Fun and Functional Kids' Rooms

I've never met a kid who cared if all the bedding and other accessories in their room matched.  I've met a lot of kids, though, that think it would be awesome to have a permanent fort in their room.  What kid can pass up a fort? 

This mismatched not-mess is my daughter's bed.  She has the bottom bunk on a bunkbed that we got used for $30 and to make up for it being the bottom bunk, since all kids seem to want the top bunk, I made it special by hanging curtains we don't need anymore and a large piece of fleece to form the long wall of the fort.  The head of the bed is left open, just a little way away from wall to be the official way in and out, and the foot of the bed has a fleece throw to block it from the world.  I haven't decided whether I'm going to just safety pin or sew these in place, but either way, this is supposed to be a permanent configuration to give her a special, private spot in the world.

So that's the fun part; the practical part is the way I have toys arranged in there.  With 4 kids, if everyone had a complete set of privately owned toys, we would probably be completely buried in toys!  As it is, most of the toys are communally shared between all of them.  This helps cut down on clutter and fights, since it eliminates a lot of the "it's mine" nonsense (of course, we still get a lot of "I had it first!"s, but I have yet to figure out a way to prevent that one).

In other thrifty decorating ideas:  my mom made those tiger curtains for the kids from a throw blanket she found at a thrift shop.  Cool, huh?  Love how they kind of glow with the sunlight coming through them!

To keep the kids' toys organized in their room, I have a large utility shelf with a combination of milk crates (love me some Freecycle!) and small storage tubs.  The milk crates contain wooden blocks, wooden train pieces, puppets, play food, and dress up things.  The tubs store smaller things, like cars, dinosaurs, and Fisher Price Little People.  I put the heaviest stuff on the bottom to weigh it down and because they are favorite toys and put the dress up stuff all the way on top since they are the most likely to not be cleaned up when they are done.  With a vertical storage system like this, it encourages (in theory anyway) toys being picked up before something else is gotten out.  Plus, it discourages random strewing of toys everywhere in the search of a certain toy since they can easily see exactly where the toy they want is.