For a kid, their bedroom is not just the place where they go to sleep, it’s also the place where they go to dream, to play, to study, the place where they hang out with friends and where they create their art.
Having a room that works for multiple purposes while also reflecting their favorite things and being able to keep it somewhat organized is the challenge. As a color palette, create a balance between a neutral background so that your kid is not overstimulated, and pops of color to bring joy and playfulness into the space.
This is also the place where they love to display their art or their DIY projects, so allowing some walls for that will make them enjoy their space more.
How to Start
- Kids will sleep better in a clean and clutter free room. Achieving this is challenging because their room doubles as a playroom and where they do their schoolwork.
- Start from the ground up-literally. Pick up all the things and sort them into categories: clothes, games, school.
- Return all the clothes into their closet or send them to the laundry.
- Make different piles with the games and put them into categories: legos, board games, cars, small toys, etc.
- Declutter what your kids don’t use anymore and plan how to store the remaining items.
- Don’t buy organization bins or baskets until you’ve finished decluttering.
- The organization system that you use must be kid-friendly and must be very easy for them to use on their own, that’s why cubbies are such a great solution.
- Declutter by categories. Clean inside their drawers and store back the remaining items. You can use drawer organizers to store the small items.
Things to Declutter in Your Kids’ Bedroom
- Plush toys: donate them if they’re in good condition and toss them if they’re too shabby.
- Broken toys: dried out pilots and worn out crayons.
- Outdated trinkets: found objects, souvenirs, rocks, cereal toys, etc.
- Clothing: lost socks, stained t-shirts, clothes that they’ve outgrown.
- Board games: those have lost pieces, electronic games and consoles that they no longer use.
- Decor: maybe they loved Nemo a few years ago, but now they’re onto something else.
- Food-empty pizza boxes: cereals, cookies and candies, half-eaten sandwiches, etc.
- Old sheets and bedding.
- Books: they’ve outgrown.
- Last year’s uniforms: sport and school uniforms.
- Shoes that no longer fit.
- Artwork and DIY: projects that they don’t want anymore.
How to Design and Organize Your Kids’ Bedroom
- Make a floor plan of your kids’ rooms so that you can fit in their beds as well as storage. If you have a twin bed, nestle it into a corner so that you’ll have more play and storage space in the rest of the room. Instead of having two twin beds, get one bunk bed. In a small room, elevated beds are the solution because they have several rows of drawers below the mattress.
- Get creative with your vertical space by adding floating shelves or bookcases.
- Define boundaries with decor:
- Have a cork wall so that they can put posters, photos and their artwork.
- Use chalk paint on a wall so that they can express themselves and doodle.
- Cubbies: kids should be able to store toys by themselves as soon as they finish playing with them. A great idea is to have some cubbies, because they’re already used to storing their things that way in school. Take into consideration their opinion as to what to store where because they’re going to be more likely to follow it if it was their idea.
- Bookshelf: a bookshelf with a combination of closed doors and open shelves works great because you can display some items while having some others hidden behind the doors.
- Art cart: a two-tiered rolling cart is great to have handy items at hand such as art supplies.
- Small table: a small table can be very useful for doing homework, puzzles or painting.
- Stuffed toys: this can be a tough item to store if you have too many, in that case a toy hammock works great if you’re short on floor space. You can also store them inside a bean bag cover, that way you’ll have seating and storage at the same time, or you can have a laundry hamper or a basket if it’s more convenient for the space.
What to do with your kids’ artwork:
- Scan it, make a collage and frame it.
- Do a scrapbook.
- Use a binder with plastic sheets.
- Use a file folder for yearly school photos.
- Digitize your kids’ DIY projects and artwork.
Maintenance Tips
- Teach your kids the importance of making their bed from an early age.
- Tell them not to bring food to their rooms.
- Pick up the trash regularly.
- Have systems like cubbies or baskets in which your kids are able to put back their toys easily where they belong.
- Store the kids clothes as soon as they come from the laundry.
- Change the sheets weekly.
- Make it like a game, give them gold stars or pizza night once a week as a prize for organizing their room.
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