How old of kids?

Young - 3 and 1.

Depending if you are going to stay in the house for a few years, my neighbors put ceiling access to a small attic loft in each of the kid's adjoining bedrooms.

I think the best ideas for kids' rooms are functional ideas. Finish the room so that it works for them.

Hang rods very low (a second rod above can be used to store out of season clothes or things they haven't grown into yet). Plan to hang more clothes where children can see them, rather than put them in drawers. It's relatively easy for a young child to hang clothes neatly. It's harder for them to fill a drawer neatly. And they will never wear the clothes at the bottom of the stack.

Plan furniture placement so that only the bed's headboard is against a wall. Otherwise it's quite difficult for a young child to make their bed. Plan windows and window treatments to accomodate blinds to help with nap times and staying on schedule when you turn the clocks forward.

Put in a ton of built-in shelves to that they can put their toys away, but they are still visible and the kids know where to find them. I think the ideal set-up is shelving around almost the whole perimeter of the room, up to a height of about 3.5' If you go up higher you lose wall space for maps, school work, posters, etc.

I think it's nice to plan lighting so that a night stand lamp is unnecessary. They are easily knocked over and are just another "thing" in a room that is already prone to feeling cluttered.

You've got quite a while before you need to think about homework desks and computer useage, etc. I'd probably build the rooms for ages 2 - 7 and make changes as needed when they are older.

Thank you, these are all great!

One thing I wanted for certain in the kids rooms was built ins. We have 9 children still living at home and I am tired of kids furniture for the most part. Each room has either built in bed and window seats, or built in desk and window seat. It really depended on how their room was architecturally configured as to what they got.
I know this isn't for everyone but for me was a must.
I love that at least for some of them , nothing can get lost under a bed.
I am not really one of those who are into theme rooms, as I just want simple, classic rooms that are easy for children to maintain and feel peaceful in. I do not like clutter. So these were all things I took into great consideration before I designed their rooms.

Here are some of their rooms, still in paint prep stage in these pics.

This is DD's room, she does have the shelving up high so none of her brothers can bother her things. She also has a bath in her room. She is the only girl of 11, o she needs it. The pic with 2 doors is her closet & bathroom. She has desk & window seat.

This is 14 yr. old DS' room. He got his own, as his counterpart in age would be DD and they didn't really want to share a room, lol. He has built in bed with headboard bookshelf, built in seat at end of bed.

Next are the middle boys, 2 of them share this room. They have built in desks on each side of window seat. We almost had to nix this and they were crushed, did some reconfiguring and fit the desks. They are so excited.

Here the littlest boys room. 3 in this room. They have 3 built in beds, one being a bunk. Believe it or not these fit a twin mattress. Figure we will have to change it later, but we have very tiny children and they are 4, 5, & 6 so this will get them through for quite awhile. They also have window seat.

Love the built-ins! My kids are grown but back in the day I used to love to bring them to the local Children's Museum. If you have a CM where you live maybe it could inspire you. I always left thinking of things that could be used in the family room or unfinished basement, but I bet you could find some bedroom inspiration there as well.

Acountryfarm - I love the built-ins! Thanks for the pictures - they look great and give me some good ideas!

I don't know where the kids room is but I know they usually like sloped ceilings or anything that makes them a little cave to go into. I think built ins are great. Paint a wall with chalkboard or magnetic paint? An interesting mural on a wall. Also you could segment a corner off with storage to make a cozy place to place.

With 8 kids at home, I feel exactly the same as acountryfarm, but didn't have the room she has. Below is a rendering of the closet design to incorporate dresser drawers, hanging area, and shelves all in one spot. No separate closets and only beds with drawers underneath for furniture. Later we may add builtin desks. The 2nd rendering with wood builtins are the plan for our room...Not for kids, but a similar idea.

I really like acountryfarm's built in beds/bunk. We may do something like that or "bed alcoves" ala A Pattern Language. We have 3 boys ages 4, 5 and 8 mos. I came up with the "1 to 3" bedroom idea, because they love sharing a room and want to share a room with the baby when he's big enough too. So while they're young I'd like a big room with built in beds/alcoves, with some kind of partition/screen that we can pull to divide the space into 3 normal BR-sized areas for when they are older and want their own space. Thinking of a shoji screen or something on a track. Will this really work? No idea, I'm still in the phase of interviewing architects and seeing what they think of all this. If $ were no object I'd do a loft area in the room too. And a secret passageway. How fun is that.

just a fun idea: our kids rooms will be next to each other. we're installing a small window in the adjoining wall so they can talk to each other at night. they like to do that, very sweet!

kateskouros -- Very sweet indeed. That's one of my favorite things ....

..... to listen to my little children's conversations at night. They are building such good future relationships and they don't even know it.

My son is 10 and we incorporated a loft above the bathroom that is accessed from his room. The rest of the upstairs has catherdral ceilings so he has a little balcony looking over his bedroom. He decided to actually sleep up there with a mattress on the floor and get rid of his bed and box spring completely. We let him paint up there himself and then painted the main bedroom in the coordinating colours he chose.

Our other " kid bedroom" is an open loft area leading into our bedroom. That will be for a second child if we're ever lucky enough. We'll put a built in bookcase and bed against the far wall incorporating the window and then probably a built in against the other end leaving the middle area open.

Our son will be grown up and moved out or a teenager and willing to live in a basement bedroom by the time a second child would want the privacy of his/her own room. Then the room with the loft would be perfect for them.

During construction you can see the loft hanging out into his bedroom

The baby's room under construction. There are two sky lights under the insulation. The phot is taken from our bedroom door.

My Son's room has some attic space behind his bedroom and we have decided to give him a secret door(behind a hinged bookshelf or something) into that space. I'll put some beanbags and books or whatever he wants to play with in there. It's not much but he thinks it is so cool!

We incorporated an idea very similar to ajpl. My son's room has a cathedral ceiling. We capped the closet, and the adjoining room's closet off at about 7 ft and built a loft on top of it. When he is old enough we will install a library style ladder so he can hang out up there.