Painting a children’s room, how do you get started?

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• An adorable baby room
• A playful children's room
• A stylish teen room

An adorable baby room

Pick the perfect colour(s)

A baby is on the way, hooray! Maybe you're already lying awake thinking about what colour to give the baby's room. Green, yellow, pink, blue...? Anything goes, but for such a little one it is advisable to go for calm, neutral colours or pastel colours. Too many bright colours can overstimulate your child, which may prevent them from sleeping soundly. Many of our most ordered colours, for example, are perfect.

Still no idea what the perfect colour would be for your little one's room? Here you can search for the ideal colour using a number of colour tools. If you are still in doubt about certain colours, it may help to test them in the baby's room with a colour tester beforehand.

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Using neutral and pastel colours does not mean that the baby's room has to be completely neutral and colourless. A nice idea to subtly add some colour to the room is to paint coloured stripes or dots on the wall. A colour tester comes in handy for this too, as you don't need a huge amount of paint. Choose some nice colours and apply the stripes or dots with a fine brush.

A piece of furniture in an accent colour can also be a nice solution to still get some colour in the room. You could, for example, order the paint for the furniture in the same colour as (one of) the accent colour(s) on the wall, to create some unity in the room.

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Perhaps a slightly more challenging, but yet another idea: use different (pastel) colours in strips next to each other. Guaranteed no boring room!

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Get started with the right paint

Once you've decided on the colour(s) you want, you will of course need paint, but which paint exactly do you order? Are certain paints better suited to a baby's room, for example? 

Sigma Air Pure Supermatt  is an excellent choice for your baby's room. Not only is this matt wall paint water-based (which makes it very suitable for use during pregnancy - low odour and no harmful solvents, perfect, right?), once the paint is applied to the wall, it also purifies the air in the baby's room. Yes, you read that right, Sigma Air Pure is air-purifying! How is that possible? The paint neutralises a chemical called 'formaldehyde', which significantly improves the indoor environment. 

You can probably see it all over by now, such an air-purifying wall and ceiling in a super cute colour, but how do you get started? Here is a detailed step-by-step plan for painting an interior wall. And if you want to venture into (pastel) colour strips, you can read how to create colour patches in this blog post.

If you want to paint furniture, it's best to use water-based primers and lacquers, for example Sikkens Rubbol BL Primer  in combination with Sikkens Rubbol BL Rezisto Satin. Always prepare the furniture properly by cleaning and degreasing, sanding and dusting beforehand. Take them apart if you find it easier and, above all, don't forget to tape off any parts you don't want to paint with. Laying protection on the floor is always a good idea too. Then apply two coats of primer in the colour of your choice and, after it has dried sufficiently, one more coat of topcoat in your chosen colour.

A playful children’s room

Smartly pick out the coolest colour(s)

Even for young children, it is best to stick to (predominantly) neutral colours, because they allow much more flexibility. Today, your child might love green, but tomorrow he or she will love yellow, and you don't want to keep getting out the paint roller. If you paint the walls of the nursery in a neutral colour, such as beige, white or grey, you can easily add your child's favourite colour (at that moment) as an accent in the rest of the furnishing, for example with accessories.

So you can very easily give a chest of drawers a fun colour, or several colours, because painting each drawer a different colour is certainly also possible, and makes it all a bit more playful.

Paint the room (even cleverly) with appropriate paint 

If your child is a little artist and he or she would like to decorate the walls themselves, you may well benefit from washable wall paint, such as Sigmapearl Clean Matt  or Sikkens Alpha Rezisto Anti Marks Velours . With the Pearl Clean Matt, you can use the Pearl Cleaner to wash off the wall, with other washable paints, you can just use a mild detergent to get the wall clean again.

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Another extra tip: if you apply the washable paint in a dark, matte colour, your child can use the wall as a chalkboard! This is because you can then wash the chalk off the wall very easily. Or use special blackboard paint.

You can make it even more fun by applying magnetic paint under the giant drawing board. This way, your child can also hang all kinds of fun magnets, drawings, etc. on the wall. 

If you also use Sigma Air Pure Supermatt for the ceiling, you have a double advantage: walls that are easy to keep clean and a ceiling that improves air quality. Ideal for the children's room, isn't it? 

If you want to paint a chest of drawers, you can use water-based primer and lacquer, just like for furniture in a nursery. If you want to work with drawers in different colours, then the smaller litre pots of Rubbol BL Primer and Rubbol BL Satura are probably the most interesting for you. Here you will also proceed completely the same way as for baby furniture.

A stylish teenager's room

Decide on the ideal colour(s) together

The good news is: your teenager is probably old enough to know what he or she wants, which helps. But you might not be so keen on purple with black or bright yellow with grey on the walls. Again, it's a good idea to paint the walls a neutral, easily combinable colour, then add your teenager's favourite colours as accents elsewhere. That way, both of you will be happy.

The ceiling can be an original place for a (soft) accent colour, such as light blue. This way, you create a dreamy, yet stylish look for your teenager's interior.

Be careful not to choose too dark colours (in relation to the colours on the walls), as they will make the ceiling appear lower and thus make the room look smaller. If, on the other hand, you have very high ceilings, a dark colour can of course be used to make the room cosier.

Feel free to let your teenager paint himself

If you want to let your teenager paint his or her own room, Sigma Perfect Matt is the ideal paint for you. It is a one-pot system, so you don't need a separate primer, which doesn't make it unnecessarily complicated for your teenager with (perhaps) little painting experience. The paint is also very easy to process to a nice even and streak-free end result. Sigma Perfect Matt is suitable for both walls and ceilings, so you can definitely use it for that accent colour on the ceiling too.