When my daughter turned 13, the only thing she wanted for a gift was to have her bedroom remodeled. She felt her old room was childish, and she wanted something that would reflect her personality and creativity.

I thought this was a reasonable request, so we began to discuss the options.

While driving in the car one day, she announced that she wanted each wall a different color! One wall hot pink, another neon green, another sky blue and the last one bright yellow! With little time to spare (so not to show fear), I quickly came up with a solution that would work as a compromise. I needed to appeal to her sense of wanting to be in control of her new space, but at the same time guide her in making a sensible decision.

I let her know that the colors she wanted would be too “exciting” for her small bedroom and would not work well with her ADHD or her sleeping problems!

My idea, as I explained it to her….calmly and convincingly:

This is what I will allow you to do…if you like.

You can pick out a main color, in which all the walls will be painted. Then you can pick out a daker value of that same color. We will then paint large, vertical stripes on three of the walls. On the last wall, which will be the focal point, we will keep the base color and then spatter paint in all the other colors you requested.

This idea, she liked. We then came home, pulled out the paint color books and she proceeded to pick out the colors she liked for her walls. I made sure she taped the colors to her walls, so she could see them everyday and get “a feel” for them.

And then, when she was sure of the colors she wanted…she changed her mind and chose a different ones.

Once we had the painting done, we were then able to buy accessories, fabrics, curtains, rugs etc. to tie all the colors together.

This was a great experience for my daughter, because she was involved in the whole process (even the painting of it). I was surprised with how responsible and focused she was with getting the project done. She and I (and a couple of her friends) spent 2 days prepping and painting. I forgot to mention that we made the painting day, her Birthday Party. She had a Painting Party!! We only had a few people over and kept it very controlled, because teenagers and paint can get crazy very quickly. They had a lot of fun, because I made a point of getting the focal wall done first, so they could each grab a paint brush and a can of paint and spatter the wall.

At one point or another, your kids are going to want to redesign their rooms.

So, let them! Just make sure to guide them in their decision making, without making it look like it was your idea, but that ultimately, they were in control of the decision making.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 29th, 2009 at 5:04 pm and is filed under Interior Design, Residential. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.