Decorating a Bathroom for Children
Perhaps you're lucky and have a large enough home where you can dedicate one bathroom to your children and one for yourself. Or perhaps you have children and are looking for decorating ideas that will make your bathroom more kid friendly. Whatever your reason, you're sure to find some useful tips in this article.
When You're on a Budget
Making a bathroom kid-friendly doesn't have to cost a lot of money. Simply changing a few accessories like shower curtains, soap dispensers, bathroom mats, towels and vanity cabinet knobs can go a long way to transforming the feel of a bathroom from grown-up to funky and kid-friendly.
Choose a vibrant color for a child-friendly shower curtain. Most big box stores offer plastic liner-style curtains with cartoon animals or characters on them. These will work but can look tacky. If you're looking for a more sophisticated, designer feel, make a shower curtain from purchased fabric. All you need is a quality polyester/cotton blend in the color scheme of your choice. Hem the all sides and add grommets to the top to hold the curtain rings. If you have no sewing skills, use two-sided tape along all edges of the fabric to create hems. Then use clip-on curtain rings so you can hang the shower curtain up.
The biggest benefit of making your own shower curtain is that you can easily (and inexpensively) change the curtain style as the children grow older. Make sure you hang up two shower rods: one for the clear, plastic liner which will keep your bathroom floor dry during showers and one for the fabric curtain.
Purchase an inexpensive character- or animal-shaped soap dispenser to add some instant kid fun to a bathroom. A fun soap dispenser might make it more appealing for your children to wash their hands. Bath mats don't need to have cartoons or Disney characters on them to make them fun. But bright colors like yellows, oranges or vibrant blues are always a good idea. The same is true for towel colors.
Changing cabinet knobs is an instant way to make a bathroom fun for children. You can purchase specialty shapes in any home hardware store. Or you can use larger average-shaped knobs and paint them. You can add checkerboards, flowers or stripes and squiggles. If your child is old enough, you can also let him or her help paint the knobs and create some parent/child bonding time. Wooden knobs work better for painting.
Bathroom Renovations
Your children aren't going to be small forever and you'll need to think very carefully about major bathroom renovations and your choice of bathroom paints if you suspect you'll want to use the room for adults not too far in the future.
As fun as it may be for your children to have brightly colored walls that look like a crayon box, those vibrant colors will get tiring for an adult very soon. Neutral paint in earth tones is a good choice.
If replacing tiles outside the shower, stick to solid colors in lighter shades. They instantly look sophisticated, but they're just as easy to make kid-friendly. Allow your children to use stencils and sponges and washable paint to create designs on the tiles. The designs won't be permanent. But that's fine since it'll give your children more opportunity to express themselves creatively. A warning: This will only work on tiles with a polyurethane finish that prevents the paint from seeping into the tile and permanently staining it.
The Little Details
Don't forget the little details like a sturdy stool for short legs. You'll also need a basket to store all the bathtub toys. If the adults are sharing the bathroom with the children, make sure anything with an electrical cord is stored out of reach like a locked cabinet or the linen closet.