If you were to step out onto your front porch and shout, "I need some ideas on decorating my kid's room," you would likely quickly be buried under an avalanche of decorators, advertisers, magazine and book publishers and people hurling paint samples.

Decorate Without Debt | Styling Baby's Room

The array of options out there for kid-friendly decor is truly staggering, and can be daunting if you try to take it all in at once.

Talk to some parents who have gone overboard on "theme" decorating, however, and you'll soon get some serious perspective on just exactly how far you should not go.

Take, for example, Stan and Rita Beasley, who spent almost $2,000 on special paint, carpet, lighting and other accoutrements when their son, Ben, evinced an interest in dinosaurs. Within two months, his room was a dinosaur wonderland, complete with dino-lights set in fake stone sconces and multicolored carpet that looked like it had dinosaur footprints embedded.

Those of you who have kids, especially little boys, are starting to shake your heads ruefully just about now. It will come as no surprised to you veteran parents that the dinosaur craze lasted six months, after which Ben decided dinosaurs were "boring and old" and that he wanted to be a cowboy. Of course, this rendered the decor in his room somewhat inappropriate.

Fortunately, Stan and Rita came to their senses. "We realized that we couldn't afford to keep changing Ben's room every time he got interested in something else," Rita said, "We had to allow for his changing interests while making sure his room was a fun place to be."

"The trick is to keep the basic design fairly generic," said Laurent Prunet, an interior design consultant. "If you go too far in one direction, and the child's interests change, you've made yourself a lot of work."

Think about the average kid. The old story about Junior having more fun with the cardboard box than the toy inside it is true for just about every kid, especially when they're young. Give them an outlet for their creativity, a canvas on which to express themselves, and they will entertain themselves. It will also give you parents a great bonding activity, as you help your child bring their ideas to life.

But how do you incorporate this sort of thing into a room? There are dozens of options, depending on your budget, the age of your child and his or her interests. To get you started, here are a few ideas:

Write on the walls: There are a number of "chalkboard paints" on the market now that will turn any flat-surfaced wall into a chalkboard. It works very well, and resists abuse from hands, feet and hurled toys. It's more expensive than standard paint, but the benefits are worth it.

White space: Whiteboards aren't just for boardrooms anymore. With some simple framing pieces, you can make various sizes and shapes of whiteboards to hang in your child's room, or even mount them directly on the wall. Be sure you mount them in such a way that they can be removed (screws, not nails!) for maximum adaptability. Your child's options will be as limitless as the colors of markers and crayons in the world.

Make some holes: Pegboards, long the standby of garage organizers, make great mounting surfaces for your budding Picasso's artwork, pieces of a pirate treasure map or zillions of other things. For little kids, use magnetic boards so there's no thumbtack or pushpin danger.

Those are a few ideas, but the best thing to do is let your child suggest to you what he or she would like to have done. Ask their day-care or school teacher what they like to do at art time. Pay attention to what draws their interest at museums or on other outings. In the end, it's not so much the decoration as the time you and your child spend together enjoying it.

More Resources:
• Baby Room Basics
• Theme Room Ideas
• Decorating The Rest Of Your House