Before You Begin

• 1). Come up with a budget. Home projects can take on a price tag of their own, it you don't start with a figure in mind.
  
  
• 2). Measure your room, and decide how much you can actually fit comfortably in the room. You want your child to have room to play.
  
  
• 3). Decide whether you want your train-inspired theme to include the walls and floor. Murals of train tunnels and rug tracks can be a great way to fire a young conductor's imagination.
  
  

Decorating the Room

• 1). Paint the walls. Whether you've decided to do a train-inspired mural or just put a single basic color on the wall, you'll want to choose a paint that's easy to clean and durable. Sticky fingers leave messes.
  
  
• 2). Divide the room into areas. Many parents and experts agree that children play best and keep a room cleaner if there are specific designated play areas from the beginning. Areas for a typical train room would include: a train table or track area, a conductor dess-up area, a train creativity table, a maps or geography area with train lines pictured, a train reading area, a television area.
  
  
• 3). Decide where you want each area in your room to be.
  
  

Choosing Decoration and Furniture

• 1). Decide whether you want to include a train table or a flat area where train track can be constructed and taken apart over and over again in the train track area. Train tables are convenient and durable. They also vary in size and shape depending on your needs and often include drawers or bins to store track. Train tables usually come with some kind of wooden railway, like the Imaginarium or Thomas Wooden Railway, and typically cost anywhere from $80 to over $300.
  
  A track area, while not providing a specific table for play, can be excellent for children who prefer building to making the train go round. Wooden trains, like the Thomas Wooden Railway, plastic trains, like the Takealong Thomas Sets, or rail and road combinations, like Geotrax, can all be used for railway track construction in a designated track area. However, organizational shelving or bins would need to be purchased for storage.
  
  
• 2). Place a conductor's dressing room in a corner with a conductor's outfit, hat, whistle and bandanna for that extra sense of authenticity, but leave enough room to expand to other outfits, like a fireman's, too.
  
  
• 3). Choose an easel and a children's size train-inspired table and chairs for the creativity area. If you like to paint, think about purchasing a round wood children's table and decorating it yourself with a round train track or other train theme. Bins and shelving should be provided for a variety of art supplies, like crayons, glue and chalk.
  
  
• 4). Create a geography or map area. If you're child loves Thomas, he's sure to know Thomas lives on the island of Sodor. Turn play into an educational opportunity by adding a map of the world, a railway map or a map of the local subway to the wall.
  
  
• 5). Put both fiction and non-fiction train books on the shelves, and create a train reading area with a comfortable child-sized train chair or couch. You may even want to let your child pick it out.
  
  Add a DVD player and television for those quiet times between play, and stock the shelves with train-related movies and other children's classic films.