Kids' Rooms: A Hands-On Decorating Guide [Hardcover]

Anna Kasabian (Author)

Book Description

Kids need room to grow and rooms that grow with them. Today's parents are looking for design ideas to enliven, organize, and give identity to their children's rooms that can evolve as their child grows. Here are imaginative room designs for infants, toddlers, and kids that are fun, durable, and flexible. Each chapter offers full color photos of fresh and innovative design ideas for children's bedrooms, bathrooms, playrooms, and studies. Information on fabrics, wallpapers, wall murals and other accessories like curtains, chairs, night lights, table lamps, and rugs are all presented with information on what works for kids' rooms throughout childhood. Interviews from experts in this area of design as well as insight from actual parents and children who have created successful spaces at home are included to guide parents as they create the right decorative style and elements for their child's space.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Anna Kasabian has 29 years of experience as a writer, editor and communications professional. She writes about interior design, food, garden crafts, home and garden preservation projects, and architecturally significant properties.

Anna's byline appears in Country Living, Cook’s Illustrated, Metropolitan Home, Country Home, Coastal Living, Home Magazine, Yankee Magazine, The Old Farmer’s Almanac Gardener’s Companion, Better Homes & Gardens Garden Rooms, Woman’s Day Special Interest Magazines, The Boston Globe, Boston Magazine, New England Travel & Life, The Old Farmer’s Almanac Gardener’s Companion, and Boston Elegant Wedding.

She has been featured several times on HGTV and National Public Radio’s Boston affiliate, WBUR. She has been a featured speaker at House Beautiful and the Boston Design Center’s Design Days, and The Boston Center for Adult Education. Her latest book, Kids’ Rooms, has been featured in Time Magazine, Parents, and Better Homes and Gardens.

Her new monthly column, DesignWise, An Ongoing Dialogue with Top Interior Designers will be featured on cDecor.com shortly.

Her other books include: Designing Interiors with Tile; East Coast Rooms; Dream Kitchens; Kids’ Rooms; The New Home Color Book; Modern Nostalgia; and First Impressions. Her eighth book (co-authored with Tommy Hilfiger), due Fall 2003, is entitled New England Style.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Making Rooms: Infants

The best way to develop a design plan for an infant's room is to think through the big picture of your family life. Is this room likely to be used by the same child for several years, or will it always be the new baby's room?

If your family is growing and this is the first of several children you plan to have, consider designating it the infant's room. This way, you need to decorate and furnish it only once for at least a few years. For flexibility, choose yellow as a main color, and keep decorations themed to accommodate both boys and girls.

You will spend a lot of time in your baby's room, so in planning it, take into account your activities, style of organization, and the everyday needs of babies. Infants use bedrooms mainly for sleeping and having diapers and outfits changed. You'll be going in and out of here a lot, tending to these tasks, so storage, lighting, and flooring must be carefully considered.

If possible, choose a room that is not too far from your bedroom so that late-night feedings and diaper changes can be attended to quickly without disrupting the rest of the family. Also, you'll be glad not to run down a long hail or climb stairs when you've just woken up.

In addition, if you've got the luxury of space, choose a room away from where your toddlers sleep. A new baby's fussing can be disruptive.

This chapter on infants' rooms will help you think through design options and offer tips on choosing a theme and accessorizing.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 144 pages
• Publisher: Rockport Publishers (May 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1564967719
• ISBN-13: 978-1564967718
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 8.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,501,481 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #51 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > How-to & Home Improvements > Remodeling & Renovation > Children's Rooms

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A decorating "must-have", September 27, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Kids' Rooms: A Hands-On Decorating Guide (Hardcover)

If you have children and are considering redecorating their rooms, you MUST HAVE this book! The details and suggestions are wonderful. There are even lots of helpful hints and project ideas which are practical and easy to do. I have rarely found so many unique ideas on decorating children'ts room all in one place. Especially appealing is the use of "real" children using their thoughts, ideas and actual rooms. A book well-worth referring to over and over again!

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Search no further..., June 8, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Kids' Rooms: A Hands-On Decorating Guide (Hardcover)

Anna Kasabian has done it again! Her latest book will appeal to all pocketbooks and tastes. She offers a unique array of ideas from accents to basic furnishings in a concise, easy to follow style.The book is a wealth of creativity, practical and beautiful, to boot. The photographs are wonderful. The book even contains drawings by children of their dream rooms, which are both poignant and illuminating. Grandparents, this is the book you've been looking for. You can't go wrong. Best of it's sort.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not much for creative ideas. I returned my book..., September 14, 2005

By 

Wellen - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kids' Rooms: A Hands-On Decorating Guide (Interior Design and Architecture) (Paperback)

I was hoping to receive a book full of creative ideas for my daughter's room. What I ended up with was a book full of blah rooms. It just didn't seem like a book that is meant to give ideas by showing actual rooms. The pictures that were shown were only of one side of the room. There is A LOT of writing--not something I look for in a decorating book! There were very few decorative painting techniques or theme rooms. Most of the pictures are of frilly, wallpapered, rooms with canopy beds. Many of the pictures featured rooms with built-ins (bookcases, or beds, or window seats). The majority of bedrooms I have ever seen do not have any of these items. The author seems to go on tangents for much of the book--sections such as "designing family spaces" where they tell you how to layout a kitchen, or "Outdoor play areas" where they tell you about swing sets...