Small kids’ bedroom ideas: how to fit it all in a box room

Many children's bedrooms are the smallest room in the home, and in British houses often a box room of 6–7 m². The trick with a small kids' room is not to find smaller furniture but to stack functions: the bed holds the storage, the wall holds the shelves, and the floor stays free for play.

Start with the bed

The bed takes up more floor than anything else, so the right one decides the whole room.

• A cabin bed (about 90–110 cm high) has drawers or a cupboard underneath. It replaces a chest of drawers.
• A mid-sleeper (about 110–140 cm high) leaves room underneath for a desk, a den or a pull-out bed for sleepovers. Most are meant for children from about six.
• A high sleeper needs a ceiling of about 2.4 m or more, and is for older children.
• A standard single bed with storage drawers underneath works for the youngest, and in rooms with low ceilings.

Put the bed along the wall, ideally in a corner away from the door. A bed in the middle of a small room eats the play floor.

Use the walls, not the floor

• Shelves above head height for things they do not need every day.
• A shallow bookcase, 20–30 cm deep, holds a lot of books and toys without taking floor.
• Hooks and pegs for bags, dressing-up clothes and coats.
• A wall-mounted desk or a fold-down desk for drawing and homework.

A worked example: a 2.4 × 2.7 m box room

A typical box room with the window on one short wall and the door in a corner of the other:

1. A cabin bed along one long wall, from the window corner: about 95 × 200 cm.
2. The wardrobe goes where the bed ends, by the door: a narrow one, about 60 cm deep and 70–80 cm wide. If the door opens against this wall, use a chest of drawers or skip it and rely on the cabin bed's drawers.
3. A desk under the window, about 80–100 cm wide and 50 cm deep, so there is daylight for homework.
4. Shelves on the other long wall, shallow and fixed to the wall.

That leaves a strip about 1.1–1.2 m wide and over 2 m long as the play floor. Put a rug there, and it becomes the room's centre.

Make it feel bigger

• Light walls and one accent. A single coloured wall or a painted band at bed height gives character without closing the room in.
• Furniture on legs or in light wood shows more floor.
• Less on display. Keep a few toys out and rotate the rest from boxes every couple of weeks.
• Good light. A ceiling light, a reading lamp by the bed and a desk lamp. Small rooms feel cramped when they are dim.

Plan it for your room

The exact layout depends on where your door, window and radiator are. Gaudi plans a small kids' room from a photo of your room, with real furniture sized to fit and a budget you set. If two children share the room, see how to plan a shared kids’ bedroom for two.