Product Description

Kids' Rooms is an inspirational and practical guide for parents who want to create personalized living spaces for their 4- to 13-year-olds. (Nurseries will be coming for little tots next season.) Divided into two main sections, the book's beautiful photographs and clear descriptions show how decorative changes to your child's room need not be difficult or expensive. The front half is a discussion of the various components that need to be considered when laying out a room. Here the author considers elements such as color, lighting, and furniture, and covers everything from wallpapers to nightlights. The second half contains 15 examples of great rooms. From a collector's room to a small room for two, there is something here for everyone. Eschewing the fixed environment of theme-based rooms, Levy also encourages parents to draw upon their child's imagination for inspiration. Her ideas are both easy to achieve and simple to change: most require no special installation skills and many are non-permanent, allowing these spaces to be easily transformed as youngsters grow. Kids' Rooms should break new ground in this exploding market, and should do a great job of paving the way for the follow-up Nurseries.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #203579 in Books
• Published on: 2001-04-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 156 pages

From Amazon.com
Kids' Rooms is a mixed bag: it contains some good design and safety tips, and it is one of the most attractive books in print on decorating kids' rooms. But it also contains tips like this: "If you prefer to use blankets on your child's bed, layer them for added warmth, adjusting the number according to the season." So although one might be tempted to regard this book as symptomatic of a slew of irritating trends (parents' urge to control and systematize children's lives, publishers' urge to stretch what could have been a very good magazine article to the breaking point of a costly full-length book), let's instead take a look at what it offers.

Jennifer Lévy's gorgeous photographs of gorgeous rooms, for one thing. If these beautifully lit, enthusiastically gotten-up bedrooms don't inspire you to cross the threshold into the most forbidden room in the house--ignoring the "DO NOT ENTER. THIS MEANS YOU, MOM" sign on the door--then nothing will. You'll be going at it with stencils and chalkboard paint in no time. The Bon Jovi posters in your 13-year-old's purple-and-pink room won't stand a chance.

The book also features several easy, step-by-step projects like lacy lampshades (spray-painted with a doily stencil), a harlequin-design floor (although the instructions specify using polyurethane varnish, which is expressly banned from use in kids' rooms by the "safety tip" four pages later), a folding screen room-divider (canvas stretchers form the frame, and handy patch pockets are sewn onto each panel), an easy-wipe-up vinyl "play tablecloth" with pinked edges and decorative weights at the corners, a dreamy organza pillow sham, and a handprint-decorated light-switch plate. --Liana Fredley

From Library Journal
These books are aimed at anyone interested in designing children's bedrooms and kid-friendly houses. Jordan considers every room of the home when discussing children's needs, including bathrooms, storage rooms, and outdoor and indoor play areas, and also shows how to incorporate children's activities into the family room and kitchen. She also presents a larger range of bedrooms for children from babies to teenagers than is found in Jemima Mills's From a House to a Home (LJ 1/01). L vy considers all aspects of designing a child's bedroom, including lighting, furniture, floor and wall coverings, and window treatments. This book's strength is the large number of color photographs depicting designer-created rooms, accompanied by a discussion of how the child's needs and desires have been incorporated into the design. Projects are interspersed throughout, but illustrations are not included. A list of resources is provided in both books. The Kidspace Idea Book is recommended for its overall treatment of decorating for children, with Kids' Rooms as a well-illustrated companion if needed.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author
Jennifer Levy is a New York--based photographer specializing in design, lifestyle, and food photography. Her work has appeared in many magazines and books including Simply Shrimp and Vegetarian Dinner in Minutes.