A grown-up’s guide to creating kid’s study space
Make sure any recessed lighting is placed in the right spot to give light but not create a shadow.”
The splurge-worthy 19th C. British Drum Bookcase from RH Baby & Child is a surefire way to give a study space personality. Based on the design of British snare drums, the bookcase has nine cubbies for storage and display.
With Flor carpet tiles, even the floor is an opportunity to be creative. “You can almost create any design that you want to,” Gross says. “And if there’s a spill, you can take that one square up.” Her pick for happy-making color is Picnic Breakfast, a plaid-inspired medley including turquoise, seafoam, pink, magenta, orange and cobalt.
Basic cream meets bright cotton tufts on Anthropologie’s Rainbow Tufts Basket. Use it to tote binders and notebooks around the house if your student is a mobile learner or to store textbooks bedside for teens.
Chances are, Poppin has your child’s favorite color in chairs, desk accessories, notebooks, pens — or even the Stow Three-Drawer File Cabinet. Bye-bye, boring steel. Hello, orange, yellow, navy, blue, aqua, pink, red, black, white, light gray or charcoal.
“When they’re younger, try to teach them that this goes here, this goes there,” Houck says. “Then they have a steppingstone to how they can organize later in life.”
There are lots of seating options for kids today that don’t look like traditional, hard, straight-backed chairs. For its Fur Rockin’ Roller Desk Chairs, PBteen takes an exercise ball, covers it with a slipcover and adds a chrome base. The chairs come in faux fur or fleece.
“Having a space dedicated just for students and their studies helps them stay organized and get things done,” Gross says. Organize paper clips and thumb drives in the Rainbow Mobin Wall-Mounted Organizer from the Container Store. Each container tips down and can be removed individually.
“The Kallax shelving unit from Ikea is something I buy for a majority of the kids’ rooms I design,” Gross says. “It is inexpensive, comes in a variety of bright colors and offers varied storage solutions, especially when the custom baskets and bins, also sold by Ikea, are incorporated.” Of green, red, yellow, white, birch and black, Gross’s pick is yellow.
Because of its sophisticated tufting, adjustable height and casters, the Lorraine Swivel Desk Chair from Pottery Barn Kid could roll with a teen right through college and beyond. Its light-gray linen upholstery could be the tranquil note in an otherwise boisterously colorful space.
Although color can be fun in a child’s study space, the challenge is to not have it be distracting. “Consider tranquility in the palette,” Houck says. The pastel mint of the Mid-Century Mini Desk from West Elm) has personality, but not too much.
“You’re kind of trying to determine what their taste is,” Houck says, noting that kids’ tastes will continue to evolve, so build in some flexibility. Pin boards, whiteboards and chalkboards allow kids to put their individuality on display and change it up over time.