Decorating a TINY bedroom

[Freyja]

We have just decided to swap rooms with DS (almost 12). His is TINY and ours is considerably bigger and since he spends much more time in his room than we do, we think he "deserves" the bigger room.

We won´t fit much besides our bed and maybe our rockingchair and some shelves in there and the closet we will be in our "in-suite" work-den. Any ideas on how to create a nice atmosphere? Anyone know where to find pics of rooms in tiny spaces?
The room is very bright since it has a glass door out to the patio so that wil certainly help.

Thanks

 

[bananiem]

I would think light colored walls would make it seem bigger.

 

[golfgal]

Personally, I would keep your room. Even if he spends more time in his room, that won't last much longer and he is one person, you are two.

I don't agree that light colored walls make a room look larger. I have had plenty of darker rooms that look big and light rooms that look small. It all comes down to what you do with the room for furniture, lighting, etc. I would decorate it with colors you like, colors that make you want to be in there.

 

[Freyja]

Personally, I would keep your room. Even if he spends more time in his room, that won't last much longer and he is one person, you are two.

I don't agree that light colored walls make a room look larger. I have had plenty of darker rooms that look big and light rooms that look small. It all comes down to what you do with the room for furniture, lighting, etc. I would decorate it with colors you like, colors that make you want to be in there.

Well the thing is, that he likes to hang out in his room with friends etc. and I like that and would like him to be able to continue doing that. Considering that winters in Iceland and very long and cold we spend a lot of time in-doors. His room is only approx. 95 sq.ft so there´s definately not room for many "growing" young men in there.

Dh and I, however, never spend any time in our room when we´re not sleeping, so I can´t see why we should have all that extra space unused.

I agree that color isn´t always everything when it comes to sizes. I have a very small bathroom that is painted dark and is really nice with a lot of atmosphere. It might have seemed larger if painted in light colors but I wouldn´t have liked it as much.

I´m browsing the web looking for pics of tiny bedrooms but what people in the US call tiny is huge by probably most Europeans.

 

[Disneyrsh]

.

 

[Freyja]

You're giving one person the big room and making two people use a smaller room?

That makes no sense to me!

You can't make a smaller room look or feel bigger, no matter what you do.

Keep the master for the grownups, that's what it's designed for.

The kid will survive-in fact, the rooms at college are the size of broom closets so he'll have less of a shock.

LOL. I guess I´m up against some cultural differences here
Here in Iceland, there are usually no master bedrooms (like in the US with seperate bathroom etc.), just regualar rooms of various sizes. We live in a 5 bedroom house and there is 1 1/2 bathrooms, which is normal here. 1 of the bathrooms has a shower and a tub, but the other only has a WC and sink.

As for the college comment, kids here (in Reykjavik) don´t go away to college. They live at home until after college or rent apartments with their partners/friends.

Apart from that, I definately don´t agree that you can´t make a small room look bigger than it is. I have remodeled a room that looked really small (dark red walls, dark violet curtains, dark carpet, into a room that looked huge in comparison. Just by painting the walls in a brighter color, buying white curtains and bedding and removing the carpet (there was pine wood flooring underneath it).

Well, I´m off to browse pics again.

 

[Disneyrsh]

Ok, well, if y

 

[Freyja]

Ok, well, if you have five bedrooms, have you thought about maybe knocking down a wall between two of them and combining them?

My daughter's bedroom closet is waaaaay too big and it backs up to our closet which is waaayyyy too small, so I'm knocking out the drywall between the two, doing a little re-framing and doubling the size of mine and halving the size of hers.

She's going to be so mad at me when she's a teenager

Sometimes just re-working the footprint of the house to make it work better for you is really effective.

We have 4 kids so we need all those bedrooms. Houses with 5 bedrooms are really hard to come by around here. We bought the house before it was even built and it originally was supposed to have 4 bedrooms. However, through some adjustments, we were able to squeeze the 5th bedroom in, which now turns out to be a bit to small for him (in our opinion).

 

[Brianne]

I suppose this would make me a mean parent then but I'd have him swap a room with one of the other siblings before I'd give up my space. I sympathize with the situation; however, I have my 2 girls sharing one room & the two boys sharing another, neither room is large (one room is something like 10'x11' & the other is 13'x14') and it hasn't killed any of them yet. Bunkbeds are a great item to have!

But to answer your question, do searches online for ideas. Better Homes & Gardens has a lot of photos for ideas, once you get past the pop-ups.

http://bhg.com/

 

[golfgal]

What about putting a loft bed in his smaller room? That would get the bed up off the floor and have the entire floor space to use for friends. Something like this:

 

[Freyja]

But to answer your question, do searches online for ideas. Better Homes & Gardens has a lot of photos for ideas, once you get past the pop-ups.

http://bhg.com/

Thanks, I hadn´t checked them out. Going to do that now

 

[Freyja]

What about putting a loft bed in his smaller room? That would get the bed up off the floor and have the entire floor space to use for friends. Something like this:

We had thought about that. The only problem is that it would get in way of the window or the door (no other way to fit it in) and therefore would darken the room a lot.

 

[SandraVB79]

Here in Iceland, there are usually no master bedrooms (like in the US with seperate bathroom etc.), just regualar rooms of various sizes. We live in a 5 bedroom house and there is 1 1/2 bathrooms, which is normal here. 1 of the bathrooms has a shower and a tub, but the other only has a WC and sink.

As for the college comment, kids here (in Reykjavik) don´t go away to college. They live at home until after college or rent apartments with their partners/friends.

That's how we do it in Belgium too

Apart from that, I definately don´t agree that you can´t make a small room look bigger than it is. I have remodeled a room that looked really small (dark red walls, dark violet curtains, dark carpet, into a room that looked huge in comparison. Just by painting the walls in a brighter color, buying white curtains and bedding and removing the carpet (there was pine wood flooring underneath it).

You will have to check out magazines to confirm this, but painting the walls in different colours (one dark, 3 light) helps to optically make the room larger. The colour of the ceiling also helps with this.

 

[Freyja]

I suppose this would make me a mean parent then but I'd have him swap a room with one of the other siblings before I'd give up my space. I sympathize with the situation; however, I have my 2 girls sharing one room & the two boys sharing another, neither room is large (one room is something like 10'x11' & the other is 13'x14') and it hasn't killed any of them yet. Bunkbeds are a great item to have!

But to answer your question, do searches online for ideas. Better Homes & Gardens has a lot of photos for ideas, once you get past the pop-ups.

http://bhg.com/

I just converted the sizes of his room into US measurements and it´s 13'x7,5'

 

[bengalbelle]

There may be something here that will give you inspiration: http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/shows_hssbs

Good luck!

 

[Brianne]

I just converted the sizes of his room into US measurements and it´s 13'x7,5'

Long & narrow then. Do they have murphy beds out there? If you don't know what it is, here's a site that shows them:

http://www.murphybedcompany.com/

You can also consider making a loft bed, which wouldn't block the light from the window as much if you make it tall enough. College kids use them in dorm rooms constantly because of the same issues.

 

[Freyja]

Long & narrow then. Do they have murphy beds out there? If you don't know what it is, here's a site that shows them:

http://www.murphybedcompany.com/

You can also consider making a loft bed, which wouldn't block the light from the window as much if you make it tall enough. College kids use them in dorm rooms constantly because of the same issues.

I haven´t seen Murphybeds here. They look cool, although I´m not sure how it would fit into the room. Like I said before I like loftbeds, but his window is small and very high up, so it´s not possible to make the bed taller than the window. Unfortunately.

I´m having a great time browsing pictures though. I really don´t mind having a small room. We honestly only spend about 7 hours a night there and don´t do anything except sleep in there. Our bathroom is elsewhere and we have nothing in there except our bed and rockingchair so it wouldn´t be much of an adjustment to make.

 

[kimmikayb]

I was just told by my sister, who says she saw it on HGTV that if you paint your room (whatever color) and leave a 6" or so strip at the top and put up molding the same color as the ceiling....it makes the room look taller (therefore, bigger). Also, mirrors are always a good way to make a room look bigger.

I think you are being very generous parents for doing this....good job.

 

[Kahana-ri]

If you have an IKEA near you they have great furniture for small spaces.

 

[Freyja]

If you have an IKEA near you they have great furniture for small spaces.

Oh, we sure do and you would be amazed if you walked into my kids rooms. They are like cut out of an IKEA catalogue, lol.