I love decorating kids rooms!  There are so many ways you can have fun, experiment with color, and do all the things you would have wanted as a kid.  First you must channel your inner kid!  Kids come with so many personalities, precocious, serious, funny, silly, scientific, dramatic, colorful, happy and the list goes on and on.  My kids are very different.  Jack is and always has been a serious little guy with a very outgoing yet logical personality.  My daughter however, is dramatic, artistic and has a sense of style to rival a character on Project Runway.
Start with the color:  Color is so much fun in a kids room!  Stripes are a favorite of mine.  I like to to do stripes at kids eye level, usually involving 3 different colors.  The room above has green walls, a light pink ceiling and 2 bold orange and fuscia stripes to separate the colors.  This way I could bring the ceiling color down on the walls.  Try to paint the kids rooms with zero VOC paint colors.  I prefer Harmony Paint by Sherwin Williams, very lovely colors and quite affordable. 
Then add the bones: Buy furniture that is not too childlike, or else they may grow out of it too fast.  I tend to like the clean, modern lines of Room and Board Kids or Ikea.  I can see the furniture in the above room going from house to house and because it is from Room and Board, it may make it all the way to college.  Figure out great ways to store kids stuff.  I prefer cubbie storage from Ikea and then add baskets and containers to keep it organized.  The room above has a great system in the closet to keep all of her toys for her small room.
Then the fun accessories!:  Bedding, windows, bean bags, lamps...all of these add so much personality to the room!  In the above room we were definitely working with little Kate's vibrant and precocious personality and trying to bring in nature and color.  The bedding is from Pottery Barn Kids.  The windows are a neat treatment.  We bought black out roller shades from Lowe's and my seamstress sewed trim on the bottom.  Then she created a small 4" valance to cover up the roll.  Then we used light green and pink linen for the curtains with the same trim at the seam.  The hardware is white wood to keep things light and airy.
Have Fun and Keep it Simple!  After all, if we get stressed out with the kids rooms, what are we going to do with the living room?

Every year at this time I am motivated to organize, set my goals for the upcoming year, clear out the old and bring in the new.  New thoughts, new ideas, new organizing tools, ultimately, a new me.  Reinventing, rejuvenating, this time of year inspires me like nothing else.  So I thought I would share a few things that I do and perhaps you can share some inspirations that you have too.





Here are some of the things I did and I am working on:

• On January 1st, I write down my goals to share with a select few people that love and believe in me.  I am still working on this one, but it sure is exciting to contemplate your own potential!

• This year, after 7 years in business, I finally made a mission statement for Balance Design (with the help of my creative hubby and a 10 hour car ride).  I will share that in my next blog entry....the suspense!
• With the help of my unwilling kids, I went through each of their rooms and collected toys for some less fortunate friends in Nepal.  Then we organized what they have to include their new shiny stuff from Santa.  They each told me how they wanted to modify and redecorate their rooms this year.  Jack wants a loft bed and Allie "simply" wants new colors....(to be continued in another blog)
• I put up a small Command Central in my kitchen.  This included an erasable calender for the week, a pegboard for invitations, some magnets and a shelf to hold a calender and phone numbers.  Total cost:  $35.00 and some pleading of my hubby to put it up. 
• I am working on feeding my family in a healthy, less processed food and sweets, less meat way.  So I am trying to find some ways to meal plan, grocery shop and cook in a less time consuming way.  Any ideas would be welcomed!

I wish you all a happy, prosperous and meaningful 2010 and I am looking forward to the journey together!

The state of my brain at this moment during the holiday season:  swirling projects, presents still needed, cards without addresses, standing in line at the post office,"who am I forgetting?", "am I really taking time to blog right now?"....and the chaos could go on and on.  At this moment, I am saying "Stop the Madness!" for the 2nd time, since I forgot to save the blog the first time and need to write it again! 

So I was thinking, while drinking my 4th cup of coffee and eating my 5th french truffle, where is the joy and balance in this state of mind?  There is neither at this moment, so I am going to re-frame my thoughts and feelings and I hope that this may be helpful or at least interesting to you too.
At the end of this hectic season I want to be able to ask myself the following questions and be content with the answers:

• Was I more happy than sad this season?
• Did I give more hugs to people that I care about?
• Did I smile more than I usually do?
• Did I spend some quality time with each of my kids and my husband?
• Did I give to some people that need my help?
• Did I do my best to do what I needed to do?

I am sure you can think of more profound questions to ask yourself.  Right now, I am going with this list to help me remember what the holiday season is all about.  I wish you sanity, strength and a smile to keep you going!
Happy Holidays!  Stephanie

Last week I went to TerraCottage over on Howell Mill in the Westside Design District. The owner is also a talented interior designer and she carries lots of cool stuff including bedding, art and lamps. What turned me on during this visit was a clever display involving branches holding swathes of burlap over 2 twin beds. I thought this would make a creative inexpensive kids room and I wanted to share it with you. I love the bright colorful folk art and the simplicity yet innocence of it. (Hopefully those are not real antlers up on the wall, if so....yuck.)