Awesome Design Tips for Teens & Tweens Rooms

Creating the Perfect Room for Your Kids

Every child grows up eventually. They change their clothes, make new friends, and start new hobbies. But that's not all that transforms with time. At your house, you'll find that nothing changes as much as your tween or teen's room!

It’s normal and healthy for growing kids to want to decorate their bedrooms and bathrooms differently, especially as they get older and develop new tastes. As a supportive parent, you can do a lot to help your young adults design their personal spaces.

Let’s break down some stellar bathroom and bedroom ideas for teens!

Incorporate textures

One general interior design tip before we get into specifics – the easiest way to make a teenager's bedroom feel new and "grown-up" is to incorporate more textures throughout the space. Many kids' rooms start off relatively simple and plain with basic colors, with everything from quilts to toys to dressers.

Textured decor, like pillows, bed sheets, and window coverings, can do a lot to make a room feel more grown-up without a full renovation. Even better, letting your teen pick out new furniture for their room is one good way to make them feel like they have control over how the new decorating adventure goes!

Set up a gallery wall – but make it easy to change

Now let’s explore some specific decorating ideas. Kids between 12 and 18 usually love hanging things on their bedroom walls. It was posters of rock stars in the 80s, TV and movie posters in the 90s, and nowadays, tons of teens throw up images of memes or Internet iconography in their bedrooms for their own amusement.

Or maybe your teenager is a budding artist. If they make art, they can post it on their wall as a true “gallery” to show off to all their friends. If your teen is currently in high school or looking into college, hanging a poster of their favorite team, be that the Bulldogs of the Yellow Jackets, on their bedroom wall might be a perfect way to showcase team spirit.

In any case, designating one of your teens or tweens bedroom walls as a space to hang art, photos, and posters is a great idea.

No matter what they hang on their wall, however, make sure it’s easy enough for them to tear it all down and start over. Teenagers try on a lot of identities for size, and they might want to swap out their current art or poster collection for a new one sooner than you expect.

Make a study space

Being a teenager isn't all fun, as they'll be the first to tell you. As your child gets older, they'll need dedicated space to hit the books and scramble to finish their homework.

Fortunately, a study space can also add some needed adult flavor to a room. A desk and computer chair next to a bright window for light gives your tween or teen the space they need to get work done, plus appeals to their maturing sensibilities.

Start by asking your teen how they'd like their study area decorated. You can adorn the desk with lamps, a map, an RGB-illuminated keyboard, colored pens, and more. Your teen’s study space can help them make statements about their personality while providing a functional purpose as well. Encourage them to get creative!

Not enough floor space? Try a loft bed

What if your tween or teenager has a small bedroom without much opportunity for expansion? You can still do a bit of creative decorating by installing a loft bed in place of a traditional bed.

You’ll see teens lofting their beds in college dorms to add extra space to those tiny dorm rooms. A loft bed opens up extra floor space: perfect for positioning a chair, desk, or gaming station. Plus, your teen can decorate the space underneath their lofted bed with more posters and pictures.

Hang some new (blackout?) curtains

Teenagers need a lot of sleep – that's one reason they tend to be crankier in the morning than their younger siblings or parents. Even worse, teens’ circadian rhythms shift by about two hours in adolescence. They want to go to sleep around two hours later than everyone else, then wake up two hours later as well!

That might not be ideal during the school week, but on the weekends, you could consider letting them sleep in. You can do them a favor and decorate their bedroom simultaneously by hanging some thick curtains in front of large picture windows or maybe installing blinds in front of casement windows.

Let your young adult choose the color of the curtains to feel more involved. If your home gets a lot of sun, or you live in busier neighborhoods closer to Atlanta, invest in some blackout curtains if they love to spend their Saturday morning snoozing and hate being interrupted.

Consider a couch or papasan chair for hanging out

As your child gets older and grows into a teenager, they’ll spend more of their time on their bed studying, playing games, or chatting with friends. But as any scientist will tell you, that’s terrible for creating and maintaining a healthy sleep habit. All it does is train the brain to think of the bed as a place for doing things other than getting restorative shuteye.

To help your teen get enough sleep, spruce up their room by providing a couch or papasan chair (or two, if their friends come over frequently). A good couch or chair offers a convenient and comfy place to hang out aside from the bed, plus a spot to read a book, listen to a podcast, or talk on the phone with friends for hours on end.

Toss in some throw pillows

You can make a new couch or papasan chair even better with some stylish throw pillows. Scatter a few on your teen or tween’s bed, as well. They look great, but they also make any cushioned surface a little comfier than usual.

Add an accent wall

Maybe your tween or teen wants to change the “feel” of their room in a dramatic way. If you don’t feel like repainting the entire space, offer another idea: painting a dedicated accent wall with a unique design or a pop of color. You can paint the wall opposite your child’s bed a completely different hue from the rest of the room, complete with textures and special designs if you (or they!) have some artistic ability.

Get creative with storage space

As your kid gets older, they’ll collect more things, including school papers, college applications and supplies, stuff related to their hobbies, and random knickknacks. If you thought their toy boxes were overly full when they were younger, you’re in for a surprise!

But there’s good news as well. You can decorate your teenager’s room and solve the storage issue at the same time by being a little creative. Adding a shelf with open baskets, for example, is a great way to encourage your teen to clean their room quickly and easily while also letting them organize their belongings just as they like them. Or you can install some hidden storage bins and boxes beneath a bay or bow window’s rim.

Splash some color in the bathroom

What about decorating teenagers’ bathrooms? Tweens and teenagers are notoriously protective of their privacy. If they have a dedicated bathroom space, you can decorate that room to reflect their maturing personalities.

That doesn't mean you have to stick with a plain white bathroom. A new coat of paint in blue, red, yellow, or even gray can make an old bathroom look like new. Invite your teenager to share their design ideas and consider painting the room in one of their favorite colors. Bright colors like blue, pink, and yellow might be perfect for waking them up in the morning before school, too.

Don’t stop with just paint. If you’re going to redecorate your teen’s bathroom, go one step further and get a new bathmat in a bold color or a shower curtain in a fun material. Need inspiration? Check out some Instagram bathroom designs!

Throw up a new, quirky wallpaper

If you want to stay away from repainting (and your teenager isn’t willing to put too much time into the project), you can choose wallpaper and paste it on the bathroom walls together. Even better, find a peel-and-stick wallpaper option so that if your teen’s design taste changes, you can remove it without worrying about damaging your walls. There are too many different wallpaper designs and themes to count – odds are your teen will find something they like, whether it's wallpaper of cartoon characters, classic flowery wallpaper, a bold geometric pattern, or something else entirely.

Giving them a space to call their own

Bottom line: When it comes to redecorating your teenager’s room, remember to involve them in the process. It’s their room, after all! Don’t forget to call on expert assistance if needed, either. When the time comes for a more involved renovation, like replacing an old or drafty window with a new energy-efficient window, get professional help you can trust.

With Window World of Athens, no project is too big! Contact us today, and we’ll be there to help you every step of the way.