Designing a space for your children, especially playrooms, is usually an afterthought when it comes to home design, but creating a functional space that compliments your home’s interior design and that your kids will love is an achievable task. Children’s spaces should be fun, functional, stimulating to the imagination and be able to grow alongside them as they mature and their needs change. Below are a few playroom design ideas that both you and your children will love.
1. Quality of Play
Play is a fundamental building block for children to learn about themselves and the world around them and helps them develop their social, cognitive and life skills. Making room for inclusivity and different play spaces, experiences and abilities allows your children and their friends to play, learn and socialize in their own unique ways. Including spaces for structured play (Lego kits, organized sports, card or board games) as well as abstract or free play (blocks, coloring, painting, inventing games) enable children to explore their innate creativity and freedom of play, and to nurture these natural inclinations.
2. Create Stations
Children’s spaces can get overwhelmingly messy in a matter of minutes. Pushing everything into bins, cubbies or bookshelves along the wall may seem like the easiest way to clean up and get the most floor space, but creating designated stations for different activities allow kids to decide for themselves what activity they’d like to participate in and helps keep the space organized. Experimenting with room dividers, hanging plants, or bookshelves placed perpendicular to the wall helps divide the room into designated spaces. Keep your child’s growth and development in mind when purchasing furniture or designating spaces is crucial, as a well planned play space will grow alongside your child and support their development for many years to come.
3. The Five Senses
Sensory play is one of the best ways that nerve connections are developed in children’s brains. A well developed play space should include sensory items with different textures and materials, varying light from windows, overhead lights or lamps, plants and other organic material – anything that stimulates the five senses. So you may include varying types of flooring like foam or rugs with varying pile heights for younger children who are learning to crawl, encourage sense of sound with a music area or toys that respond to noise or voice commands, as well as smaller, quieter spaces for children who may be prone to experiencing sensory overload.
A Few Additional Playroom Design Tips:
- Don’t be afraid to play with color or pattern
- Install easy to clean flooring, like foam or linoleum
- If wallpaper isn’t an option, decorate your walls with easy to install wall decals or stamps
- Paint a chalkboard wall for endless creativity
- Cubbies with storage bins are your best friend
- Shelves or bookcases are a great way to display and store your children’s favorite toys
- Include tables or desks for crafting, reading and doing homework
- Make space for a napping, reading or quiet time corner
- Leave space to display their artwork
- Create a mini stage to inspire creativity and confidence
