Once you’ve got your child’s wall color down, we move on to accessories. Studies show that for the best vision and brain development, you want a lot of contrast. I recommend a simple formula. If you have a 20% concentration wall color you want the following ratio of colors in the room. 20% light white or off whites or paler versions of the wall color. 50% in the 30 percent color saturation range, and 30% in the darker or over 60% range. For instance, if you paint a wall light pink, you’ll want some whites or super pale pinks, yellows or lavenders to highlight the actual pink of the walls (illustrate just how much color is on the walls), 50% to be close in color concentration but different in hue, like blues, greens, darker, different pinks or lavenders, and 30% to be bright pinks, bolder purples or even reds.

An Aside Here: I LOVE tone on tone rooms. Pink saturated rooms, rooms full of creams and gold metallic. This is a beautiful look. What I am suggesting here is a simple formula for those not necessarily skilled in providing the tone on tone space. Also, although I love soft pale green and yellow nurseries, this is not the nursery I would choose for my child because it does not stimulate eye movement like black and white do. Studies show brain development is aided by contrast in color and tone.

First, we tackle things like drapes and bedding if they didn’t already drive the wall color choice. Let’s start with a gender neutral color like tan. Sounds boring right? Well, many of my clients will initially put their children in rooms that will later become offices and guest rooms because the rooms are closer to the master. These walls can stay this color very easily. For boys, you can choose a bold primary stripe drape and sports ball bedding, embellish with lockers for storage and playful sports art. For girls, you can use a black on white toile with gold accents and all the French finery of Versailles. Other themes that work well with Tan: jungle, dinosaurs, bugs, garden/Peter Rabbit, and trucks. When we use canvas and hardboard art, we can easily exchange these items out for more adult themed art later without too much touchup or difficulty.

The beauty of canvas and hardboard art is that it is inexpensive, not created in your home while children are playing, and easy to exchange out. And the possibilities are endless. 7 year old girl transitioning from Fancy Nancy to Shake it Up tween glamour? Both rooms will work with feather boas, reflective sequin curtains over beaded sheers. Fancy Nancy painted canvases and dollhouses are replaced by hardboard dance silhouettes and full size dress mannequins for displaying cool outfits.

Truck loving toddler heading into extreme Padres Fan? Simple Target truck shelves and pillows, safety cone accents with truck shaped hardboards transition to framed stadium art, displayed signed memorabilia on wall cubes, bat racks and framed Sport Illustrated Cover Portraiture.

In both of these scenarios, wall color and furniture does not change, and the makeover costs $250 instead of $2500! I love a dynamic mural, but these scenarios let the child’s taste change easily without breaking Mom and Dad’s bank!

Favorite Child Art Sources: Target($), Walmart($), Pier One ($), Cost Plus ($), Pottery Barn Kids and PB Teen ($$$), HomeGoods ($), TJMAXX ($), Marshal’s ($), Ross ($), Kirkland ($), Costco ($$) My Own Room Online ($$), Land of Nod ($$$),  and  the dreamy Posh Tots ($$$$$). Locally in San Diego, I also like Leaping Lotus ($$) and Vignettes ($$$) for Girls  and the San Diego Store($$), the Petco Padres shop ($$$) and local train and hobby shops for boys.

Today’s economy makes it tough to repaint rooms as fashion changes or as a child ages and their tastes change. A simple way to get around this is to choose a light version of a gender appropriate color or a gender neutral color in about the 20% color concentration range. This is usually the second or possibly third color on a six color deck. Then, you can switch out accessories as the child ages.

Why light colors? Once we get into a 30% color, it is harder to match or coordinate colors because more colors may share that same value, or gray scale, but are made up of different hues (the true color of the paint.  Take white for example. Almost every color goes with white because it is a 0% color. The value difference is so great, it looks good.  Off whites, however, which are close in value, tend to stick out like a sore thumb.

Try this simple experiment. Choose a super light sky blue (10-15% color concentration). Place any 30% blue color next to it. Almost all of them will look as if they coordinate. Now move up the fan deck color card of the same sky blue to a 30% color. Only a few other blues will look good with it because the value is the same. The colors that each has in its makeup will start to be more apparent. One will look more lavender; one will look more green, etc. The differences in hue become more apparent because the values are so close.

A 20% color concentration primary blue will work very well with a boy’s room because many items geared toward males have blue in them. We also equate blue with sky and sea, which are popular themes with boys. However, neutral tans also work well because they work well with green colored themes like bugs and dinosaurs and transition nicely into sports and sports ball themes. Either way, by choosing the lighter versions of these colors, we increase the range of the coordinating palette and leave us plenty of options for varying the themes.

Girl’s colors tend to be a bit trickier. Here, we start to see a greater range of warm versus cool interaction. Simply put, warm colors have hues of red, yellow and orange. Cool colors have hues of purple, blue and green. When we hear the words “cool red” or “warm green”, it is usually used to describe a color that has an element of the other side of the spectrum. For instance, a burgundy red has elements of purple and black. It is a cool red. A tomato red usually has a touch of orange and is therefore a warm red. Similarly, teal is a very blue green (cool) while olive is a very warm mix of green and yellow.

When we choose girl’s colors, especially in the pinks and purples, navigating the warm/cool questions can be quite frustrating. I like to choose lighter shades and keep a sample in my wallet so I can whip it out and see if the bedding matches the walls. A good rule of thumb is to choose a warm palette or cool palette and stick with it.

These are safe suggestions for rooms that easily transition to the next phase of childhood. Want to jump right in to a fuchsia or an eggplant? Go for it! Kid’s rooms tend to be an area where people feel a little freer to experiment. Soon, I’ll talk about accessorizing and the psychology of colors…why we make the choices we do.

The Dempster Family Foundation has taken up the charge to get 22Q added to the newborn screening panel, This $6 test will determine if children have the 2nd most common genetic anomaly after Down Syndrome:22Q.
For those of you who do not know, My son was diagnosed with 22q because of his facial structure (wide set eyes, low ears and thin lips). Because 22Q is also the 2nd most common cause of infant heart problems, his blood oxygen problems were determined to be heart related instead of lung related. Perhaps if he had had this screening immediately, or if it had been part of my amnio, Aidan would have had the neccesary heart surgery sooner and spent less days in the NICU. This test could save thousands of children's lives and identify thousands more for Early Intervention Services. Please join us in asking Washington to add 22Q to the Newborn Screenings!

I am part of a committee that puts together an awesome day of training for the parents of children with special needs. Check out www.iepday.org for all the deatils. This year we feature Had To Be Productions Play Not Just Ramps as a keynote, a strand in spanish and a strand about teens transitioning to adulthood. There will also be an exceptional resource fair and a networking lunch! Hope to see you there!