When you’re planning a child’s room or a guest bedroom, patterned fabric provides a great way to add pizzazz without spending a lot of money. And for generations, one of the smartest patterns to choose is a stripe.

This photo showcases two different approaches to stripes for bedspreads and matching pillow shams. With today’s bedding stores and online options, you can pick up a bedspread and sham set, often with a matching dust ruffle, for less than $100.

Stripes are a fun choice. They also offer a lot of flexibility. You can pull out one color for the walls and use the others for accessories. Notice that both of these bedrooms focus on one strong color note drawn from the bedspreads.

On the left, the bedroom captures the spread’s gold and white tones in the artwork, while the walls themselves take that same gold and lighten it to make the space colorful without being overwhelming. This looks like a boy’s room, and most boys won’t be comfortable with too much color on the walls.

The other bedroom is geared toward a girl, and one who is not afraid of color. Notice how the artwork chosen brings out every color in the striped bedspread. While you’re not always fortunate enough to have that happen, take advantage of accessories and other elements in a bedroom to pull the stripe colors into the space.

Now in these two bedrooms the stripes provide the only patterned fabric. But one nice thing about stripes is that they leave the room open to other patterns. You could add several floral-patterned pillows in the same tones to the room on the right and it would still work. Another geometric pattern would suit the bedroom to the left.

When you want to introduce pattern to a room, it’s smart to choose stripes. They provide a safe way to be a little daring, because they always work well.