In our new place we opted to give the kids the larger of the bedrooms since they were sharing. And for us, we took the bedroom with nice light but barely enough space for a queen bed. Despite it's small space, we're finding that less is definitely more.
Bedrooms are a place for resting, for reading, for getting down. And besides a bed and a lamp, there's nothing else that must go into it. So there are a lot of options for how much or how little you want to incorporate. We've gone the route of keeping it simple with no artwork; just dark walls, patterned curtains and a white bed. But there are lots of options for packing style into a small space:
• Add One Punch Of Pattern. Keep everything simple but add a colorful headboard, some wallpaper behind the bed, a great patterned duvet or a fun rug. Instead of trying to layer the whole room just keep it simple.
• Pack in Storage. If you just won't ever be the minimal type but are stuck with a tiny closet for a bedroom, add storage in concentrated ares by adding a bookcase behind the bed. It will add pattern and texture to your room and you won't have to look at it while you're falling asleep. If you live in earthquake country, though, either make sure it's bolted to the wall and books won't fall on you or put the bookshelf on another wall!
• Go Dark. Painting the room a darker color is counter-intuitive, but the dark grey we chose makes the room feel like its own world. And since it already gets great light we don't have to worry about it feeling too dark. We paired the dark walls with crisp white sheets so that the bed becomes the focal point and it's all about relaxing.
• Have a Great Bed. Why not forgo all other pieces of furniture and just invest in a beautiful bed that fills up the room and speaks for itself.
• Lighting. Even if space is at a premium, mount lights to the walls, have an uplight but make sure you've got more than one bulb (on the ceiling) otherwise no one is going to look good.
Images: A Small Swedish Bedroom, Small Space Gallery: Deep Wall Color For Bedrooms, Laure Joliet, Get The Look: Rustic Modern Boy's Bedroom, Marie Claire Maison: Tiny Bedroom Escapes)
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Oh dear. I love the photos in general, but that second one gives the Californian in me shivers. One nighttime earthquake and you'd be done for.
Bedroom #3 looks so cozy and relaxing.
The red/white wallpaper in the first pic is fantastic! Anyone know what it is?
Or you could just not have a queen-size bed. They're SO much bigger than a double. And even though it's lovely and luxurious to have all that space to stretch out in, sometimes when you live in a tiny place you have to make sacrifices like that. Anyway, I would much rather have more actual space in the room to move around in and potentially put other furniture that needs to be there, than give that up just for a huge bed.
Where is the bedspread in the first picture from? It's amazing!
no more earthquake references. we've heard them all.
I think the bedspread is from the Shabby Chic line at Target. I have the same one. Which, may I add, does not look at all Shabby Chic in my bedroom.
I second the vote for a double versus a queen. And some of my best friends are queens. :)
when you work hard all day in construction or whatever, trying to fit 6 feet tall boys into small double beds is torture. having a great space to sleep and stretch out in is way more important than making sure it's comfy walking around the bed. how long does it take to get dressed anyway? but you sleep for at least 6 hours a night ...
A Full is only 4" shorter than a Queen.
And trust me, fitting 6 feet tall boys into double beds is not ALWAYS torture.
patrick!!! brilliant as always. I had the same thought about 6 ft tall boys...
My first apt was under 300sqft and I kept my big queen bed. I didn't care that it took up 75% of the bedroom lol.
I love the curtains in pic #3. So pretty.
I love those curtains in pic #3, too. Any idea where they came from? I have a dark gray bedroom and am having a difficult time finding the perfect curtains.
Number 4 (gorgeous blue walls) is about the same size as our master, and we consider it "spacious" for bedrooms in houses in our neighborhood - small is in the eye of the beholder.
I love the look of #2. My biggest concern would be keeping everything dust-free enough to actually sleep there without sneezing all night.
I like the airy feeling Bedroom #3 has.
Yeah, if anyone knows where the wallpaper is from in the first picture, please share!
When we shared a double bed early on, I would steal my husband's blanket in my sleep, which used to him wake up cold and mad. We also would kick each other in our sleep. Much later, we switched up to a queen bed and, still later, to a king bed. We slept so much better that now we wouldn't go back to a double bed even if no other furniture fit in the room with a larger bed. Our priorities changed considerably over the decades.
Can anyone suggest where to get simple cabinets like in the main picture? i can envision the exact placement of them in my 8 by 10 closet, I mean room, here in Chicago!
Second question: I rent; do you think installing these would be cost effective?
ikea has new curtains coming out that are very similar to #3 -- can't remember the name sorry. crazy swedes.
the second one is a feng shui nightmare past being a earthquake nightmare and a dust nightmare. i live with enough displaced mail -- i can't imagine living with open bookshelves. bonus points for whichever our lady you have over your head while you sleep though -- i am sure she wards off lots of bad chi and dust mites.
for the cabinets ikea has numerous solutions -- kitchen overheads, besta with doors, etc, etc. ask ikea staff -- they are amazingly helpful but aren't sales people so you have to ask. cost effective depends on how you value efficient storage.
is it just me or is #5 a blinding fright?
A tiny woman who dates guys over 6', I cannot sleep with a boyfriend in a double bed. Once a bf and I visited the bf's sister, whose guest bed was a double. Neither the bf nor I could sleep. When we first moved in together, we slept in sleeping bags on the floor, which had cheap, thin carpet over concrete slab. That was much more comfortable than the one night sharing his sister's guest room's double bed. I wouldn't tell someone they SHOULD be able to sleep well in a bed that is too small for THEM. YMMV, of course.
I am curious as to the layout of the house where the parents gave up the master bedroom to their kids. In the practice of feng shui, where the parents sleep within the bagua map is crucial to having control over family harmony, finances, and children. I'd also worry about the subconscious message of entitlement I'd give my kids if I put them in the master bedroom before myself and my husband.
FengShuiByFishgirl it maybe a layout like my house. It is an older home built in the late 20's with two very small bedrooms downstairs with one large bedroom and one small one upstairs.
Right now we have the largest bedroom and our son has the second room upstairs. His room is not be big enough for two children to share. And because we aren't comfortable having the kids on the first floor and us upstairs, when more children come along our plan is to move our son to the largest bedroom, the second child to the other bedroom upstairs when they are old enough (we are co-sleeping people so the second child will be in our room for a year or two anyways before playing room shuffle) and then move us downstairs. We have no worries about any of the things you listed ;)
@kahlil19107: seriously. Must everyone be careful to decorate so as not to make the Californians nervous? I know AT's big-city-centric, but enough already. We get it. Earthquakes happen, but people who decorate/set their homes up in ways that would be disaster in an earthquake...wait for it...by and large do not live in earthquake zones.
@FengShuiByFishgirl: that was my take, too -- the kids get the bigger room because they share...but don't the parents also share, AND, you know, support the family? Most parents give up plenty for their kids -- I see little reason to live in a shoebox for them, too.
Though the feng shui comments are a little odd. Obviously people who decorate in bad-chi fashion don't care about feng shui. Are we assuming that most people do?
@FengShuiByFishgirl: we live in a 3 br house with 1 bedroom downstairs (sewing room) and 2 upstairs. Our daughter (6) has the larger bedroom upstairs because, in our previous home - a Cape Cod with 1 large bedroom in the attic - we weren't comfortable sleeping upstairs while she slept downstairs, so we gave her that larger upstairs room. We actually chose the smaller of the 2 bedrooms on the first floor so the office/sewing room was more spacious. We got used to the smaller space and when we moved to this house, we didn't hesitate to give our daughter the larger room in order to accommodate her full-sized bed and toys, books, etc. Now, her room is not a traditional "master" bedroom...we would NOT have given her the larger bedroom had there been a private bathroom attached to it. Plus, the larger bedroom is not that much larger than the smaller room that we use.
Not everyone has to account for fault lines. I have open bookshelves all around my Chicago apartment, and all my things survived our earthquakes ;)
Not everyone's sleep habits are the same. Some people could fall asleep standing up in a hail storm, but for others, the prospect of cramming two people into a double bed is a nightmare -- or would be a nightmare, if only we could fall asleep.
Not every family's needs are the same. If this is a small home where there is no devoted playing space for the kids in the rest of the house, the parents are probably doing themselves a favor by giving the kids a larger area to contain their mess. For some, the practicality of not having toys underfoot overrides home design philosophy.
My bedroom is set up almost exactly like the 2nd photo, and I'm pleasantly surprised at the thought of putting bookshelves behind the bed. We have more books/movies/media than we care to admit...and there's just no room left in our 600 sf apt to put everything in the living room.
I think i could easily pull off some bookshelves behind my bed, and still have enough room to make it around the room with ease.
thank you for the post!!!
OK, so the top picture with the bed up against one wall... I have lived in a tiny house and had the bed in the same position. Our (hubby and I) problem with that was the claustophobia issue for the person sleeping against the wall. Then, the bathroom in the middle of the night issue and having to crawl over the other person. Now, with a kiddo, I have to be able to get up in the night and hubby gets up way early to go to work... in any situation, that bed just wouldn't work for us. But, it sure does look pretty!
Very impressed with the thought thats gone into the colour scheme.
The subtle contrast of the grey walls and white bed with the very detailed and appealing wallpaper that set the bed as the inviting focal point.
Small rooms are tough to get this right!
Very cute rooms. I'm all for the Queen-sized bed, but I've been married for dogs' years and I find it far more comfortable to be able to stretch out.
The bookcase idea is lovely, but I agree with the post above that dust is going to be a problem.
What strikes me about these rooms is that they are cute but they are not luxurious. I need a luxurious (not necessarily expensive) bedroom because treating myself well is a good thing.
Space is one of the luxuries — particularly when one shares a bed. So is absolute cleanliness, which is why I'd avoid anything that's prone to dust in my bedroom.
I have a theory about the Queen v's Double bed thing. I grew up in a large family where we bunked in together untill we got a room of our own going into our teens. I never had a problem sleeping with anyone in a double (I'm talking about sisters, cousins, my son when he was little). Anyone who had big families like ours (five kids).
My husband and one of my best friend however, have only one sibling and always had a room of their own. They find it impossible to share a double with anyone! My husband and I will have to get a Queen (we call it a kingsize bed) soon because he can't stand it. He's a light sleeper and needs backround noise too!! Seriously! I've never slept so badly since I got married!!
I don't live in an earthquake area, but I can't stand the thought of having something over my head while I sleep. You never know what could happen.
If you're over six feet tall, you simply will not fit in a full sized bed. Your feet will hang out and your head will be against the headboard, or you will be forced to curl up all night. Not comfortable. Good sleep is important! You can't be truly healthy unless you're getting the sleep your body needs. Good sleep is more important than good interior design.
Oops, I meant to add in my last comment--I think letting kids have a bigger bedroom is pretty important, at least to my American (and introvert) view--kids only get one room, or one part of a room, as a space that is really theirs. The adults in the house can decorate and run the rest of the house. A kid's room is a safe space for practicing independence.
Store wardrobe in pull-out boxes/baskets under an elevated bed.
Cover the storage area with a bedskirt.
If you have a closet, maximize your storage so you don't have to have a dresser or armoire. We did the Container Store Elfa drawers and hanging rails to double our storage capacity...which is a good thing because there's literally no room for anything else in our room except the queen bed, two night stands, and an air filter.
The "bedroom" in my 1926 San Francisco apartment was an oddly conceived 7' x 7' room with a very wide door in the middle of one of the shorter walls and a narrow battlement window on an adjacent, longer one. It seemed to lend itself more toward an office space or large storage closet than bedroom, particularly since I moved into the charming space with a Cal-King mattress and bedframe.
Ultimately, I ended up throwing out the frame and the box-springs and building a platform in the space, slightly higher than the original height of the bed. Underneath, I've got room for 8 Rubbermaid 30 gallon storage containers for ski gear, camping gear, Christmas decorations, etc., and the Cal-King mattress is a near puzzle-perfect fit into the space. The platform has poplar "rails" on both sides, so nothing falls "between the cracks," and an IKEA Malm headboard at the far end -- a very cozy and comfortable space that, for 8 years, defied what I thought would be a claustrophobia-inducing sleep setup.