A Monochrome bedroom promotes calmness.
Your brain is not being overloaded with a plethora of colors and objects that it needs to constantly register.
This is especially important if children need to do homework in their rooms or if adults who have trouble focusing must use their bedroom as a home office.
For those of us young and old who are:
- hypersensitive
- who have ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder)
- who struggle with ADD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder – predominantly inattentive)
- on the autism spectrum
- anxious
- for those who have panic attacks
A minimalistic monochrome bedroom can be a way of decreasing stress.
I noticed the hype the media gave to Kim Kardashian’s daughter North’s Bedroom.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lD6_6j9pjU
The room grabbed your attention with its Pepto Bismol Pink monochrome interior and minimalist design.
Although I disliked the color the idea of a monochrome room intrigued me.
After doing some research and mulling it over for a couple of months, I decided to give monochrome a try in my daughter’s room.
It was reading about an experiment in the Journal of Cognition and Development that convinced me a monochrome decorating scheme could help my daughter’s ADHD.
A study found that kids in overstimulating environments performed poorly on tasks requiring concentration. The same kids did better on the exact same tasks in an environment that were less stimulating.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15248372.2019.1605996
My daughter Maria (10) has ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder – predominantly inattentive which used to be called ADD) she was living in a small room 2.35m x 2.43m (7.7 ft x 7.97 ft) which was stuffed with toys and clothes.
My dad usually chuckled and commented that her room wouldn’t be a room in the USA. Even though it had a big window, it didn’t have enough floor space for the tax office to count it as anything other than a closet!
I guess if we moved our house to the USA we would pay fewer taxes. We would have a one-bedroom, one-bath home with an open-plan kitchen/diner/living room and three walk-in closets!
Her room had flowered wallpaper and bright paint. None of her storage had doors. She was forced to look at all her things all the time! No wonder she didn’t like spending time in her room!
Her room was always a complete disaster until I completely reorganized it a year ago.
This helped her pick up her room by herself.
you can read about exactly how we cleaned and organized her room.
If you need a quick fix without interior decorating click here https://theadhdminimalist.com/help-adhd-add-kids-clean-their-rooms-and-stay-organized/
There were some flaws in the layout of the room and the types of furniture we used that made it impossible to make the room completely functional.
I finally had enough of her disastrous room.
I rolled up my sleeves and began wading through her stuff. She needed help to minimize her things again! Kids seem to accumulate things at a rapid rate!
I hoped that a new shelf and box system to organize things she often accessed would help her remember where to put stuff back.
I believed that exchanging her toy storage system from IKEA with plastic pull-out boxes, for furniture with drawers and doors would create a calmer environment.
Thus, I started my experiment. Could monochrome, minimalism, and organization help my daughter’s ADHD?
Monochrome can make small rooms feel bigger!
Because we are five people living in a small house 100 m2 (1076.39 ft2) the idea of using a monochrome color scheme made sense to me not only because it could help my daughter feel calmer, but because it could make her room feel bigger.
I am originally from the USA, but I moved to Sweden nearly sixteen years ago, when I married my husband David who is from the mountain region of Sweden.
Even though our home is only 22m2 smaller than the average Swedish house it feels small to me when I compare it to the average American home that I grew up in.
We love where we live because it’s close to nature, and we decided to embrace tiny house life with our three kids Lage (thirteen), Maria (ten), and Frida (five).
The older my kids get the more I am drawn towards minimalism and a calm (sometimes monochrome) decorating scheme.
The kids have now outgrown their dated room decor and we are in the process of redecorating and reorganizing their bedrooms.
Maria’s room was in the worst shape so hers was the first to get a makeover.
Brainstorming a monochrome color
I remarked to Maria that I wanted to try a new design idea in her room called monochrome.
I explained that monochrome is when you pick one color to paint everything in the entire room (except toys and clothes).
‘’Psychologists have done studies on how well kids can concentrate in different environments. They now believe that having one color in a bedroom can help people focus better and feel calmer’’ I clarified for Maria when we talked about fixing her room.
Maria thought monochrome was worth a try. She wanted to focus better. ‘’Don’t worry about having just one color in your room.’’ I continued. ‘’Even if it’s all one color when you have all your things put away, all you have to do is get out toys, markers, or crafts projects to enjoy all the colors!’’
We did some brainstorming about which color to use in her room. I suggested that she should use pastel green because she always liked green, but she wasn’t very inspired by my green idea.
We looked at the picture of North’s pink bedroom which Maria thought looked awful because she doesn’t particularly like pink.
After discussing several ideas she decided her room should be white. ‘’White?!?’’ I exclaimed, ‘’Are you sure you want white?
You know white is technically not a color.’’ But, she was adamant. The room would be white and it was not open to discussion.
I let her have her way. White, although it can be a bit cold, is a standard color for possibly everything.
At least if we needed to buy anything new I wouldn’t have to paint it.
Helping Maria minimize her possessions
Before we could do anything to change the design of the room we needed to remove everything from Maria’s bedroom.
She has always had an extremely hard time letting go of things.
Papers from school finished and half-finished art projects, tubes of empty glitter glue, toys from McDonald you name it she wanted to keep it!
I began explaining that we needed to get rid of things if she wanted her dad and me to do an Extreme Makeover in her bedroom.
I challenged her to get rid of as much stuff as possible. I wanted her to understand that if we took everything from her old room and crammed it into her newly renovated room. Her new room would not look nice.
We bagged up three plastic bags the kind you get from the grocery store with old school work and half-finished craft projects to throw away.
We also threw away half-dried-up glue, markers that didn’t work well, dried up ink for stamps, etc.
Convincing her to get rid of things that were broken or damaged was not that hard, but finally, we got down to the nitty-gritty.
I snuck out all the McDonalds toys and dollar store toys under her nose by putting them in my pockets and later transferring them to a bag in the hallway.
These along with a few other toys that I knew she hadn’t played with for years I hid in the storage room for a couple of months.
The point was to see if she would remember she owned them and if she asked for something back. She hasn’t asked for anything back yet, so those toys will soon be donated to the Red Cross or trashed.
This is a standard practice I started when my son was little. When the kid’s rooms got too cluttered I would go through the room when they were not at home.
Most of the stuff I hauled out of their rooms was stuff I could immediately trash, but some toys and games that I had not seen them play with for ages I would bag up in the storage room and wait three months to dispose of them.
During these three months, I did not tell them that I removed things from their room and I did not show them what I removed, but anything they remembered on their own and wanted back they could have.
When the three months were up the rest of the toys were donated.
Maria often thanked me when I took charge of her room in this way. She was overwhelmed by her excess stuff. Because she has such a hard time letting go of things she never threw anything away.
This problem was compounded by the fact that she has ADD and gets easily overwhelmed by tasks that require you to do many small steps in order to accomplish a bigger task.
I finally developed a way of cleaning that helped her do most things on her own after I did the initial sweep of the room getting rid of trash and old toys.
When I came in and did a major clean up she breathed a huge sigh of relief. Then she could usually put the rest of her toys away and fold her clothes.
This time I tried to include her in as much of the sorting as possible. She needs to learn that it’s ok to let go of things.
She picked out all the clothes she liked, wore often, and wanted to keep. Whatever was left went either to the second-hand store or to the storage room to wait for her little sister to grow.
Convincing her to get rid of toys that were not damaged was nearly impossible.
A few toys that I knew she hadn’t played with in ages I actually bought from her. She was really happy to get a little money (about 5 dollars a toy) and I was happy not to have the items in her room.
These toys will either be given away by her little sister at birthday parties because they were almost new (Giving used gifts is a great way to help the environment and your wallet) or be donated to the second-hand store.
We were both happy with the arrangement.
Making a monochrome room feel cozy
My thoughts turned towards how to decorate a completely white room so it wouldn’t feel cold or remind Maria of the doctor’s office where she got her diagnosis.
I decided to use several different shades of white and a textured wallpaper called, almost white, which had a white and white-grey graphic pattern on it.
I figured if I added lots of texture with fluffy rugs, blankets, and pillows this would give the room a cozy vibe.
In the end, I left a few chrome details. The handles on the cabinets and drawers didn’t seem worth painting. I decided to match the silver color of the handles to the inside of the desk.
I bought a pot of paint called glitter paint which was new at the hardware store and began painting the desk leaf.
Suddenly I heard Maria behind me demanding in a high voice, ‘’What are you doing? That desk should be completely white!’’
Assuring her that the outside would remain white I convinced her that it might be fun to open her desk and find the inside completely covered with silver glitter!
I know that this may not be considered monochrome if you’re a fanatic, but the results are still amazing!
It took us a few weeks to get her room finished while Maria slept in our room on the floor.
I realized the extent of the task I had given myself was bigger than I originally thought. There were many details that needed to be painted white if I wanted to reuse some of the furniture and decorations that we already had.
We swapped with my husband’s sister and traded some old barn wood for a white IKEA bed with three drawers underneath. My daughter had been eying her brother’s Ikea bed with envy for months!
The underside of a bed is expensive real estate if you live in a small house. You can’t waste it!
We assembled her bed in the middle of the night, and you should have seen the excited, surprised expression on her face the next morning!
A secretary desk decreases stress and promotes sleep.
Sitting in the storage shed we had a 100-year-old desk which I was excited to use in Maria’s room.
I bought an old secretary desk with a drop-down leaf when I noticed how nice it was to shut a similar desk we had in the kitchen.
When I didn’t want to look at the pile of things to do, I didn’t have to. I love antiques so when a cute old man only wanted 20 dollars for the desk I plunked down my money and had to talk my brother-in-law into picking it up for me!
The problem was that it was filthy and needed painting and fixing.
Somewhere in the many books, I read during the last ten years about ADHD and dyslexia I read that having a desk in a child’s room can be stressful.
Children can get stressed because they feel their homework or their projects are never finished because desks are rarely cleaned off.
When children go to bed and see the desk in their room piled high with half-finished work they can have a hard time settling down for sleep because of this unconscious stress.
I wish I could remember where I read this so I could give credit, but unfortunately, I have not kept all the books I read and I am not finding it on google.
We have such a small house that the only place my daughter can be sure to have peace and quiet to work on her homework and do craft projects is in her room.
My solution to this problem is the secretary desk which we call sekretär in Swedish. Sekretär comes from French and means Secrete. You can shut the desk at bedtime and keep your unfinished homework a secret.
The desk that we refurbished had two small drawers and three huge drawers underneath the desktop.
This was the perfect piece of furniture for an extremely small room. It did double duty as an electronics hub, toy cabinet, and desk.
With both the bed and the desk doing double duty we scrapped the typical Swedish closet which takes up floor space and opted for hanging some used Ikea kitchen cabinets that we had laying around the shed.
We hung them above the desk and across a whole wall. We used different cabinet sizes and heights to keep it from looking like a kitchen. On top of the cabinets, we left space for a shelf and labeled boxes.
Did the secretary desk decrease my daughters stress?
She does not seem stressed by the desk in her room. Most of the time the leaf on the desk is shut which gives a nice clean impression.
When she is done working she often automatically shuts the desk leaf and moves her chair back into the corner where it belongs.
Continually having a chair in front of the desk drawers hindered her from opening them. She began putting the chair back without anyone asking her to.
This desk makes a huge difference in her room. In her old room, she had a regular little desk that she continually put stuff on. When she wanted to actually use the desk she first had to excavate it from all her random stuff!
This means that she only actually used the desk a few days after she cleaned her room. By the time she needed to clean again, the desk was piled high with junk!
The slanted angle of the desk leaf hinders her from putting things on it, and it’s apparently too much trouble to open the desk to put things down. The inside of the desk remains clean with a bit of homework or coloring inside.
Just eliminating the eyesore of a desk she had in her old room made her new room much cleaner and calmer!
If you don’t have the time or money to completely redecorate making or buying a secretary desk for your child’s room may be a quick fix. Click below.
The best desk for an ADHD child, how to make your own (A helpful illustrated guide)
Did the minimalist, monochrome bedroom decrease stress and help Maria stay organized?
Maria seems calmer in her new room. She likes the monochrome white furnishings and is even planning to paint a few more things to match.
The labeled boxes with lids have made it much easier for her to know exactly where things are and where to put them back.
She doesn’t mind picking up her new room because it’s not overwhelming trying to figure out where to put toys and clothes.
I think that the monochrome room helps her stay calm while carrying out tasks such as cleaning.
Her old room which was multicolored had open storage and mirrors on the wall. There were just too many things that had the potential to give her a sensory overload.
Asking her to clean a very messy room was completely overwhelming for her, especially when her room was already overloading her senses when it was clean.
I cleared up some of this problem when I reorganized her room. This made it easier for her to clean it, but she still whined and complained about having to clean her room, and she didn’t want to spend much time there.
Having the monochrome room kicked the reorganizing up a notch. Because the walls and decorations are not competing with the colors of her toys and clothes.
Even when she has a lot of things out it’s not overwhelming, and she no longer complains about cleaning her room.
We have not labeled the drawers in the dresser or under the bed. If you are wanting to help your child’s brain relax even more you can label everything with either words or pictures.
This has been proven to help the brain relax because when you’re in a room where things are labeled your brain doesn’t feel the need to try to figure out where things go or wonder what is in a particular cupboard.
She was quick to remember which three drawers held what clothes, and didn’t seem to have any trouble remembering where the unlabeled toys went.
So, we have left it this way for now. One big unlabeled drawer was for Legos, and one for a variety of toys that she only had one or two of. The rest of her toys have labeled boxes.
She now enjoys being in her room more often. She even invites her little sister in her room sometimes, something that she rarely did in her old room.
If you don’t have time to do a whole kids’ room makeover, MINIMIZING and ORGANIZING your child’s CLOTHES and TOYS can make a HUGE IMPACT!
Learn how to do that effectively by clicking below. https://theadhdminimalist.com/decluttering-kids-toys-and-other-monsters-in-their-rooms/
You may find that my post on helping kids with ADHD (ADD) to clean their rooms and stay organized is helpful.
This post is about a cleaning method I developed for my daughter who has ADD. It helps her clean her room with as little parental help as possible. https://theadhdminimalist.com/help-adhd-add-kids-clean-their-rooms-and-stay-organized/
If you liked reading this post please read my post on HOW TO CREATE A MONOCHROME KIDS ROOM. https://theadhdminimalist.com/how-to-create-a-minimalistic-monochrome-bedroom-with-easy-to-use-storage-a-helpful-illustrated-guide/
For more information and other book, tips check out our page Our Favorite Resources! https://theadhdminimalist.com/our-favourite-resources/
Copyright Annie Eklöv
