Most parents would not even consider letting their child help in decorating, but most children have very strong tastes. They know exactly what they want in food and clothes, so it is not surprising they know how they want their rooms to look.
Guidelines for painting:
- Try to avoid painting with your child. If you must, completely clear the room, carpet and all. If you can’t roll up carpets, make sure the dust-sheet you put down is stuck down with tape at all edges of the room to avoid paint seeping down to the floor or carpet beneath.
- When painting, you must first clean or strip the walls. Children should not be around hot steamers, but your child will love putting his hands in a bucket of soapy water and helping clean the walls.
- Your child may not have the best color choice to paint his whole room, but you can compromise by suggesting one wall his favorite color or to accessorize with curtains or carpet in this color.
- Your child will be able to apply paint more evenly with a roller than a paint brush, but make sure to help when putting paint on the roller.
- Although it may not be as pretty as a matte paint, vinyl silk paint is better for a child’s room, as it is easy to wipe down and keep clean.
Furniture:
- After painting the walls, you can use leftover paint to touch up furniture. You can decoupage images onto the furniture, using PVA glue to stick them in place and using a protective coat of varnish by mixing the PVA 50/50 with water. It will look milky white when you paint it on, but it will dry as a clear coat.
Borders and blackboards:
- Decorate lining paper by painting poster paint your child’s hands and feet and then have them walk on the paper. You also could include dog or cat feet, fake or real. This is best done outside, but make sure to have a bowl of warm water and a towel to help clean feet and hands. It is also a good idea to have some stones or weights to stop the paper from curling while you are decorating.
- Another fun decoration for children’s rooms is blackboard paint. This can be used on the back of a door or in a specific design, for a whole wall of black may be daunting.
Susan Matherly is director at A Children’s Place, a service of Ephraim McDowell Health. She has a bachelor’s degree in health and exercise science and a master’s degree in public health education. She can be contacted at (859)236-7176.
