Turning a house into a home requires safe, comfortable, and creative spaces for everyone, including young children. Creating quiet bedroom spaces, lively playrooms, and pleasant bathrooms can help a child thrive in their own home. So, what considerations should you take when designing these spaces for your child? We asked the experts at Highmark Builders and Ruby+Suede Interior Design Studio, Danberry Building Corp., and Destiny Homes – companies specializing in interior design, new construction, and remodeling.
While each space serves its own function, creating adaptable bedrooms, playrooms, and bathrooms will not only make these spaces great for young kids but will allow the rooms to serve multiple purposes as your children grow.
As we all know, children grow quickly, and their needs change. So creating a quiet bedroom, separate from a playroom, that can easily adapt with their age is important.
“The approach for a kid’s bedroom is quite different from an adult’s. We’re creating a space that has to be functional and adaptable for the child. That child is not going to be at that size forever. They’re going to grow. So that is one of the main concerns,” says Richard Harsdorf, owner of Destiny Homes.
Utilizing the bedroom as a quiet space instead of a playroom can be helpful when it comes to adaptability. Installing softer lighting, cooler colors, and darkening blinds — all things that can easily be updated — can create a calming space for a child to relax and unwind.
“What we’re finding with younger kids — one-, two- and three-year-olds — is that they don’t necessarily have the bedroom as their playroom. They want the bedroom to be where quiet time is,” says Jeff Danberry, owner of Danberry Building Corp.
Kristen Schammel, senior interior designer at Ruby+Suede, adds, “We incorporate what the kids enjoy into their bedroom to create a space where they can get away from the rest of the family, have their own retreat and relaxing space. Simple, unique features like window benches, a special bean bag chair, or a hanging swing from the ceiling are little, easy-to-add elements that make their space their own and distinct from the other rooms in the home.”
Storage and shelving are also easily adaptable features of a child’s bedroom. Ample storage space is perfect for when you need to store diapers, wipes, and books, and then it can be converted as the child grows to meet their changing needs.
In addition to finding fun ways to design your child’s bedroom, it’s also important to consider the safety aspects that play a large role.
In bedrooms, “we add safety elements like rounded or padded corners” that can help prevent potential injuries, Jeff says. Using proper electrical outlets and outlet covers are another huge safety consideration.
Finding ways to make your child’s bedroom their safe space as they continue to grow can be just as important as designing a creative playroom.
It should be noted that playrooms don’t necessarily need to be separate from the rest of the house. Often, play areas can be set up in family rooms.
“We find that kids want to be where the parents are when they’re playing, so those rooms are often just part of the family room,” Jeff says.
There are boundless ways to instill creativity into a playroom, starting with the basics: floors and walls.
Richard says great options for flooring in playrooms include carpet or rubberized flooring. Rubber material is great for when kids are playing or roughhousing. However, if you’re looking for a more adaptable option, carpet is the way to go. With various colors and textures, you’ll be able to find a carpet suitable for the kids that also looks good when the room eventually turns into something else.
And, in addition to painting a playroom fun colors, turning one or more of the walls into a chalkboard is a great way to help your kids live out their dream of coloring on the walls! Kristen shares, "For one of our projects, the daughter wanted to splatter paint the walls with her favorite colors. The painter got all the paint, we put plastic over everything we didn't want paint on, and then she splatter painted her own walls, creating a really special space for herself."
Adding built-in shelving is also a great way to utilize the space in a playroom. The shelves keep the toys and books tidy and give more space for the kids to play.
Safety aspects to consider in the playroom include anchoring furniture to the walls to prevent it from falling if your child climbs or pulls on it. Installing permanent safety gates is also a great option to keep your child safe in their playroom.
Kids getting messy during playtime is a given. So, when it comes time to head to the bathroom to clean up, you can add a few features to make your bathroom practical for your child.
While the large features of a bathroom — bathtub, toilet, sink — aren’t usually made specifically for children, there are plenty of smaller features that can easily make any bathroom functional for a toddler, teenager, or adult.
Installing vanities with built-in stools that can be pulled out to help children reach the faucet is a big help when kids need to wash their hands or brush their teeth. And finding faucets with levers instead of knobs can make it easier for children to turn the water on and off.
When it comes to keeping your child safe in the bathroom, one major consideration is water temperature. Making sure the water cannot get to scalding temperatures is important for daily use in the bath or handwashing.
While simple, these features offer great solutions for making your bathroom child-friendly. And to make the space really theirs, Kristen suggests something simple like changing out the hardware on the cabinets to fit their personality. "In one girl's bathroom, we added fun, crystal hardware."
At the end of the day, designing spaces for your child to live and grow should be fun! There are so many ways to design adaptable rooms that will serve the right function regardless of your child’s age.
If you have a baby on the way and want to design their bedroom, have a toddler in need of a playroom, or need to update your bathroom, the experts at Ruby+Suede and Highmark Builders, Danberry Building Corp., and Destiny Homes are experienced and can help you with designing, remodeling or building the rooms you need to make your house a home.
Highmark Builders: highmarkbuilders.com
Ruby+Suede: https://rubyandsuede.com/
Danberry Building Corp: http://www.excelsiordesigngroup.com/
Destiny Homes: https://destiny-homes.com
The approach for a kid’s bedroom is quite different from an adult’s. We’re creating a space that has to be functional and adaptable.