Designing for a Artistic Toddler

Decorating for a toddler can be frustrating at times, because it never fails, you will put on a fresh new coat of paint and a day later, it'll have a collage of crayon art all over it. Or you put up new wallpaper and you come in a few weeks later to find that the paper has been ripped off. When it comes to decorating for with a toddler in mind it all boils down to two things. Simplicity and creativity. The two can coexist.

Simplicity will help ease the insanity that you may experience when your toddler undoes your decorating work. If your child likes to draw and color on the walls, make it easier on yourself. Paint the walls plain white using an eggshell or satin latex paint finish. Preferably, you want a paint coat that easily washes of scuffs and marks. Check with your local home improvement store for these types. Designate one particular side wall for your child's creative art sessions. But be sure to draw the lines as to where he can and cannot color.

Your child will no doubt appreciate this new freedom of drawing on the walls. He will love the idea of no longer getting in trouble for creating artwork on the walls. This is where the creativity comes in. Find a few stencils of your child's favorite animal, say a dog, and stencil a dog in the very center of the wall. After you've done this, tell your child to draw any types of pictures that he wants on this wall only. Make sure he knows that the other walls are off limits.

In time, this blank wall with the lonely little dog in the middle will become the focal point of your child's room. In time, he will have filled this wall up (up to his height of course) with his own creative and custom decorations. If you plan for your child to stay in this one particular room, this is a perfect on going project. For as he grows, so will his desire and love of art. And you will have it easy, because you will have been spared the stress and headaches of painting over and over and over. But of course regular maintenance of the opposite walls will be needed in order to keep the "art wall" the focal point of the room.

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Rhonda Morin, owner of http://myinteriordecorator.com and author of The Decorating Bible, enjoys writing and teaching others how to decorate their homes their way online.

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Copyright (R) Rhonda Morin, MyInteriorDecorator.com. Article may not be reprinted without permission and may not be reprinted without author byline including the active links.

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