What do you remember from your childhood bedroom?

Working on a variety of decorating kids playrooms and bedrooms articles, both my husband Doug and I have been reminded again and again about our own childhood bedrooms.

 

Maybe you remember the bedroom paint colors… a quilt… or a picture perhaps? Or does a special toy, or a cozy seat by the window fill your memories when looking back into the past?

 

There is always something that you can remember from your child bedroom decor. As you try to bring your minds eye to those little things about your room, a flood of other childhood memories come rushing in.

 

Talking with Doug about his childhood bedroom, he remembers the nautical decor, the aquariums and the radio that took all day to warm up enough to listen to.

 

My dad remembers the attic bedroom with the arched ceilings he shared with his two brothers, and the tall dresser in which he got the bottom drawer because he was the youngest.

 

My mom remembers a bleak, drab bedroom with little to no ornamentation. A room that was always cold and shivery to her.

 

As for me, I have cozy peaceful memories of the bedrooms I had when I was a child.

 

My sister and I shared a room in every home we lived in as children, except one. There was even a time when my brother also shared our room.

 

I tend to remember things spatially. The way the room was laid out, where the closet was and how the beds were placed.

 

I don’t really remember any of the bedroom colors except for the one turquoise striped room I didn’t really like that much. Mom and Dad found a good deal on wallpaper and bedspreads for my sister’s and my room while we were at school and surprised us with them.

 

I remember being pleased our room was getting updated but never had the heart to say I didn’t like the color. 

 

It wasn’t like I hated my new room; I just didn’t feel very comfortable with the bedroom colors. I was never angry with my parents for ‘choosing for me’ but I never felt like it was really mine.

 

To give my sweet parents some credit, I remember one of my child bedrooms with great fondness. It was the one time I had a room of my own.

 

I really wanted to have one of those wallpaper murals that covered the whole wall with a scene. They were expensive and my parents weren’t sure whether they were worth the money. I loved this one that was a country road lined with trees in fall color and I wanted it really bad.

 

I was twelve at the time and could picture myself taking long walks through those beautiful trees.

 

They bought the mural for me and hung it on the wall with quite a bit of difficulty. The squares of wallpaper had to be lined up perfectly or the picture looked all wrong.

 

I remember lying on my bed dreaming of peaceful outings by the hour and being thankful that they had put it up for me.

 

The one thing in common in every child bedroom I had, was a picture of a puppy investigating a little green frog at the edge of a pond. No matter how old I got I was never too old for this picture.

 

I think some how you never outgrow what you love and understand.

 

This little picture now hangs in our daughter’s bedroom along with the paintings we made of her drawings and the photo of her first cat.

 

It is funny how much your own past child bedroom decor can have such a big impact on you as an adult.

 

I think as parents, how we remember our own childhood bedroom also affects they way we go about decorating our children’s rooms.

 

Were we given the opportunity to express our own personalities in our rooms? Were they our own rooms or just extensions of our parent’s house?

 

Were our rooms cozy or bleak? Were they creative, original and filled with art and treasures? Were they filled with the things we loved or were they decorated in someone else’s tastes?

 

When our children were very tiny, Doug and my tastes tended to dominate their rooms.

 

As they are growing and discovering their own likes and dislikes we are seeing changes in their needs to influence how their rooms are being decorated.

 

Their rooms are the one place in the house that is truly theirs alone. Big discussions have to be made now when we are interested in adding or removing any elements in their rooms, such as furniture, bedding, toys and artwork.

 

Since our memories are so strong about our own childhood bedrooms, we are assuming theirs will be too, and want their memories to be of comfort, individuality and empowerment.

 

We are hoping that our children can look back on the memories of their own childhood bedrooms with fondness. We also hope they hold onto a few of their precious treasures to share with their own children when their memories are just tiny snapshots in their own minds eyes.