The Best Small Space Bedroom Solutions We Saw This Year

Small bedrooms can be tough to furnish. But finding affordable, storage-savvy furniture for your tiny bedroom is even harder. That’s why it pays to get creative and find space-efficient ways to decorate your petite sleeping place. Luckily, this year was chock full of clever small space solutions. I scoured favorite blogs (and Apartment Therapy home tours, of course!) and rounded up a few of the best ways to maximize your limited bedroom floor plan situation.

Sure, we’ve all heard of floating shelves and bookcases, but thanks to lifestyle website Yatzer, this year we saw the rise of the floating nightstand. Inside the colorful (but compact) Sao Paolo apartment of jewelry designer Brenda Vidal, readers were introduced to her brilliant wall-mounted bed stand, which is actually nothing more than a short floating storage shelf.

Similar to a floating nightstand but with even more storage potential, a wall-mounted crate—like the one seen in Jessica Henry’s 500-square-foot San Francisco home—is a smart way to score two tiers of extra storage room, no floor space necessary.

Searching for an affordable way to brighten up your cramped bedroom, but don’t have the room for a table lamp and nightstand? Wall sconces are way less bulky than traditional lamps and mount directly to your wall (and on either side of your bed as seen in Dana and Mitch’s Nashville home) without taking up an inch of floor or surface space.

If you think you can’t squeeze some stylish seating into an awkwardly shaped bedroom then think again. Damsel in Dior placed two collapsible leather stools at the foot of the bed in her tiny attic guest room, offering up some unexpected storage space and most importantly, a place for visitors to sit.

Working with a tiny bedroom with little to no closet space? Fret not, my storage-deprived friends. Small chests (like these from IKEA spotted in the apartment of Melissa Morgan) are usually compact enough to place at the foot of your bed or inside your closet, and provide ample storage opportunities (without using up any of your coveted wall space).

When it comes to small space storage solutions, we thought we’d seen it all. That is, until we caught a glimpse of Jessica Sirl’s 200-square-foot New York City apartment, and more specifically, the mini workstation inside her tiny bedroom. Instead of a bulky nightstand or office desk, Sirl picked up this slender ladder-style shelf desk from West Elm and reminded us that when all else fails, you can always move vertically to score more storage space.

If we learned anything in 2017, it’s that a lack of space is no excuse for an art-less apartment. Take for instance Mel and Austin Holmes 1,000-square-foot Chicago rental. Despite the fact that they’re working with limited bedroom space, they still managed to squeeze in some personality with a gallery wall above their bed thanks to a tiny (and trusty) picture ledge.

Okay, so technically this amazing concept first hit the web in 2016, after The Everygirl published the Hamptons-inspired bedroom of Lauren Nelson. However, it’s been a year-and-a-half and were still not over the fact that Nelson used a desk instead of nightstand next to her bed, so we’re including it in this roundup of genius small bedroom solutions, accordingly.