It’s never easy to find kids’ bedroom inspiration that is creative yet achievable. However, Dulux recently launched a kids’ bedroom campaign to encourage parents to involve their children in the creative process when decorating their bedrooms. For this campaign, Dulux teamed up with Channel 4’s Secret Life of Five Year olds Dr Sam Wass, who is also a leading Child Psychologist. The result of the campaign was six wonderful designs for a child’s bedroom that not only look fantastic but that aren’t really even that difficult to create. I think these designs are brilliant so I wanted to share them with you.
SUPERHERO
This superhero design is perfect for any budding little superheros who want to have a hand in creating their own lair. I love the bright colours used in this scheme and the cityscape image, with its sharp, angular contours, makes a really bold statement. It looks like something right out of a comic book, don’t you think?
The building shapes are created by chalking around cereal boxes and milk cartons – in fact any interesting packaging that has a good outline will do! A good old potato print lights up the windows in the buildings and a tester pot of paint becomes the template for the light beam signal. It looks amazing but is one of the simplest and most fun techniques to achieve.
Marianne Schillingford, Creative Director at Dulux
Superheroes speak to children of confidence, of unlimited power. Children grow up by idolising heroes, by thinking them infinitely powerful, in real life as in fantasy. Growing up is a process of becoming responsible, but the early phase of thinking yourself powerful and to a degree, invincible is an important stage in a child’s development
Dr Sam Wass, Developmental Psychologist
JUNGLE
A jungle design is a really great unisex theme for a child’s bedroom and uses gender neutral shades of green to create this impressive landscape. It is perfect for encouraging your child to use their imagination and set off on an exciting jungle adventure. What kids wouldn’t be up for that?
This is one of the simplest and most effective painting techniques, evoking the feeling of being in the heart of the wild! Torn lining paper templates create a layered horizon with the sense of distance being achieved by using a pale green shade for the farthest bank of trees and the deepest, brighter green for the nearest
Marianne Schillingford, Creative Director at Dulux
The urge to explore and to go on adventures lies deep within us. The jungle holds a fascination for many children because it represents nature at its most exciting and vivid. Travelling, even if it’s just in our mind, is hugely beneficial for children. It encourages a breadth of perspective that can help their creativity.
Dr Sam Wass, Developmental Psychologist
STORYBOOK
This is probably one of my favourite designs from this selection. The storybook design is so lovely and calming and creates such a serene atmosphere, perfect for creative activities such as reading or drawing. The paint technique actually lends itself to many different themes as the sky is quite a broad design. But teamed with this cosy reading tent and lots of comfy cushions and rugs, this space is so dreamy. I’m keeping this on record for my girls, I’m sure they would love a cosy bedroom like this.
Clouds are a wonderful feature as they instantly dissolve the walls of the room and allow the imagination to create endless worlds above which they float. Once the walls are painted, adding the detail is very easy and, because clouds come in all shapes and sizes, it’s pretty hard to get it wrong. Chalking out the rough shapes helps and using a bit of sponge to apply tones of Goosedown and Polished Pebble Grey makes the edges visually soft – just like the real thing!
Marianne Schillingford, Creative Director at Dulux
Many children have deep, internalised, imaginative worlds. As adults we tend to be confined within our own, mundane, day to day lives. Children, in contrast, are far more capable of letting their imaginations take flight – of leaving the common and the everyday behind them, and jumping wholeheartedly into a world of fantasy. This room is a magical space that has fantasy at its very core.
Dr Sam Wass, Developmental Psychologist
SPACE
This space design is perfect for little wannabe astronauts and star gazers. This theme is perfect for trying to encourage impressionable little minds to explore and use their imagination to question what is out there beyond our planet. The dark colours are also very calming and conducive to a good night’s sleep…what every parent needs for their child, right?
We created the solar system effect by simply splattering thinned emulsion tester pot colours from deep blue to white over a black background. The wonderful cloudy shaped star systems literally appear from the end of the brush as if by magic. Deep colours in a bedroom have a magical quality that aids restfulness and blue is both calming and receding, which means that it makes the space it’s painted in appear bigger.
Marianne Schillingford, Creative Director at Dulux
It is useful to remember research suggests that even thinking about space, and contemplating its infinite glories, can be beneficial for your children. When we want to escape into our dreams, picturing ourselves floating off into space helps us free our imaginations.
Dr Sam Wass, Developmental Psychologist
SPORTS
This sport design is a great unisex theme for any sporty little kids. The bright pops of colour are invigorating and create an atmosphere that is fun to play in. It also helps to prepare the child for what they can expect to encounter when the time comes to attend school.
The running track painted wall effect is simple, clean, graphic and really easy to achieve. The trick to getting the look sharp and keeping the orange glowing is to paint the wall white before you start and mask off the white tracks with wide low tack masking tape. The big stencils are easy to find online and the white is applied through the stencil with a foam radiator roller.
Marianne Schillingford, Creative Director at Dulux
When children have specific sports idols, they see certain qualities they would like to embody. If your child is one of the millions of sport-loving children, this room is perfect for them. The bright colours, straight lines, and numbers on the wall speak of a perfect integration of the fun with the functional, encouraging your child to see connections between the world of leisure, and the world of being organised, at school.
Dr Sam Wass, Developmental Psychologist
CIRCUS
I think this is possibly my favourite of all the designs seen here. The circus theme is really bold, bright and fun. I love the way that the main impact of the design comes from the ceiling, so whilst it makes a really big, colourful statement, it is not at all overbearing. I also really like the idea of painting the skirting board bright yellow as it helps to balance out the attention that the ceiling will get. The use of colourful accessories really brings this room into its own and the look can easily be updated or changed simply by switching the accessories. I’m not exactly sure how easy it would be to get hold of a massive elephant though, or who for that matter would have room for one!
We designed this simple but effective paint technique to transform a bedroom into a circus tent and it’s something you could easily do over a weekend. The effect is achieved with stuff that is easy to get hold of: string, coloured chalk, cardboard, masking tape and red paint.
Marianne Schillingford, Creative Director at Dulux
The circus has, for generations, been much loved by children. It is chaotic, vibrant and full of playful energy – just like many children are. And it also has moments of surrealness and slapstick humour. For children, much of the humour that they first ‘get’ and appreciate, is humour of this kind.
Dr Sam Wass, Developmental Psychologist
So what do you guys think about this for kids’ bedroom inspiration? Which of these is your favourite design? And what do you think about getting our kids involved in the decorating process? Is that something you would consider?
This is not a sponsored or collaborative post by the way. I simply saw these designs and was really impressed with them so I thought you might like to see them.
