Toddler Room Decorations

September 23, 2007 9:53 PM

Toddler Room Decoration tips?

In four months we'll move into a new house. At that time, my daughter will be 18 months old. We'd like to give her a fun, creative room, but don't have a lot in the way of artistic skills, and have a fairly limited budget. We could spend $200-$300 on decorations, but that's about it. Her nursery as a baby had a ladybug theme, and we'll probably keep some things (like the dresser I hand-painted) that have ladybugs on them. But that doesn't have to be the total theme for the room.

What I'm really looking for are ideas for a fun, colorful room that don't require a lot of skill or money. We're open to all kinds of suggestions. TIA.

posted by Pater Aletheias to home & garden (24 comments total)

Paint the walls a couple of different colors. I did it in my daughter's room, and it really makes it fun and dynamic. Here is a picture. There's now more art up on the walls so the orange isn't so overwhelming.

If you have a sewing machine, it's pretty easy to make curtains and throw pillows for a pulled-together look. You can always buy two sets of sheets for her bed later on and sew matching curtains and pillows out of the 2nd set.

I love the 3M command line of velcro wall adhesives. This makes it really easy to switch out pictures and change things around. Right now my daughter has cardboard cutouts of Sesame Street characters up on one wall.

Let you child be the artist. Get a blank canvas at an art store. Put a few squirts of fingerpaint directly onto the canvas. Let her go to town. After the paint is dry, spray canvas with a clear acrylic sealer and then go pick up a frame at Hobby Lobby. Viola! Modern art!
posted by Ostara at 10:01 PM on September 23, 2007

Paint one wall with that cool chalkboard paint.
posted by GaelFC at 10:03 PM on September 23, 2007

If you have the space, build a network of caves and tunnels out of pvc pipes/2x4s/canvas/whatever. It would have been my dream room when I was little!
posted by you're a kitty! at 10:08 PM on September 23, 2007

My aunt had a genius idea - she put molding all around the walls of my cousin's room about halfway up the wall. They kept the top half white but painted the bottom half a color - repainting as my cousin got older was easy because they only had to paint half a wall and it didn't require a ladder! They also put a wallpaper border above the molding - much easier than putting it up at the top of the room!
posted by radioamy at 10:17 PM on September 23, 2007

I would also guess that to save money, go with mostly solid fabrics and get patterned/themed accessories.
posted by radioamy at 10:19 PM on September 23, 2007

As someone who endured the embarrassment of having Sesame Street wallpaper as an 11 year old, let me recommend that you avoid using glaringly toddler-oriented themes on elements that are likely to go unchanged for many years. Use bright colors on the walls, and save the characters for bedspreads and table lamps.

Chalkboard paint is pretty cool, as is MagnaPaint.
posted by contraption at 10:22 PM on September 23, 2007

My son loved Pillow Mountain, which was 20-25 pillows of all shapes and sizes and colors piled up in the middle of his room. The pillows were made from random chunks of foam and covered in washable fabrics. Sewing your own pillowcases is about the simplest sewing task ever and fabric is available cheap on the remnant table. Pillow Mountain was used as a fort, as an ocean, as a trampoline, as a place to nap or read or just roll around in.

About every other month, I took all the pillows forms outside and whacked them with a broom handle to de-dust them but it was remarkably maintenance-free, otherwise.
posted by jamaro at 10:49 PM on September 23, 2007 [1 favorite]

chalkboard or whiteboard, the bigger the better. If you can commit to an entire wall of chalkboard, that would be the best.
posted by MadamM at 11:18 PM on September 23, 2007

Nthing chalkboard, and avoiding anything too glaringly 'themed'. Bold-ish colours are nice, but nothing that will induce a headache in you or them!

That's what we did, in any case. And we got a friend to make the biggest beanbag we could fit in the room, a bit like Jamaro's pillow mountain.

Remember, your toddler is, well, toddler height. Get down and view the room from her point of view, and just spend most of your money on decorating the room that she can see, and not the stuff high up. The walls etc. at your height will do just fine in oatmeal/magnolia.
posted by dowcrag at 1:21 AM on September 24, 2007

Since you already have some ladybug stuff, you can always do a garden theme. But I agree with everyone else--keep the theme-yness to a minium, at least in the bigger stuff.

This post is a good walkthrough for designing around a theme. (It's specifically about a Winnie the Pooh theme but the principles are useful.)
posted by wallaby at 3:48 AM on September 24, 2007

Wallies are an easy way to add some decoration without having to be artistic. I've got flowers in my daughters room, and had a large rocket and stars in my son's room before we moved. They have peel and stick chalkboard now too.
posted by saffry at 4:42 AM on September 24, 2007

The biggest problems I had with my kids rooms was never the decoration because their imaginations took care of that. It was the storage! Spend ALL the money on systems for taking care of the millions of toys she will acquire over the next 5 years. I like the ikea cupboard with a basket in it system. You can label the basket with a felt shape or something similar to help her identify what's supposed to be in there before she can read. We actually used plastic hobby boxes which we drew on with marker. It made cleaning up barbies, legos, stuffed toys, books, cars, trains, dressups, etc ad unbelievably infinitum a little stressful and a lot more independent. Also aided in punishment by restricting a toy group quite easy. $20 on secondhand curtains and bedspread, and the rest on storage. You'll thank me later.
posted by b33j at 4:53 AM on September 24, 2007

Best thing my spouse did when decorating our son’s room was to stencil the alphabet all along the walls at about shoulder level. Walking around the room and saying the alphabet while pointing at the letters became part of our bedtime routine (after bath, before reading). We weren’t trying to make him an early achiever (whatever the hell that is), but he did learn his ABC’s very early and was an early reader too. (also nth-ing the blackboard paint).
posted by qldaddy at 5:44 AM on September 24, 2007

Thanks for all the great ideas so far. I think we'll definitely do a wall (or half a wall) with chalkboard and magnetic paint. I love the idea of a tunnel system--I would have been there all the time if I had had one as a kid. Pillow mountain is pretty nifty, too. And I think we'll use some Wallies, too. What a great way for non-artistic parents to liven up a room.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 7:25 AM on September 24, 2007

Lots more wall decals at Blik. They even have removable ones. How about some school lockers for storage/seating?
posted by barnone at 8:12 AM on September 24, 2007

Design Sponge has some ideas for kids. So does 2Modern.
posted by barnone at 8:17 AM on September 24, 2007

We got an inexpensive mirror at Ikea and hung it at my toddler daughter's height in her room. She's enjoyed it so far & we can easily move it up (or out) as she grows.
posted by mogget at 9:43 AM on September 24, 2007

We did the blackboard paint, but were a little leery about painting over it, so instead we bought a sheet of melamine, painted that with BB paint and attached it to the wall with drywall screws.

A few years later, we swapped the child's room with our office and taking down the blackboard was E-Z.
posted by plinth at 12:05 PM on September 24, 2007

I haven't painted my daughter's room yet, but I really liked how the Dottilicious stickers worked out (picture).
posted by mathowie at 3:33 PM on September 24, 2007

a rainbow is pretty fun to look at and easy to paint. some nature themes, like plant shapes, would be fun for now and also appropriate for an older child.
posted by lgyre at 4:00 PM on September 24, 2007

Has anyone tried the magnetic wall stuff? FWIW I did a wall with the blackboard paint, got tired of it and just cleaned and scuffed it to paint over it.

Your ladybug furniture could be transformed from being used in a ladybug nursery theme to a little girl's cottage garden theme or a tea party theme or a just critters room.

Maybe you could skip the theme thing altogether and just pull colors from the dresser? If the room is large, you may need more decorations to fill the space but if it's average or small in size I'd let the hand painted dresser be the decorative focal point.

Do you have any pictures you would care to share?
posted by msbaby at 1:07 PM on September 25, 2007

msbaby-

You can see the dresser on the second entry on this page of the baby's blog.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 7:11 PM on September 27, 2007

Wow! I certainly would try to incorporate that into the new room theme. The chest of drawers is just too cute!

The contemporary graphics definitely rule out my suggestion for a cottage garden theme using pastel colors. Your ladybugs are not of the shrinking violet variety by any means!

You will need to find a way to work with the bold blocks of primary colors. A solid set of bedding and window treatments may be the way to go unless you get really lucky and find a set that has a fabric in your colors with random squares printed on it.

Maybe you could do some painting on the walls carrying the geometric design around the room. Make a ladybug trail on the wall if the geometric painting isn't enough.

Looking back at the other ladybug room theme I mentioned, there are some ladybug stickers, stencils and pillows that you might be able to use. But really nothing as cute as what you painted yourself. What a great makeover you give that piece of furniture!
posted by msbaby at 6:30 PM on September 28, 2007

I just found something else that might be cute in your room. It's a huge ladybug floor pillow that's about halfway down this page.

The page was supposed to be about ladybug rugs and I almost missed it. As talented as you are, you could probably use them as something to go by to make your own.
posted by msbaby at 6:33 PM on September 28, 2007