How to Design a Room That Grows Up With Your Kids

Most of us can recall our childhood bedrooms in vivid detail: When our world was small, our room was at its heart. It was where we slept, read, played, and dreamed, where we brought our friends and adventured into imaginary lands. Far from just another room in the house, our bedroom was central to our emotional and cognitive development. As Maria Montessori, the famous child-centered learning educator, aptly observed, "Adults admire their environment, but a child absorbs it."

If you now find yourself on the other side of adulthood, facing a child’s bedroom that’s ripe for some strategic designing, fear not! Creating a great kids’ room is absolutely worth your time and energy, but need not break your spirit—nor your piggy bank. We asked several experts for wise tips that will help ignite both you and your child’s sense of play, joy, wonder, and enthusiasm.

For Sarit Shani Hay, a Tel Aviv–based designer who has spent the last 25 years creating award-winning children’s environments, a well designed children’s space "provides an atmosphere where they can be creative and inspired, develop their sense of autonomy, feel free, safe, and most of all, loved." As a child’s bedroom evolves more than any other in the house, it is important to begin by taking stock of the functions that the room needs to serve not only now, but in the next five years. With babies, the space can be designed around the needs of the parent, but as they grow, the room must support their burgeoning wants and interests.