Safety Tips to Consider When Decorating a Kid’s Room

Safety is an important issue to consid­er when decorating your child’s room.   You can never be too safe and you're not being paranoid to take everything into consideration when decorating your child's room.  The decisions you make on the furniture, toys, paints and fabrics you use to decorate your child's room will determine how safe that room will be.   Even the placement of your child’s bed in relation to the doorway is a safety decision. 

If you are worried that going all out on childproofing your kid’s room will result in ugly interior décor, perish the thought.  Childproofing a room doesn’t have to be ugly.   With proper planning, a safe room will end up just as beautiful as any other kid’s room. The following are some of the safety tips you need to pay attention to when decorating a kid’s room…

Place Bed away from Potentially Unstable Objects

Ideally, you should not have any potentially unstable objects that can fall on a bed in a kid’s room. Things like wall mirrors and heavy pieces of wall art have no place in a kid’s room.

The cupboards in a kid’s room should be short if they aren’t fixed to a wall. The bed should be away from the cupboard nonetheless so that the kid doesn’t try to climb onto it from the bed. Other tall furniture should also be fixed to the wall or stabilized.

Solid Flooring

Kids spend a tremendous amount of time crawling and playing on the floor. They usually play barefoot. You want to have a floor that is comfortable and that also reduces the risk that the child will trip.

Many parents use carpets on floors because they are comfortable and can also cushion falls. If you use a carpet to decorate the kid’s room, make sure that it is a generous heavy carpet that covers an expansive area. Small mats and rugs move easily and can easily trip someone. More importantly, you want carpets that don’t collect a lot of dust and that is also easy to clean.

Functional and Safe Storage Space

Functional and safe storage space in a kid’s room is a necessity. Your kid needs space to keep their big toy collection and you also want to have enough space to safely tuck all the baby stuff the child uses.

Make sure that the storage furniture does not have sharp edges that can harm a kid. If they have sharp edges, baby proof them immediately. You should also avoid cheap wooden furniture with loose layers that can be peeled off.

Safe Window Treatments

There are special window treatments that are made with kid’s safety in mind. It is always a good idea to have cordless window treatments in a kid’s room since cords can lead to tragic accidents such as strangulation.  Cordless blinds or motorized shades work great for kids’ rooms.   

We sell and install window treatments such as childproof vertical blinds, cordless shades and cordless blinds that can be safely used in a kid’s room.  We have an excellent range of blinds and shades with great light control properties that will allow you to darken your child's room on demand when they want to nap during the day.

Hunter Douglas offers this excellent brochure going over many of the safety tips and considerations on 'Child Safety at the window' 

Use Non-Toxic Paint

Not all commercial paints are safe for kids. You want to avoid air pollution as much as possible in your kid’s room. Regular paints with Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) can emit harmful chemicals that may overwhelm a kid. The best paints for kids’ rooms are zero VOC emission paints. These paints have less than five grams of organic compounds per liter.

Paints that don’t need a primer are generally less toxic. Some stores also stock paints made 100% from naturally occurring ingredients such as milk. Milk paint is very safe and is totally non-toxic.

Repel Dust Mites with Tightly Woven Fabrics

A study looking into the best anti-mite fabrics concluded that fabrics with a thread count greater than 246 per square inch and pore size of between 2 and 10 microns were the most effective at repelling dust mites. They had dust leakage of less than 4% and greater than 99% allergen impermeability.

If you can’t find fabrics with such high thread counts, just buy the next best option. Fabrics with high thread counts tend to maintain their structural integrity for long. Your investment will be totally worth it as they will look good even after long usage.