Decorating Kids rooms on a limited budget - Please help!

Maybe you could use chalkboard paint on one of the walls in each room and the kids could use colored chalk to make their own murals that they could change whenever they liked. Imagine being a kid and being given a wall you are supposed to write on! They also sell magnitized paint so that you can stick magnets to a regular wall once it is painted and you can paint any color you want over it. Both types should be available in the paint dept of a Home Depot or Lowes (the magnetic paint may be a little harder to come by). Good Luck.

Oh have I got some ideas for you!! :) This happens to be what I do for a living! I started doing it just as a side thing and it has gradually just taken off by word of mouth. If you can tell me what you want exactly I can help...Murals? Just decals or borders? life size wrestlers? LOL...Possiblities are endless.. I just got a new digi cam and will be posting some pics of my work on my myspace as well. The one thing you want to remember though is that kids grow older and their interests change.. I did murals on my kids walls knowing full well that in about 5 years we are going to have to change them. Are you artistic at all? You can but acrylic paints and brushes really cheap at wall mart. Plus their a zillion stencils you can buy with all sort of different designs. I hand painted mine and am going to start making my own stencils. What about colors? Let me know...I have a million ideas for you and can draw up some designs for you if you would like..lol...no charge..its always fun and keeps me occupied. And what type of wrestling does your son like? Are we talking WWF or in school wrestling?

Wow--looks like I am very late to this party/discussion. All great ideas, I really love the chalkboard paint or mural ideas, if you know someone who is artistic. But a smple paint in the colors that they like will be just as affective. Maybe a peel and stick border that can be easily replaced in a few years, as they grow out of their current infatuations. A picture or 2 of theor interests that can also be replaced with others in a few years. I would tend to stay away from posters as they rip easily amd leave all kinds of holes in the walls if put yp with tacks and kids tend to move them around alot (in my expereince). Our grandson has a bedroom in our house as we have partial custody. He is almost 6 and really into the movie cars and racing cars. We put up a simple peel and stick nascar border for him and a framed picture of Lightening McQueen. He put up his own Cars calendar and a few personal pics of family. He also has a nascar bedding set and a tonka truck bedding set which he switches back and forth with from laundry day to laundry day. Rug and curtains are a coordinating navy blue that matches both sets of bedding.

I forgot to mention, what fun this is for you and for your kids when they see what you have dine. I used to love it when I would go away with my grandparents and come back to a newly decorated bedroom, as I was growing up--my mom did this for me a couple of times and what a surprise. The first time was a Barbie doll, pinkish theme and my dad painted all my furniture what to match. The second time, I was older, I had a powder vlue and she had dragged her old dressing table out of the attic and sewn up a new 'skiet; to go around it, bought me a beautiful dresser set og comb, brush and mirror to go on it and a fancy mirror for my wall. This was also a birthday present, but she still spent next to nothing, she bought the wall mirror at a rummage sale and wallpapered only one wall and made the dressing table skirt. I will never forget how pretty I thought it was!

I would stay away from investing in "character" items that are expensive because they are going to outgrow them. Paint is cheap, so I would paint the rooms in compatible colors to the themes. As far as posters, I would frame them and it gives them the flexibility to change what is in the frame as their interests changed rather than having to redo the whole room or having to repaint the room because of all the tape and tacks on the walls. I would do the girl's rooms in pastels/and or girlie brights and then add a framed poster of disney princesses, etc. You can also save money by buying material that has the characters on it and making your own throw pillows because those are usually the priciest things for the bed and you can make them much cheaper. You can either buy all sorts of plain colored sheets and then buy a character comforter so you don't have to worry about washing and ruining the matching sheets. or better yet buy material and make your own comforter. For him, I would do the same thing with the posters in the frames. What other interests does he have besides wrestling? at least you have some flexibility for the girl. Does he do any sports or have any other hobbies that you can incorporate?

I've recently decorated my children's rooms on a very tight budget as well. My youngest daughter is 8 and loves Bratz, Barbies... as well. My oldest is 12 and is into the teen stuff, but loves purple, pink and yellow. The first thing I did was gather up some of their special keepsakes, ribbons, pictures, crafts, work from school... then we made a 'memorial wall' for all those things. I really didn't know how or what I was going to do with it all but once we got it all on the wall, it really looked neat and they have a place for all those special things. Next I went to the dollar store and picked out items that went well with their colour theme. For my youngest, we found a few nice things she could put on her wall that went well with the pink Bratty/Barbie theme. Last year, I had purchased good sheets and pillows and cushions... you name it to make their beds really nice so I didn't have to worry about that however I did go to a thrift store to see if I could find anything to decorate and found some really good wool blankets. You never know what you'll find in a thrift store so I would highly recommend scouring them. Try to think outside the box. If you're going to go with a wrestling theme, don't just look for wrestling things. Look for other items that will match the color theme and it opens up all sorts of other opportunities. Good luck with this project, it can be loads of fun! I hope your children love their rooms. Please do share pictures once you're done!

keep one scenary and leave the rest of the space for children to keep their own interesting pictures or a poster with a small babies or scenary. use some roof sticers to decorate the roof of the room

For wall decorations: How about collecting posters relating to each of themes from magazines and what not. Then you could pick up some inexpensive frames from thrift stores to put these posters in to make them look a little more decorative and less tacky. You could also consider picking up a few bottles of inexpensive craft paint from a walmart or some where and repaint the frames. Another idea, would be to use stencils. You can usually purchase these inexpensively or even make your own via cutting some shapes out of cardboard. Just think in simple terms for the stencils, such as the Bratz logo, or simple people like figures in wrestling positions, or simple symbols that represent certain wrestlers, etc. Use the stencils to create a border around the walls. One more idea, put a wall hanging nicknack shelf of sorts on the wall and fill it with inexpensive toys and or figurines that relate to the themes. Clean, fix up and use old toys that they don't really play with that much any more to fill the shelves with, or perhaps you might even find some toys, cheap at a thrift store. Those are my ideas. I hope that some of them are helpful to you.

A great thing for the Hannah Montana lover is to put posters on her wall. If you go to Walmart they have some fairly cheap posters. You could also buy magazines and cut out pictures for the wall. Or what I have done for my room (which is an old movie theme) is print out pictures I like from the internet and then I went to a Hobby store and bought black frames with matting in them and then placed the photos inside of those. It really looks nice and professional. As for wrestling..I would say check out ebay. There are tons of stuff on there that you could place on the wall. They have foam fingers of the Rock which would look pretty cool and also pictures again. Since the space is so big, possiby consider placing photos together as a collage and then putting them up. I hope some of these suggestions help and good luck in the decorating!!!