Creating the Perfect Teen Bedroom

Moldy pizza boxes and rock posters aren’t the only accessories in teen bedrooms these days. An entire market of expensive home furnishings and trendy goods target teens through magazines and TV programs. If your teenager is nagging you to update their bedroom, spending money on décor that might be out of style next year is the last thing you want to do. Here are some creative teen bedroom ideas that won’t break the bank. Let your teen take some pride in ownership by painting their bedroom walls, even allowing them to choose a wild color or chalkboard paint on an accent wall. The good news is that paint is reversible and inexpensive so you can stay within budget without affecting your home’s resale value. One your teen has chosen a color scheme and painted the room, you’re ready to arrange the furniture and accessorize. While adults socialize and entertain in living rooms, teens prefer to gather in their bedrooms. One way to create a seating area for socializing is by making a sectional out of two twin beds, arranging them in an L-shape in a corner of the bedroom. Depending on your budget, you can purchase inexpensive queen-size comforters or fabric to create your own queen-size duvet covers so they’ll fall all the way to the floor similar to upholstery skirts on a couch. Pile decorative pillows in fun fabrics against the wall for back cushions and you have a rockin’ conversation area. One way to add functional whimsy to a teen bedroom is with paper lanterns. This fun accent lighting can be arranged in a variety of ways, clustering different sizes and colors or by staggering the hanging height of several lanterns. Perhaps your teen has always wanted a chair in her bedroom. You might have a sturdy chair she could use but one that doesn’t necessarily match the style of the room. Lucky for you transforming a dining room chair with arms into a desk chair can be done easily by reupholstering the seat and adding casters. And that petite china cabinet that was your grandmother’s, collecting dust in your basement because you couldn’t bear to part with it, can be used to display trophies. Or, if it’s a bigger china cabinet, use it for bookshelves. Glass broken or missing? No problem, replace the glass with chicken wire and you have a functional piece with texture. One way to save money on a trendy headboard is by creating one yourself. Have a computer, photo editing software and a printer? Then you can turn any image into tiled wall art by printing an enlarged image in sections with a regular printer. You can cover an entire wall, create floor-to-ceiling art or plaster the image on plywood to create your own customized headboard.   It seems teens can never have enough storage. Reorganize their closet to give them more room. If space is at a premium in your teen’s bedroom, consider going vertical with bookshelves made from boards or metal brackets. Leave an open section at the bottom for a desk. You can create the illusion of more space by painting the shelves to match the wall behind them. Finally, if your teen is lucky enough to have hardwood floors in her bedroom and would like to have a nice area rug, consider buying remnant fabrics or cloth placements in colors that match the room. Arrange your fabrics in a grid and sew them together for a customized area rug.