By Andrea Kinnison
Most kids have pretty wild ideas when it comes to decor. In fact, when I was 8 years old, my dad painted an entire woodland scene on my wall at my request. (It didn’t quite complement my Little Mermaid comforter.)
But while parents may allow their children to put up some quirky decor here and there, most of them don’t let kids actually design their own rooms. A small portion of moms and dads, however, give teens free reign on the matter — and the results are probably close to what you would expect!
The Wall Street Journal recently ran an article profiling some of these “teen wings” of houses and the photos are nothing short of jaw-dropping. One kid lives in a Manhattan townhouse with his own “1,000-square-foot … suite with ping-pong and billiards tables, a recording studio, kitchen and a theater for movies and video games.”
These rooms aren’t just for play; one pair of sisters have their own luxury bedrooms joined by an office-lounge hybrid, where they can do homework together.
Some children turned to favorite books as sources of inspiration. Unsurprisingly, the Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia rooms sound fantastic:
When she was designing her family’s Ormond Beach, Fla., home, Melissa Kearney says she and her husband asked the kids what they wanted. As a result, their 3,600-square-foot Cape Cod includes a couple of secret passageways, an idea inspired by the Harry Potter series…The closet in 12-year-old Tia’s bedroom is fronted by a vintage armoire door, inspired by the one in the book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Apparently parents are building these rooms in an effort to keep their teens home, making it easier to supervise them. I guess if someone has a basketball court in their house, it is simple to decide what they’ll be doing with friends on a Friday night. And when a child goes away to college, this is a surefire way for Mom and Dad to see them on the weekends. After all, if it comes down to dorm room versus Bat Cave, what’s going to win out?
I’m admittedly a bit jealous of some of these rooms, since a number of them are bigger than my house! And who wouldn’t want to have his or her own secret passageways, home theater and arcade? I may be a grown adult, but the idea of having my own personal playground sounds pretty darn awesome. I wonder if I could get a sleepover invite?
Andrea Kinnison is a writer for NewHomeSource.com. The fanciest thing in her room is an armoire that doesn’t open up to Narnia.