Home Improvement Blog

A couple of children a likely to cause more wear and tear on wall and floor coverings than a roomful of adults. From a practical point of view it is most important you choose these items for children’s rooms with great care, bearing in mind they must be hard-wearing and easy to clean.

Walls
While the walls in the rest of your home are there to divive living areas and provide a pleasing background, it could be argued that the walls in children’s room exist mainly as a surface for drawings, paintings and pasted-up pictures. They also serve as a natural buffer for toys and a fair target for any number of assorted missiles. It is therefore necessary to equip them to cope with this kind of assault.

Although your own tastes might be for pretty pastel colors and small patterns, remember your children will respond more readily to bright, clear colors and large, simple patterns.

If you plan to paint the room, choose something really tough such as vinyl silk for the walls and heavy duty gloss for the woodwork; alternatively strip down the woodwork and seal it so minor damage will be less noticeable. Any murals or designs you want to add should be executed with materials which will stand up to a similar type of punishment.

Wallpapers should be really durable – preferably vinyl coated – and stuck down with strong adhesive and great care so small fingers will not be able to pick away at the seams. The smallest tear could result in the loss of a huge chunk of paper and spoil the appearance of the room. When you buy the paper, it is a good idea to get an extra roll or two to cope with possible major disaster as this; the pattern may be discontinued later or, even if it is still available, a different dye lot might be obvious beside your original paper. Textured papers show marks less than plain ones – and dark colors naturally stay clean-looking longer than the pale ones.

You might like to cover a wall or part of a wall with fibreboard or cork tiles for pictures or drawings. If the wall separates the children’s room from another bedroom or bathroom, this kind of surface will provide some sound insulation as well. Blackboard paint applied to the back of a door or to any other surface will make a working area for scribbing and doodling.

Floors
Here again you are faced with a surface which has to survive a range functions. It will be at different times to a play area, a rest area, a battlefield and a motorway, so you must always choose coverings with these varying activities in mind.

Very hard floors such as those made from quarry. ceramic or brick tiles are not suitable. They are cold on small bare feet, dangerous in case of falls and damaging to toys accidentally dropped. Alternatively deep shag pile carpet will be impossible to keep clean and is impractical for children who like to play games with small toys – particularly those with wheels.

Cord or sisal carpet is quite suitable and carpet tiles would be an excellent choice since they are not only warm and comfortable but also simple to move around; with these you can equalize wear and they can be replaced easily when they are damaged. Timber flooring, cork and vinyl tiles and sheet vinyl are all practical since they are relatively warm underfoot as well as tough and easy to clean.

Even pieces of hardboard tacked down securely make an excellent base on which to paint designs, pictures or backgrounds for a model railway layout or games such as draughts. A few washable rugs (fastened down securely, of course) would add some warmth and color to these types of harder floor coverings.

Windows
Window coverings in children’s rooms should certainly be washable, or at least thoroughly wipe-able, since they will be handled by grubby fingers and probably be subjected to minor disasters such as paint splashes. Cotton curtains in a bright colors would look cheerful and be fairly easy to look after; you can hang cafe curtains for a cottage effect or those made from a fabric which matches or coordinates with the wall covering or bedspread. All curtains should be lined and interlined as well if possible, for maximum heat and noise insulation and to prevent early rising youngsters from stirring as soon as the sun comes up.

Blinds, if made from fabric, should have a thick backing for the same reasons. Roman, Venetian and vertical louvre types are suitable, but you may have trouble with roller blinds since a child who constantly pulls tightly on the cord and gets great pleasure from seeing the blind whizz up and down will almost certainly do permanent damage to the spring mechanism.

For a really hard-wearing covering, and one which will give maximum heat and noise insulation, fit secure and attractive timber shutters.

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