When your little boy or little girl is finally old enough to enter pre-school or kindergarten, it is high time to redecorate their nursery into a child’s bedroom. You will need to go shopping for kids’ bedroom furniture and put in storage or get rid of their old baby items. Depending on how you decorated the nursery, you may be looking for individual standalone pieces of bedroom furniture or an entire bedroom furniture collection for children. Regardless, here are 5 points you need to keep in mind:
1. Looks or solidity?
Will this be your only child? If so, it is quite alright to splurge a bit more on better-looking bedroom furniture designs. But if you already have a second child or suspect that you may want another child, later on, you may prefer to buy higher quality solid wood bedroom furniture that can better survive the wear and tear a small child will put his furniture through. That way, you can hand it down to his little brother or little sister later on.
2. Size
Remember that your child is still growing up. From now until he leaves home for college, he probably has another three to four feet of height left to grow. Try to buy him kid’s bedroom furniture that is a bit future-proof. The most obvious item to think about is his bed and mattress – make sure it is long enough and large enough to still fit him when he enters grade school (or elementary school or primary school or junior school depending on where you live). Of course, if you enjoy paying through the nose for a child’s bed every year, that’s a different matter.
3. Height
The height of the storage furniture you buy for your child’s bedroom is something you need to think about. The shelves, cupboards, dressers and other furniture you want him to use should be at the right height for him, otherwise, he will not use them. That does not mean you can’t buy additional overhead storage bins that are high above his head. You can still do so – just be aware that these overhead cupboards, etc are meant for your use, not his.
Remember to also make sure that items of furniture like tables, beds, and chairs are not too high or too low for your child. You may want to look for items of kids’ bedroom furniture that have adjustable heights. You will have to pay extra for these types of furniture, but it will save you money in the long run when you do not need to replace them every year as your child grows taller.
4. No sharp edges
Make sure the kids’ bedroom furniture you buy has no sharp edges. While you should not be over-protective of children, you should also not be negligent of basic safety. Young children are still at the stage of growth where they are trying to get used to their bodies. They are still learning the meaning of the word “limits”, yet they are still physically very fragile. In their exuberance and enthusiasm for life, they do everything energetically and will dash about wildly with no regards for consequences.
High-quality bedroom furniture for children will take care of these issues for you. Knobs and protrusions (e.g. the handles of drawers) will be made of softer materials. The problem comes when you buy cheaper furniture that may have been constructed by outsourced overseas factories. These cheap bargain-basement pieces of kid’s furniture are unlikely to have safety features that are normally taken for granted in more advanced countries. You may need to do some work to fix them up yourself.
You should also be careful of adult furniture that you may have moved into your child’s bedroom. Whether you actually meant for him to use them (e.g. a storage chest) or whether you just wanted to get them out of your way, you should make sure your little boy or little girl cannot accidentally hurt himself or herself on them. You may want to wrap up protruding knobs and handles in foam or thick cloth. You should also find some way to soften any hard edges on these items of adult furniture.
5. Storage
Children have lots of small belongings that can easily get underfoot. Your little boy will have his toy cars and trucks and toy soldiers. Your little girl will have her dolls and doll house and play tea sets. There will probably also be teddy bears and games and whatnot. It is a good idea to teach children to put away their things after they are done with them. But to do that, you need to provide them with plenty of storage space.
Something you may want to consider is a child’s bed which has storage compartments under the mattress. One example of this would be a child’s cabin bed. Besides the usual dressers, wardrobes, cupboards or closets that may come included with kids bedroom furniture packages, other furniture items to consider are additional wooden storage chests and trunks (but make sure there are air holes in them just in case your child try to hide inside). Other storage options are those large transparent or translucent plastic storage tubs with lids. The better quality ones made in Japan are fairly robust and can be safe for children to use if you select the right design.
Redecorating your child’s nursery when he or she “graduates” from his crib can be a fun and exciting chance for you to improve your bond with them. Shop for kids bedroom furniture with them and listen and consider their feelings and input so that they will want to use these strange new items in their bedroom. But always keep in mind the five points above to save yourself some future headache.