Decorating shared boy/girl room

[vicky228]

DD(6yrs) is about to share a room with DS1(2yrs). She loves pink, flowers, butterflies etc, he wants a blue and red fire engine duvet cover. How on earth do I cater for both of these in the same room without it looking really awful??

I could do with steering it more towards blue or boy-like themes as we will switch things round again in a couple of years with DS sharing with DS2, but it obviously needs to feel like DD's room in the meantime too.

Help!!!

My DS has magnolia walls and multicolour striped curtains (from John Lewis, maybe Harlequin ones?). It's very gender-neutral and you can add a couple of posters to the walls by their beds that meet their individual interests maybe? These will change over time anyway!

I agree, it doesn't have to be one or the other. You could create something really nice using traditional children's fabrics such as gingham in different colours.

Could you sort of divide the room like this

If you do decorate in different colours it is important to get the tones the same, ie pastel pink and navy blue do not go.

A bit off the wall but what about a non-acid lime green? You can pink it up and it would take a navy blue too.

Wall stickers are always the route I take when decorating the children's bedrooms.

I'm guessing that the fire engine has some yellow elements?

How about soft yellow walls and blind/curtains. Then make sure that both sets of bedding have some yellow in them?

I agree with Fizzy - wall stickers are fantastic - there is so much choice around nowadays.

But why get small children into a mindset where things have to be frilly and girly or action-packed and blue? My son and my younger daughter share a room and have a London double-decker bus bunk bed and everythng else is just normal toys and things. The walls (where you can see them under their pictures and paintings) are a very pale green.

Or, if you're really keen on the gender-specific bedding, get them identical beds, paint the walls white and have the different duvet covers and pillows but leave it at that.

We have boy/girl twins and we've decorated their shared room in a multi-coloured striped wallpaper and bright colours - this www.grahamsandersoninteriors.com/acatalog/info_12600.html

We've added more pink to "her" side and more "blue" to his side - green in the middle, all toning in with the wallpaper.

Lalalonglegs, I would love to avoid gender-specific stuff but unfortunately my daughter has been pink-mad for as long as I can remember (I hate it so certainly not my influence...) and my son hasn't stopped talking about the fire engine duvet cover since he saw it - he's so excited about it that I haven't the heart to disappoint!

I'm going to do the split room idea for the time being. The room already has pink curtains so will put DD on that side and do stuff with rugs, lampshades and wall stickers to tone in the with duvet covers. Walls are already neutral and it's got a wood floor so minimal cost involved hopefully. If it looks rubbish, I'll rethink - I'm also liking the multi coloured stripes, thank you Mandy!