How would a cool teenagers room look like normally?

Boy or girl? And what sort of interests? It really varies a lot from person to person.

Also, where do they live? What funds do they have to work with? How involved are the parents? Does the family own or rent the place? Do they share a room? How old are they?
When is this set?

Yeah, it really does vary. Gender is just one part of the mix. A lot of teen girls, even if they identify with different social groups (Goth, emo, prep, ect.) have quite eclectic tastes.

Like a bomb's hit it.

Girl? or boy?

My niece's room is plastered with several layers of posters or pictures torn from magazines all taped onto the wall and onto the ceiling above the bed with no distinguishable pattern. None of the original wall is showing though the rest of the ceiling is. Her makeup (tons of it) and jewelry is scattered all over her desk along with all sorts of knicknacks. There's purses and shoes on the floor, in the closet, tossed in corners, and pretty much wherever you look. Some magazines and an actual book have been casually left on her bedside table.

The desk, once white, has been graffitied on its entire surface by her friends. The messages have been written in colored pen, Liquid Paper (tm), and nail polish. The messages are generally of encouragements, friendship and love.

Is my niece typical? I don't think so but her room has such atmosphere, I thought I'd share.

scarletpeaches said:

Like a bomb's hit it.

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Haha not always. Man, this question is just so loaded. I'm the type who has a pretty boring BR, and it tends to be a mess.

One of my friends is doing the whole jungle on a budget theme, so she has a lot of random artifacts from traveling and incense.

My other friend likes "grown-up" approach and since her mom's a nut, she is also a neat-freak.

A guy friend of mine has a disorganized room that's painted bright orange because it's his favorite color.

So many differences. Other factors to consider include the amount of money you have, your tastes in color and style, your upbringing, ect.

I consider myself pretty cool (LOL) and my room looks awful. There's clothes everywhere. I have crappy old-fashioned furniture, excluding my awesome Ikea tri-level desk. Every surface is covered in papers, books, pencils, jewelry, clothes, random crap. I have a bulletin board of pictures and stuff from social outings, and a shiny Mac computer. A dusty purple rug and a staticy 12-inch TV. I guess if I was really cool I'd have some pictures, including my own, up on the boring white wall (too lazy to make it happen). It's all pretty meh, but its mine. Some of my friends rooms are really hip though, with themes and stuff. Like out of a Delias catalog, except messier.

When I lived with my parents mine was the tidiest room in the house. But then I'm OCD like that, and it was the only part of my life over which I had any control.

So yeah...I was taking the piss. It really depends on your inclination/tastes/decor/economic situation...a million and one various factors.

My room at my mom's was decorated in an island theme. At my dad's, I had a celestial theme. Both rooms were a wreck!
It really just depends on budget and personality!

Perle_Rare said:

Is my niece typical? I don't think so but her room has such atmosphere, I thought I'd share.

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sounds almost identical to my 14 yr old daughter's room.

It's likely square or rectangular. And it may have a bed.

I think it has a lot to do with personality. As for me, I'm a total nerd, going to school for applied mathematics and writing in my spare time, and my room is a mess of school books and old manuscripts and clothing strewn around. My desk... if you see it please contact me.

I know you said "cool" but I declare that nerds are cool. So there.

As for decor, the only thing on my wall is a calender and those walls are wood panelled. I have two book shelves in there, overflowing. I stuck the dresser in the closet because it took up too much room .

But, like I said, total nerd. It depends on the kind of person. If they are into music or movies they'll most likely have posters... etc.

My room was covered in posters of basketball players, because I was really obsessed with basketball. And where there weren't those, there were posters of horses, and a couple of other animals. And a few random other things. There was barely any wall visible (or ceiling...) I had a tall bookshelf with tons of books on it, and also other things like any trophies, some pictures in frames - my dog, my closest friends. Some candles. There were a lot of stuffed animals everywhere, too. The end of my bed, on this other thing next to my bookshelf, on the floor. I had a desk that I never used for anything, but it was covered in stuff all the time. Usually markers and pens. And I had a huge stack of notebooks and magazines between the desk and my bed. I had a closet & a dresser, though my clothes were also usually all over my floor. And I had a stereo, an alarm clock, cds (and tapes!), and a collection of what I called 'breakable things'. Little animal figurines or whatever they're called. I don't think my room was too out of the ordinary.

But it all depends on interests. I might've not had posters of horses and basketball players; if I were interested in ballet, maybe I'd have posters of ballerinas. Some people don't like posters at all. Or would have posters of people they thought were hot. One of my cousins had all his walls plastered with posters of bicycles, women in swimsuits, and cars.

Some people get to have things like computers or TVs in their rooms, others don't (I didn't). People who don't like to read won't have books. My sister had pictures of herself and her friends all over her walls, and she had a lot of space dedicated to makeup on her shelves. She was really into photography for a while, and you could tell by her room.

The point of my rambling is, you're really going to have to take your character's interests and personality into account. There is no one typical teen room, even if your teenager is 'cool'.

Cool is highly subjective. And what's cool today, will not be cool two years from now when the book hits the shelves. Some of it won't even been cool two weeks from now. You don't want to date your story.

Your best bet is to decorate it with whatever your character thinks is cool, and keep it true to the story.

One of my sons has clocks shaped like guitars, a desk shaped like a skateboard and lots of car stuff. Another has an army theme, camoflague walls, metal bunks, flags etc.
It depends very much on the age and social group and gender. As a general rul, girls tend ot have more stuffed toys and knick knacks. Most at some point seem to go through an emo/goth/'wanting everything black' stage.

My son's room is rad cool and he has playstation stuff all over, an electric guitar on a stand and a sweet little Peavey amp. One retired skateboard hanging on the wall, one in the closet, and one by his bed. A framed poster print of guitar chords, another of an Egyptian mummy, and if I hadn't cleaned it today, a nice little collection of toenail clippings on the floor in front of his TV.

My bedroom is still the annoying baby-blue it was when I moved into it; there's even a painting of a sailboat on one of the walls. It's not personalized. I just don't think it's that important. It's messy--clothes and other crap strewn all over the place--but, other than that, it looks like any other room.

I just never invested the energy into making it hip, and I know a lot of my friends haven't either. In fact, the only friends I know with 'cool' rooms are the kids with moms who are super-involved with their kids' lives, the kinds of moms that want to make sure their home is as home-y as possible. Annoying, nagging moms that sign their kids up with enough extracurricular activities to drown a rat. The kinds of moms that insist on making a turkey for Thanksgiving even though nobody cares.

But that's just me. Maybe we're weird up here in Canada.

The only thing I did nice to my room was paint it a color that made the annoying bright lights seem less bright. The rest of it is wall to wall carpeting of clothes (some worn, some clean) and other random items, even some stuff from when I was planning on getting a pet rabbit but decided to wait until I had more time. The only notable thing is my overflowing bookshelf.

The walls are a creamy color, painted. My parents are obsessive about matching, so the floorboards/nightstand/bedframe/four-poster hangings/vanity/dresser/desk all match. The original design theme was dark cherry wood, with chrome accents, with cream (walls, hangings).

But right now, yeah, it's really messy. The walls are bare, though I have some polaroids and holga pics (the vignetty kind) stuck in between the frame of my vanity mirror. My clothes are on my vanity, on top of my dresser, some under my bed. Oh, yeah, and there are textbooks and backpacks and recent purchases under there, too. It's dusty. I have a precarious tower of Altoids tins stacked on top of my desk, which is also covered with:
-a stuffed aromatherapy pig (the kind you microwave, and then it smells like lavender!)
-my phone
-iPod
-Ipod charger
-mirror charger (i have one that lights up)
-papers
-pens (i can't stand writing with pencils)
-scissors
-spools of thread (i like to sew)
-notebooks
-books
-x-acto knife (don't ask)
-and a vintage-y, non-working phone that I got for $1. It works excellently as a paperweight.

And don't get me started on my closet. I don't think anything is even on a hanger.

Well a cool teens bedroom, lets see how do I describe my room? lol. Well, like many posters said, it depends on the interest. However if its a "cool" teen, he/she wont have one interest, therefore the room would be painted the original white that it came with when they moved in, there would be pin holes in the wall from the pushpins for various posters and pictures pinned up. There would be clean and dirty laundry thrown about. The bed would be made but not completely, the pillows would be everywhere except on the bed lol. The desk would be a regular sized desk with homework, doodles, a deodorant and some pens and markers on it. Because they have a laptop youll find the charger plugged in but the computer no where to be found.

There would be 2 or 3 glasses of water or juice about 1/16 of the way full. There would be a small TV hooked up to a game console and there would be DVDs thrown around the tv and the empty boxes would be near by.


This is based on what my room used to look like before I got my act together lol, as you can see in my avatar my room has changed alot.
However Ive seen rooms like this and its mainly a teenager who is a rebel, who holds no regard for their parents rules, thus being classified as a cool teenager by other teens, and disgusting by others lol.

Oh and one more thing, and this is something Im still fighting with lol, but there would be a distinct smell and mugginess that you dont know if its coming from the closet, the shoes or something that died underneath the bed.

ShowerInspiration said:

there would be a distinct smell and mugginess that you dont know if its coming from the closet, the shoes or something that died underneath the bed.

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Damn it, guess I just found my hamster. D:

I second the idea that cool is highly subjective. Just go with whatever the character who is supposed to find it cool thinks.

A Typical teen room

Perle_Rare said:

Girl? or boy?

My niece's room is plastered with several layers of posters or pictures torn from magazines all taped onto the wall and onto the ceiling above the bed with no distinguishable pattern. None of the original wall is showing though the rest of the ceiling is. Her makeup (tons of it) and jewelry is scattered all over her desk along with all sorts of knicknacks. There's purses and shoes on the floor, in the closet, tossed in corners, and pretty much wherever you look. Some magazines and an actual book have been casually left on her bedside table.

Yes, this is very much like all my daughter's friends' rooms. Mostly messy with lots of clothes on the floor, bed, chairs,etc. Oh, and a life-size Anakin Skywalker.

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Messy. Posters on the wall. Laptop on the desk. One of those I-Home things in the corner. There's your teenage room.