Kid Friendly

Valerie Sartini of Treasures Interior Design aims to create spaces that please her youngest clients.

Once upon a time, there were two brothers who loved each other very much. They tumbled around together all day, and at night they would go to their separate rooms to sleep. Sometimes, though, the brothers weren’t sleepy. They wanted to build a fort or read comic books or tell scary stories. Fortunately, when either of them pushed on their bookcase, it would spin to reveal a secret passageway that connected their rooms. And with their flashlights, in the dark of night they would tiptoe through the bookcase while whispering secret thanks to Valerie Sartini and Treasures Interior Design.

Photographed by Siri Berting

One of Valerie’s favorite things to create is kids rooms, helping transform little imaginations into reality. “I work with little-littles and their parents, all the way up to high schoolers who have very distinct opinions about their spaces,” Valerie says on a recent day in her office.

She describes the process of designing kids rooms as slightly different than working with adults. “Kids don’t know all their options, nor do they have limitations, so it’s fun to listen to them and interpret what they want. Then I come up with ideas, and they light up when they learn they can, for example, have a shared bookcase that turns to connect their rooms!”

Valerie gets lots of requests for sports, superhero, surf, music and rock band themes. She once created a tiki room with bamboo walls. “If they can dream it and Mom and Dad approve, we can create it for them,” she smiles.

Photographed by Siri Berting

She aims to keep these rooms sophisticated and aligned with the design of the rest of the home. “I get a lot of requests for pink and purple walls,” Valerie laughs. “So we do it on one wall with a modern hue.” Custom bedding and pillows, wallpaper, window seats and texture in the room also elevate the look while keeping everything youthful and fun.

Valerie also looks toward the future when designing kids rooms. “Kids grow and change quickly, so the space we design now has to be able to transition through lots of phases,” she says. “A room we make for a middle schooler likely won’t be something they want in a couple of years, so we need to make sure we can easily make changes as tastes and interests change. My goal when I work with kids of all ages is for them to feel like someone is listening to them. And then to create spaces that are made just for them, spaces they love, rooms they want to bring their friends into, hang out and never leave.”