20 Toddler Girl Bedroom Decor Buys I Regret

I have put together eleven rooms for children under four now, four of them more than once. Most of what I got wrong was not ugly — it was expensive, freestanding and bought before the room had been measured. The pattern across all of it is depressing and useful: almost everything I regret was a big object that sat on the floor, and almost everything I kept was small and screwed to a wall. What follows is the honest list of toddler girl bedroom decor I would not buy again, what each one cost, and what went in its place.

How I judge toddler girl bedroom decor now

Three questions, in this order, before anything comes into the room.

Can it tip, and does it need to? Anything over about 24 inches tall gets two anchor straps into studs or it does not come in. Tall and narrow is the worst shape in the house, and a plastic drawer tower is worse than a wooden one because there is nothing to screw a strap into.

Does it have a lid, a cord or a loop? Lids trap fingers, cords and loops are the reason cordless blinds exist, and a light string wound round a bed frame is a cord like any other. This question alone removed five of the items below.

Will it survive a 60 degree wash, or can it be wiped? Sequins, applique and high-pile anything all fail here. So does matte paint below 40 inches.

Anything that passes those three gets one more test: does it take floor space that the play zone needs? A four-foot bear does not fail on safety, it fails on square feet. If you want the version of this room built right from the start, the main setup guide has the layout.

1. The character bed frame

$280, and she asked for a plain one at five. Shaped frames take non-standard bedding, cannot be resold for much, and lock the room's whole story into the most expensive item in it. A plain low pine frame at $120 to $200 does the same job for a decade, and the character goes into a $40 duvet set instead.

2. A full-wall mural in wallpaper

About $180 in paper and a full weekend, then a steamer and a repair job two years later where the plasterboard face lifted. Painted colour costs $8 a tester and changes in an evening. If you want a mural, paint it — a hand-painted meadow can be rolled over in twenty minutes.

3. A canopy hung directly over the pillow

This one I moved rather than removed, and I should have hung it correctly first time. Nothing goes above a sleeping child's head. The hook now sits in a joist above the foot of the bed with the muslin swept to one side, which looks the same in a photograph and is not a thing that can come down on her face.

4. Glow-in-the-dark plastic stars

They yellow within about two years, the adhesive hardens, and taking them down lifted paint in flakes. Small hand-painted cream stars cost one tester pot, never peel and look better in daylight. If you want them to glow, a single amber nightlight near the skirting does more for actual sleep.

5. A tall narrow bookcase

Six feet tall, twelve inches wide, and the single tippiest shape you can put in a child's room. Even strapped, the top three shelves were unreachable, so it held things she could not get to. A horizontal unit at knee height holds the same books and cannot loom over anyone.

6. A lidded toy chest

$90, lasted about a fortnight in use. The lid meant an adult had to open it, so it became the place things went to be forgotten, and even with a slow-close hinge it was a finger risk every time. Four open fabric bins at $6 each replaced it and get used daily.

7. A high-pile shaggy rug

Beautiful for six weeks. Then the doll pram would not roll, the ride-on toy tipped on it, and every crumb in the room lived inside it. A washable flatweave under half an inch of pile, over a gripping pad, is what a floor-dwelling two-year-old actually needs.

8. A projector nightlight

Moving stars on a ceiling are fascinating, which is the problem — she watched them instead of sleeping. A still amber light of about 5 to 10 lumens near the door does the job. Anything with blue-white light or movement pushes sleep onset back rather than forward.

9. Fairy lights wound round the bed frame

I knew better and did it anyway because it photographed well. A light string is a cord, and a cord within reach of a mattress is the thing every cordless blind rule exists to prevent. They now run high along the picture rail, cable clipped flat, transformer behind the dresser, switched off at the wall for sleep. The fairy light routing guide covers this properly.

10. A glass-mirrored toy vanity

A freestanding unit at 34 inches with a real glass mirror, which is two hazards in one purchase. An acrylic mirror screwed flat to the wall with a $20 stool underneath does everything she wanted from it, and there is nothing to pull over. The vanity organisation guide is where that idea came from.

11. The matching seven-piece bedding set

$95 for a duvet, two shams, a bed skirt, a valance, a cushion and a throw, of which she used two. Matching sets date as one unit, so when the theme passed the whole lot went. Plain percale plus one patterned cushion costs half and ages in pieces rather than all at once.

12. A polystyrene bean bag

The seam split at about eight months and polystyrene beads travelled through the entire house. They are also an inhalation risk at that size. A firm cotton floor cushion holds its shape, washes and cannot burst into a thousand pieces.

13. A closed-sided teepee

The narrow base tipped when she leaned on a pole, and the closed sides meant I could not see in. Ours now stands with both front panels tied wide open and a broader base underneath. Any play tent should be visible into from the doorway.

14. A giant soft toy

Four feet tall, $60, and it ate about nine square feet of the play zone. It also lived on the bed at night, where nothing loose belongs before two. One medium comfort toy on the bed and the rest in a bin is the arrangement that stuck.

15. Sequin cushions

The sequins scratched her cheek at pillow height and the applique lifted at the corners after about ten washes. Plain cotton covers in solid colours cost less, survive 60 degrees, and can be replaced one at a time when one gets painted on.

16. A themed lampshade

$35 for a shade that was dated within eighteen months and could not be cleaned. A plain cream drum shade with a warm 2700K bulb costs $15, suits any theme the room passes through, and wipes with a damp cloth.

17. A bedside table

In a room of 90 square feet it was 3 square feet of floor with a hard corner at head height, holding a cup and a book. A slim wall-mounted shelf beside the bed does the same job, takes no floor and has no corner to fall against.

18. A plastic three-drawer tower

Light, tall, narrow and impossible to strap properly because there is no solid back to screw through. Ours walked forward every time a drawer was opened. A wide low wooden dresser is heavier, holds more and takes anchors.

19. A step stool left by the window

The stool itself is one of my best buys. Leaving it under the window was the mistake, and it is a genuinely serious one: a stool plus a sill is a climbing route. It lives by the chest of drawers now, and the window has a restrictor and cordless blinds.

20. Curtains that puddled on the floor

Twelve inches of fabric on the floor looked lovely and became something to pull, stand on and wrap. I hemmed them to finish half an inch above the boards, removed the tiebacks entirely, and the room lost nothing at all.

What I'd Do Differently Now

I would buy the wall-fixed things first and the floor-standing things last, which is the exact reverse of how I did it. Every item I kept — the picture ledges, the acrylic mirror, the low peg rail, the wall shelf beside the bed — is screwed to a wall, cost under $30, and is still doing its job. Every item I regret was freestanding, cost between $60 and $280, and either tipped, trapped or ate floor space.

I would also stop buying at the beginning. The first version of a toddler room should be under-furnished on purpose, because you cannot tell where the play zone wants to be until she has used the room for a month. Two of my worst purchases were made in the fortnight before she moved in, when I was decorating an idea of a child rather than a specific one.

And I would treat the safety list as a shopping list rather than a warning. Two anchor straps, a cordless blind, a window restrictor, flush socket covers and a foam door guard come to about $60 together. That is less than the toy chest I threw away, and it is the only part of the room that genuinely could not be undone later.

If you want the version of this that starts from the paint outwards, the themes that last guide keeps the story in the cheap layer where it belongs.