When it comes to decorating a child's room, your approach should be different from decorating an adult bedroom. That's because a child's bedroom should reflect his or her personality and not yours.

For kids, their bedroom is where they play games, read, listen to music, wrestle, display or hide prized possessions, day-dream, or just go to be alone sometimes. So try these eight strategies to help create a space that will make you both happy:

1. Talk to your child. Find out what activities and fantasies he or she enjoys; what their favorite color is; and what's unique about their personality that a theme could be built around. Then work their interests into a design that will make them feel comfortable, happy, and safe.

2. Allow your child to help. Let them have a say about colors, fabrics, and how they want to display their collectibles. The design should be flexible enough to accommodate their changing tastes, needs, and interests.

3. Make the room multi-functional. Since children use their room for many activities besides sleeping, it should have several different zones.

These could include a play area; a reading area; a space to play with friends that's equipped with a radio, CD player, and a TV/VCR; a display area with a wall or corkboard for favorite photos and artwork; and finally, a place for shelving to display collectibles, trophies, and other personal items.

4. Make storage a priority. Containing clutter will be one of your greatest challenges. Try shelving, large decorative wicker baskets, plastic see-through containers, and closets that contain plenty of shelving and racks.

5. Keep window treatments simple. Avoid long draperies. Shades, blinds, and shorter curtains are safer choices. The fabric should be versatile, and patterns should be repeated in other items in the room, such as in pillows,

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6. Choose the right lighting. A child’s room should include both task lighting for homework and reading, and soothing light for quieter times. A nightlight is also important if your child is not comfortable in the dark, and for safety reasons, so they can find their way to the bathroom at night.

7. Use wallpaper or paint to add color and texture. You can apply whimsical borders along the top edges of the walls, and clouds or stars on the ceiling.

It might be wise to make sure the walls of childrens rooms are washable, so if you are using paint, choose a semi-gloss or gloss finish. Kids love bright colors, but you should limit any strong color to only one wall. For example, paint one wall fire-engine red, and the others a soft peach or pink.

8. Allow your child to select the design theme. The choices are endless. Here are just a few: firehouse fun room, starry night, angels, rainbows, unicorns, baseball, a bedroom for a princess, underwater scenery, outer space, race cars, airplanes, trains, jungle motifs, wizards and dragons, and dinosaurs. You can visit our new Web site for a lot more ideas!

Decorating with your child offers a great opportunity to display your playful side, while doing some memorable family bonding. So have fun with it and remember that even if your child's choice in themes seems bizarre, there's probably a way to work out a compromise.

Michael Holland is the creator of the Web sites http://www.home-decorating-made-easy.com and http://www.kids-rooms-and-crafts.com. His web site offers lots of FREE home decorating tips and ideas.

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