * With a file cabinet, hanging files, and folders, kids can alphabetically arrange their "save it forever" artistic masterpieces, pen-pal correspondence, clipped-out articles, and A+ homework assignments. * Cheery felt-covered boards hung at toddler-height sport oversized letters, numbers, and shapes. The fun felt cutouts beg little ones to put together a word or two. There's nothing magical here. Friction holds the shapes to the board, just like it did in kindergarten class. * Configure a built-in study and storage center with kitchen base cabinets that will carry kids from crayons to computers. A 28- to 30-inch desk height is recommended for adults; size your child's desk according to his or her comparative height. * Take it to the top of the wall with shelves sized to hold plastic bins filled with tiny toys, blocks, games, puzzles, and colorful critters. Store today's playthings close to earth and rotate toys up the shelves as interests shift. * Chalkboards, bulletin boards, and other easy-care materials transform ordinary playrooms into workshops of imagination. * Inexpensive wooden box sets can be painted any color and are perfect for holding hair doodads, CDs, and notes from friends. Using labels that insert into metal holders means labels can change as storage needs evolve. * Built-in drawers can hold the biggest items, such as trucks, stuffed animals, robots, and dinosaurs. Label each drawer with letter stencils; for kids who are too young to read, paint pictures of the items that go inside. * Kids looking for things tend to reach back, pull out, and throw on the floor until the correct item is found. Stop bad habits. Translucent bins on pull-out platforms allow little guys to get a good look before grabbing. Be thoughtful when buying bins: Inventory toys, then get bins that fit the toys.
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