Children’s room for a boy and a girl: useful tips for arrangement
Every person needs his or her own personal space. So it is very important almost from birth to provide a child with a separate room and create a beautiful, functional and safe for health interior in accordance with his tastes. Your own children’s room contributes to the development of independence and neatness, makes you feel like a master, and fosters a sense of responsibility.
But what if there are two children, and the size of the apartment does not allow each of them to have their own room? In fact, it’s all to the good: a shared nursery has many advantages, even if we are talking about mixed-gender and mixed-age children. A shared nursery for a boy and a girl allows for strong bonds and promotes the development of such useful communication skills as the ability to negotiate, share, find reasonable compromises, and listen to another opinion.
All this is possible under one condition – the space and design of the nursery should be carefully considered taking into account the temperament, personal needs, interests and other individual characteristics of children living together.
What to look for when creating a nursery interior for children of different sexes?
When planning the nursery space for a boy and a girl, it is worth adhering to the following rules:
- Usually in a standard city apartment, the larger space in terms of area is intended for the living room. If necessary, in a nursery for two kids, the largest room is allocated under it. This will effectively zoned the room, providing the children with the necessary space.
- There should be plenty of light: If possible, choose a room whose windows face the sunny side: in the eastern or south-eastern direction. Also in a nursery for two children it is necessary to provide quality directional lighting of the working and play areas and soft night lighting – most kids do not like to sleep in the dark. The arrangement of additional spot lighting both on the ceiling and in the furniture will not be out of place. Several modes will allow you to adjust the brightness of lighting for different occasions – active games, doing homework and preparing for bedtime.
- In the design of the nursery for children of different sexes, pay great attention to the selection of color palettes and clearly think about the style concept of the interior, first consulting with the children.
- Do not forget about accessories and sports equipment. All kinds of lights and decorative elements in the style of your favorite fairy tales and cartoons will delight your kids day after day and make the interior of the nursery a special zest. In addition, objects of decoration may have quite an applied function – for example, with their help it is possible to effectively zone the space and put the right accents on the layout.
- Think in detail about the furnishings. Ideally, the furniture should be not only safe, functional and beautiful, but also a little “grown-up”. Today, many manufacturers offer “growing” tables, chairs and even beds, the size of which can be adjusted as needed.
- Fresh, clean and humidified air in the nursery is the key to good health and the best prevention during exacerbation of seasonal infections.
Below we will focus on each of these points in more detail.
Proper zoning of the joint nursery for two children: interesting ideas
To make brother and sister feel comfortable in the same room, the children’s room for a boy and a girl should be divided into functional zones, each of which will perform a specific task. It is mandatory to have the following zones:
- working,
- game,
- for sleep and rest.
Planning the interior of the nursery for a sister and brother, it is necessary to think through exactly how the delimitation of the territory will be implemented and whether there will be a common area.
Below we give a number of examples of how you can originally and tastefully distinguish the individual zones:
- Painting the boy’s and girl’s halves of the room evenly in different colors/contrast spots on a neutral background;
- coloring toy storage boxes in different colors is an effective way to establish the distinction between “mine” and “yours” and to make the evening cleaning routine more fun;
- gluing two kinds of photo wallpaper in each kid’s favorite style;
- the use of decorative little things and individual interior items: – bed in the form of a car, a night light in the form of a funny minion – for a boy; a pink boudoir with a screen, a floral sconce, a porcelain interior doll – for a girl;
- partitions – a screen, cheerful curtains, custom-made shelving unit of original form, multilevel multifunctional podium, under which the sliding bed may be hidden.
It is worth allocating space in the immediate vicinity of the window for the work area. Bright sunshine is the best lighting option for doing homework. You can regulate the degree of light with the help of a rolling system and blinds.
Beds should be placed on the opposite side of the room. The beds can be personalized. Pick up sets of bed linen in boy and girl styles, put different bedside mats, make over the beds of volumetric inscriptions with the names of their owners, etc.
The rest of the room should be used depending on the individual characteristics of the children and how they interact with each other. The common area should leave enough space for large-scale entertainments: folding puzzles, collecting construction sets, playing railroad. If space allows, in this part of the room you can place a wall ladder, drawing board, horizontal bar, kitchenette, swings, a funny tepee or TV for watching cartoons together.
Remember that the arrangement of a common area is relevant for children of approximately the same age. If the difference is significant, the zone should be divided into two equal halves, equipping each of them in accordance with the interests and preferences of each child. In the process of play activity children will in any case touch each other, communicate, exchange toys, etc.
Why is thoughtful lighting so important?
The best lighting is, of course, the sun. In addition, it is the sunlight that promotes the production of the necessary amount of vitamin D in the body, an important condition for the growth and development of every child.
However, most of the day we still use artificial light. In this case, it is worth to think it through as carefully as possible and at the stage when you just started repairing the children’s room.
When buying a chandelier and other lamps, be guided by the following simple rules:
- Products should be made exclusively of environmentally friendly materials, otherwise the lamps will emit toxins when heated;
- Do not use both fluorescent and incandescent light simultaneously, it is bad for your eyesight;
- The design should be durable, shockproof and easy to clean – textiles, thin porcelain, shaped crystal are unacceptable;
- The color scheme of the dome lights should be calm, but the design in general is limited only by your imagination – butterflies, kites, funny little animals, cartoon characters – all this will add color to the nursery and is guaranteed to bring your children to rapture.
When planning lighting for a nursery with two children, you should remember that the periods of activity of the kids may not coincide. Including for this reason, the working area and sleeping areas should be placed at a maximum distance from each other.
Local lighting, necessary for one, should not interfere with the other. This is especially important for children of different ages, when the youngest is getting ready for bed, and the older is busy with lessons or just wants to read, sitting at the table or lying in bed.
It is also relevant in the morning if the children get up at different times. A sconce with dim lighting or a night light with soft lighting will allow one to get up and get ready quietly and not wake the other.
Close attention should be paid to the choice of table lamp. High-quality even lighting of the working area is a guarantee that the child’s eyes will not get tired while preparing homework.
The role of color in a child’s life
The selection of a color palette should be approached responsibly. The palette of colors around has a great influence on the child’s psyche. With the right colors can gently perk up a little phlegmatic and calm temperamental hyperactive child. And especially careful and thoughtful development of color solutions requires children’s bedroom.
In the case of the nursery for children of different sexes, the best solution – a neutral background with bright strokes. In addition, white or muted pastel base visually expands the space and gives unlimited possibilities for design.
Ideal colors for the background: white, tea rose, beige, mint, caramel, coffee with milk, olive. Variety will bring bright furniture and decorative elements: all kinds of room textiles, lamps, pictures, posters, mats, soft toys, etc.
Brother and sister zones should be different from each other and have something in common. Different colors of walls and furniture in the children’s room can be balanced by the same print on the children’s bed sets, lamps with plafonds of the same color, etc.
Bright accents should be made on the walls, and the floor should be as neutral as possible – too variegated colors can cause discomfort.
Horizontal designs on the walls will allow you to visually expand the space, and vertical designs will visually increase the height, which is especially important for children with bunk beds.
Designing a child’s room for a boy and a girl
The concept of a sibling’s nursery is recommended to think through taking into account the interior preferences of both sister and brother – you should not decorate a common room in the styles of romantic Provence or minimalism – some of the children will be uncomfortable.
The following styles are especially good for decorating rooms for children of different sexes:
- Juicy ethnics with the use of natural materials – natural wood, bamboo, linen, rattan, leafy potted plants – with bright green, yellow and terracotta inclusions. Decorate the walls with applications, drawings and other crafts of young naturalists, who will be happy to participate in the design of their own room.
- Tandem of modern and high-tech – laconicism and creativity, a combination of strict geometry of metal and warm soft lines, bright spots on a neutral background – the best option of stylistic design of the room for two opposite-sex teenagers.
- Scandi – with its light surfaces and soft geometry, which allow with the help of spectacular accents to assemble a really bright and original interior.
- Lego-style is a great option for two preschoolers who adore the constructor of the same name. Custom-made furniture in the form of lego fragments, lamps and decor elements in a similar style, a corresponding color scheme, bright monochrome room textiles will do.
- Cartoon style. Here the best advisers are children themselves. Ask them what cartoons they like most, and based on their responses collect a unique interior, all kinds of accessories and items in cartoon style – a dash of plenty.
- Thematic options in all their variety: pirate treasure, jungle, underwater kingdom, folk tales.
Returning to the question of how to divide the room for a boy and a girl, it is worth noting that the style acts also as an element of zoning. Girls’ and boys’ zones unite color scheme, and here the elements of the decor act as a kind of delimiters: for a girl – an elegant sconce in the form of a starfish, soft fishes and dolphins, the mermaid’s crown; for a boy – a real helm, captain’s cap at the head of the bed, a pirate saber, etc.
In this article, we have given the basic conditions for organizing a comfortable, functional and healthy space for a child’s room for different-sex children.
If everything is done correctly, the nursery will become that island of joy and tranquility, the happy memories of which will remain in the memory of your children for years to come.
