For teenagers, their bedroom is their sacred place and sanctuary. A lot of teens spend most of their time in the bedroom while at home, only coming out once in a while to get some snacks and eat. It’s the place they can call their own as they begin to assert their independence and define their individuality. It’s the place where they can feel secure enough to be themselves, so their room must reflect their personality. As they grow up, themes like farm animals, cars, planes, dolls, and flowers will not quite work. Help your teenage child decorate his/her room by taking note of these tips:
1. Make the bedroom multi-functional.
The teen’s room needs to reflect their growing needs and demands. The bedroom is not only a place for sleeping, but it’s also a spot for studies, homework, projects and socializing. Your teenager needs his/her own workspace to keep him focused on his studies and assignments. Providing a functional desk would also teach them to organize well. And take note that the social aspect of a room is very important, as lounging and hanging out with friends in their own space becomes a need that is almost as important as sleep. If space allows, add a couch or club chairs or a chaise lounge. Don’t forget beanbag chairs – they are really meant for teenagers. So the main areas of your teenager’s bedroom are sleep area, dressing area, study area, and lounge area.
If the space is small, you have to be more clever in decorating and furnishing to make it truly multi-purpose. Here are some ideas to accommodate all areas even when space is limited.
- Loft the bed. Move the bed up, then put the closet or dresser, desk or couch underneath. For instance, if you have chosen the under-bed area to serve as a lounge area, place desk and closets on the opposite side.
- Use a foldable desk, so whenever your teenager doesn’t have friends over, he/she can use the couch to serve as his work chair to study and do assignments.
- Add a small bench against the foot of the bed. This makes a versatile lounge. It’s also best if the bench also serves as storage to save space.
- Place the bed against the wall, lengthwise. Make it serve as a daybed for lounging purposes, and a bed during nighttime. Or better yet, pick a daybed with drawers underneath.
- Add open, floating shelves on the wall on top of the desk. This can serve as storage for the printer, router, school supplies, and decorations.
- Provide a cozy area rug and throw pillows in a corner for lounging, if space for furniture is really a challenge.
2. Use bold and bright colors.
While adults prefer a calm and understated space, teenagers prefer vibrant rooms. Let them boldly express themselves with color combinations. Incorporating colorful patterns and prints instantly invigorate the room and keeps the energy positive and happy. Remember, eclectic décor works for teens, so don’t be afraid to add details (but make sure your child will like it).
Unless your teen is obsessed with one color, it’s always great to create color combinations in their room. Even those combinations that look unconventional can work very well, as long as it looks pleasing to the owner.
Black, white and red is a classic color combination that works for any gender, and it makes the room appropriate for teens yet creates a sophisticated feel. Bright blue and navy are always popular with teen bedrooms as it serves as a flexible, neutral-like, yet uplifting color to the room. Green is another commonly used color in teenager’s bedrooms because it is calming and vibrant at the same time. Orange is a warm and bright color that is often used as an accent in teen’s rooms.
For girls, purple is a favorite, and it can be used to achieve different styles and moods from modern, glamorous, youthful or romantic – depending on the shades and accent colors you will blend it with. Some teenage girls still prefer pink, but they often go for more salmon pink, coral pink or fuchsia pink – if they want a bright color. Pinks are often accented with green, yellow, purple, or black and white.
For boys, warm browns and neutral beige with accents in dark blue, green and bright orange always work. Some boys still like blue during their teenage years. Navy and cobalt blue are calming and masculine, and it’s also age-appropriate.
3. Perk up the walls.
Since your child is a teenager now, his/her room needs an upgrade, and one of the most important area to cover is the walls. It’s the biggest area to work within a bedroom. If the walls are already dingy after all the childhood years of drawing and taping things to the wall (and even the ceiling), then it gives you more reason to repaint or re-color your child’s wall. There are color suggestions stated above and you can use it in either the walls or beddings. Here are some ideas on what you can do on your teenager’s wall:
- Paint it with a bright and lovely color they love.
- Use removable wall decals to add fun patterns and images to the wall.
- Apply wallpaper. There are a lot of color, pattern and print varieties that it won’t be hard to search for what your teenager would like.
- Make a gallery wall. Especially if your teenager is fond of photography (or even selfies), make a physical copy of their photos and let them hang it on a string light, tape on the wall with washi tape, or frame them up and hang on the wall. If your teenager is a big fan of a band, an artist, a celebrity or anything, have their posters framed and hanged on their wall.
- Display their own art projects. If your child is extra creative, have her paintings, sculptures or any artistic creations from a school project or a home DIY project displayed on floating shelves or open shelving.
- On one free wall (or the wall where the head of the bed lies), create a custom painting or a graffiti wall treatment. These can definitely show the individuality of your child.
- Have their favorite words or their name displayed in neon or marquee sign with lights for an eye-catching wall element.
If you think some of these decorating ideas might look too overpowering, especially when paired with existing furnishings and accessories, then just apply it on the wall where the bed rests in so it would serve as an accent wall. Don’t forget your fifth wall, which is the ceiling. Old decals and glow-in-the-dark stickers you’ve added there when they were a kid need updating as well.
4. Decorate according to your teenager’s interests.
Since teenagers would prefer vibrant over calm, most of them would choose a fun decoration that will serve as a signature of who they are. Teens are creative and expressive of themselves, so bold elements can surely excite them. Every personality can be expressed through aesthetic design. Here are some examples of things you might want to include in your teenager’s bedroom:
- A unique and funky chandelier to keep the room fun
- A hammock, a hanging chair or a hanging bed
- A round bed, because rectangular is too typical
- A fun bedside lamp for the late-night readers
- A flowy canopy around the bed for extra privacy
- A chalkboard wall so they can express ideas and help them re-create the classroom setting while studying
Before adding anything, consult your teenager on their personal tastes. The accessories you would add would always depend on the interests of your child.
Since teenagers love gadgets and gizmos, you may start on that one. Suspend a flat-screen TV on the wall with a console table below it to hold and store their game consoles and controllers. Provide a computer desk to better store your child’s own laptop or desktop computer, and have it hold their chargers, music players, headphones and other electronic accessories.
If your teenager is musically-inclined, make a nook for your teenager’s instruments, like guitars, saxophones, and keyboard. Embellish your wall with things that will relate to the artists and genre of music they are passionate about, whether it’s pop, blues, classic rock, heavy metal rock, rap or jazz. Memorabilia from concerts of their favorite singer, musician or band are worthy of being displayed through shelves and frames. Coordinate these items with the color of the beddings and curtains.
For a teenager hooked in any kind of sports, whether they play the sports itself or they’re a huge fan of it, it can work as a theme for the bedroom. Opt to paint the wall in a color related to the sport, then decorate the room with the sport’s essential item, like basketball hoops, skateboards or surfboards stored on a mounted hook on the wall, framed team jerseys, or flaglets proudly displayed on either side of the bed. An artwork, an enlarged photo, a wallpaper or a mural that shows or reflects the sports interests of your teenager would also work. Coordinate drapes and beddings with the colors or patterns that can reflect the sport to complete the look.
Any interest will do – from automotive to navy ships, or dinosaurs to pandas or movies to cartoon or anime characters – any theme will have a decorative item and color scheme you can use to pull the desired look altogether.
5. Be crafty with storage.
Accept the fact that teenagers who love to keep their rooms clean, organized and orderly are very rare. Functional and easy-to-reach storage options would be best for teenagers to help them stay organized. And the easier it is for your teenager to use the storage area or material you provided, the more likely it would be utilized. Here are some storage tips:
Provide plenty of shelving. Teenagers are busy, and it’s best to provide them with a lot of storage space since they would probably have time to declutter is during their vacation from school.
- Provide under-the-bed storage bins. Items like extra beddings, extra pillow, extra bulb for lamps, or other supplies and knick-knacks.
- Add storage benches and ottomans for easy storing.
- Mount a long coat rack on a wall, especially in a boy’s bedroom. Guys don’t like closets so make their jeans and jackets easily accessible through this rack.
- Get organizing drawers in fun colors and designs so your teenager would love using it.
The bottom line is, make storage fun while incorporating your teen’s personality to help keep the room less messy and cozier.