Girls may want to celebrate a personal milestone with a new bedroom. Right before starting middle school is a popular time to give the bedroom a new personality, but the desire may hit any time between about age nine to sometime in high school. Do your homework and you'll be ready for this adventure whenever it arrives. Paint is the cheapest way to dramatically change a room. Fun, funky, and free-spirited designs hold more appeal, and even kids who appreciate the finer things are likely to want a more unrestrained version of a traditional look.
You can be a big help in minimizing impulsive decisions your child may regret without making your intervention into a power struggle. Try playing interior decorator with your child as the client: When a few choices have been identified, tape fabric and paint swatches and photos of selected window treatments, accessories, etc., on a large piece of white poster board. Your child will be able to see at a glance what works and what doesn't. If you find it too confusing to pull all their likes together in a visually coherent way, keep in mind that, in general, preteens and teens want either a very dramatic room or one that looks as much like a studio apartment as possible.
