When you’re on a tight budget, creating enough storage for your son’s bedroom can be difficult. Solid shelves, bookcases, wardrobes, drawers and so on can be expensive and generally very uncreative to look at. But when you try to make the move to providing a more exciting bedroom for your son, the price increases and your budget goes out the window.
So how do you combat that? How do you create an adventurous themed room for your son on a tight budget, which includes enough storage to keep track of his abundance of toys, books and games?
Mainly it’s a case of getting a little hands-on. If you’re ready to put in a little DIY effort, you can make the most of cheap storage options, both brightening up the room and providing organizational solutions.
Peep Behind the Door
Finding over the door shoe racks made of canvas or plastic are a fantastic idea for creating a series of pockets to store little odds and ends in. Got nowhere to put those small toy soldiers or colouring pencils? Just pop them in the storage on the back of the door.
This also creates a ‘safe place’ for your son to put little treasures or important pieces he would otherwise lose.
To add the spark of creativity and brightness, you can try colouring in the canvas or plastic with Sharpies. Alternatively, washable colour pens would mean you could recreate the design over time. As a 5 year old he may want trains, but at 15 he may prefer song lyrics on the pockets, so washable pens allow for future change and development.
One’s Trash is Another’s Treasure
Everyone knows you can pick up a trash can for very cheap from Target or similar low budget stores. Why not use these as storage? You can select colours that fit in with the bedroom and colour-coordinate the bin to what is stored inside; say your son has a race car themed bedroom, why not choose red for homework, amber for clothes and green for toys to create the illusion of traffic lights.
This creates a sense of organisation within the room as well as a cheap and bright solution for storage.
Having Fun with Laundry Bins
Some parents feel that soft storage solutions are a better idea because there is less chance of injury when the item has no sharp corners. Why not look to laundry to help with storage?
Many budget stores produce laundry bins for kids which feature cartoon characters or football themes or train themes etc. Instead of relying on these solely for holding dirty laundry, why not consider them as a hiding place for stuffed toys or shoes or bed linens for your son?
Give Old Furniture New Life
You’re on a budget so you don’t want to go out and buy brand new, expensive, solid wood furniture. However, get yourself to a thrift store or garage sale and see what’s on offer there. Someone’s old beaten up wardrobe could be a treasure to you.
Take it home and repaint it to the theme of your son’s bedroom. Wardrobes have enough surface area to create great football murals; just look on www.NFL.com for ideas of what to paint!
Alternatively, you can dress them up with chalkboard paint in order to create a fun surface for play. This allows for your son and his friends to create their own decoration for the bedroom, while still having enough room for storage.
Stick ‘Em Up
Magnetic paint is a great budget lifesaver for avoiding cluttered desk. By painting your wall with magnetic paint, you create a surface where your son can stick up all his artwork and later notes and homework, rather than shoving them on shelves or leaving them scattered on the floor.
You can paint over magnetic paint with normal latex indoor paint so the wall matches the rest for the room, but secretly holds the power of magnetism!
You can also use it for magnetic hooks which allow your son to have picture frames, or coats and bags to clear the floor area.
Give It a Name
Labeling storage bins, racking pockets and shelves creates an extra level of organization in your son’s bedroom and allows him to be on the same page as you in terms of where his possessions belong. Not only does it instill a sense of discipline when it comes to organization, but also helps him with his reading skills.
Benjamin Baker is a freelance writer who loves having flexibility at work. He says that being a freelance writer allows him as many fishing trips a year as he wants. When he’s not writing or on fishing trips, he’s searching www.menshideaway.com for as many fishing gadgets as he can find. He jokes that a man is only as good as his fishing gadgets!