How to Decorate a Kid's Room for Less Than $50

Everyone on a budget knows how hard it is to decorate a home, even just a single room. A child's room can be one of the most challenging rooms in the house to redo. With a few easy tips and some creativity, anyone can decorate their kid's room for less than $50.

Difficulty: Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Paint
• Lamp
• Curtains

1. Decide on a theme. Pick one item or color that will be the main focus of the room and make your decorating plans around that. This could be a cartoon character that your kids really love, or you could choose bright spring colors and go from there.

2. Paint the room. You can buy paint for a fraction of the cost if you are willing to purchase mis-tints. These are paints that were tinted for a customer but didn't turn out to their liking. Surprisingly, you can get some wonderful colors this way.

3. Go shopping at thrift stores and yard sales. Not everything in your child's room has to be new. Take someone's trash and turn it into treasure, whether it is a lampshade that you recover with some pretty fabric, an old chair that gets a fresh coat of paint or even a set of curtains that you can spruce up with ribbon ties.

4. Let your child help. You don't have to live in the room; your child does. Let them help make decisions. Maybe they want a growth chart on the wall to see how big they are getting. This can be done with paint and a small brush. Your child might even like to personalize their room by adding a painted handprint to the wall; paint their name on their door or framing some of their artwork to hang in the room.

5. Sew something. Doing just one homemade sewing project can make a huge difference to the kid's room that you are decorating. Start with a pillowcase that matches the room's theme and work your way up to a valance for the windows. Fabric is really inexpensive, even more so if you use a coupon or buy it from the clearance rack. These projects take very little fabric.

6. Change the lighting. The simple act of changing the light bulbs in your child's room can make a noticeable difference. Consider adding soft glow light bulbs in a lower wattage, or even a colored light bulb in one lamp to give the room a nice feel.

Tips & Warnings

• Use old fishing nets found at yard sales or thrift stores to hold stuffed animals up in a corner of the room.
• Recycle your kid's toys for decorating by using an old skateboard as a wall shelf.
• Use an overhead projector to project a mural project onto the wall for easier transferring and painting.

[jaysmommi]

on 4/29/2009 Great article! Thanks