Advertisement
Home HOMES Decorating

Before & after: A colourful and clever kids’ room makeover

Tidy, inspiring and fun!
Loading the player...

Giving your kids’ room a makeover is a great excuse to splash out on colour and display, but when you have two children sharing the same small space, you have to consider the needs and tastes of both. 

Advertisement

WATCH: Tara Dennis transforms a girls’ bedroom into a boho paradise

Storage solutions and functionality are crucial, and fairness is key, but the fun factor will top the list for your littlies. So focus on pops of colour and cool play areas – your kids will love it!

These five fun and functional decorating ideas that bring back creativity and banish boredom, ‘go to your room’ will no longer be considered words of warning.

Drab shared kids' bedroom with blue walls
Before. The uninspiring kids’ room lacked storage and room to play. (Credit: Chris Jones) (Credit: Chris Jones)

1. Room for activities

Let their imaginations run wild by building a play station at the end of their bed – and we don’t mean the digital kind. A three-cube storage unit is the perfect base to make this clever piece, framed in pre-cut 16mm MDF then glued and screwed together.

Advertisement

Round the corners to make it kid-friendly, then apply a water-based primer. Paint the outside in a hardwearing topcoat colour to match your bed frame and the inside in chalkboard paint. An extra insert piece of MDF, primed, painted and covered in faux turf or an offcut of vinyl flooring, makes an ideal changeable floor for each play station.

Chalkboard play station with dollhouse and storage
This toy box doubles as a ‘play station’. (Credit: Chris Jones) (Credit: Chris Jones)
Chalk holder attached to blackboard
Keep chalk organised by attaching a handy holder to the chalkboard. (Credit: Chris Jones) (Credit: Chris Jones)

2. Favourite colours

Come bedtime, provide your kids with the cutest and most colourful spot to slumber. Paint solid timber bed frames – here, vintage finds – in a colour to suit your scheme. Sand, apply water-based primer, then finish with a hardwearing water-based topcoat in white and a highlight colour-pop.

Advertisement

To ensure the kids’ room always looks considered, mix and match bedding and accessories to a complementary colourway – try blues and greens or pinks and peachy tones. 

Blue kids bed
The bed frames were painted in each child’s favourite colour. (Credit: Chris Jones) (Credit: Chris Jones)
Pink coloured bed frame in shared bedroom
To keep the room feeling cohesive, try to match the bed linen to the colour of the bed frame. (Credit: Chris Jones) (Credit: Chris Jones)

3. Playful storage

Armed with a roll of masking tape and a selection of coloured chalkboard paints, you can transform a plain, pre-primed chest of drawers into a colourful work of art.

Advertisement

Puzzles, dolls, cars and crafts, or undies, socks and pyjamas – once your child has decided what goes where, use dust-free chalk to write up the contents of each drawer.

Drawers decorated with colourful chalkboard paint
The storage cabinet in the middle of the room brings the entire colour scheme together. (Credit: Chris Jones) (Credit: Chris Jones)
Toy stored in chest
Each drawer has been painted with a mix of colourful chalkboard paints. (Credit: Chris Jones) (Credit: Chris Jones)

4. Chalkboard toy chest

If your kids adore to draw (especially on the walls), ensure their creativity knows no bounds by painting a large vertical surface in chalkboard paint.

Advertisement

Here, boring wardrobe doors have been transformed into an artist’s canvas by masking up sections, then priming and painting in various colours.

For side-by-side bands of colour, paint one section, leave to dry, then re-mask and paint the next section, and so on. 

Cars on top of toy chest
The second toy chest has been decorated with green felt to resemble grass. (Credit: Chris Jones) (Credit: Chris Jones)
Child's stool in front of chalkboard
Encourage your kids’ creativity by painting a large chalkboard wall. (Credit: Chris Jones) (Credit: Chris Jones)
Advertisement

Related stories


Advertisement