help with box room for son please

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Live in 1930s semi with usual box room. Want to make the most of the space for my son but not sure whether to go for built in furniture or freestanding. Got Sharps bedrooms in to plan a cabin bed and a desk but this would cost about £2000. We are not sure how long we'll be staying in the house so it might be a waste of money or put buyers off? Have looked at bunk beds with desks underneath but not that keen on all the metallic ones. Plus not sure it won't dominate room and make it even smaller. Would love to hear your ideas and to find out what you've done with your box room. Thanks.

how old is ds? My dd is in the bx room and we have a cabin bed that we inherited with the house, it is smaller than a normal one. We need to move her into a full size bed soon and I dont know what we are going to do, I am think loft bed with desk underneath. She has been in the short cabin bed for a long time though.

just spotted this loft bedd which looks really good.

Thanks but the size of the room means that the wardobe would be blocked by the wall if you know what I mean.

I'd opt for freestanding purely because I think built-in furniture can be off-putting for potential purchasers and also you may decide to use the room for something else at some point. We opted for built-in furniture when we decided to turn our third bedroom into a dressing room and I really wish we hadn't.

In the boxroom we opted for a very small divan with drawers but we had a cupboard outside the room that could take everything else. A cabin bed would have shrunk the room. We had storage boxes beside the window and a friend had high shelving running round all the walls in her boxroom which worked surprisingly well.

Does he need a wardrobe?
My dss dont use wardrobes. Nearly all of their clothes are folded in drawers. They have hoodies etc hanging on coat hooks.
What age is he?

What about something handmade like this?

That's lovely ThinkIveBeenHacked. He's 5. Room is standard box room size ie long enough for single bed only.

burnishedsilver no he doesn't need wardrobes as we'd have drawers under whichever bed we went for.

DS has a loft bed with a desk and sofa underneath. His room is a little bigger than a box room as it is about 50cm longer. He loves it. He's 12 now and had this arrangement for the last 4 years. All his clothes are folded or on pegs on the back of his door.

DD has a mid sleeper - she loves it but her room is quite big and I think it wastes a lot of space in comparison with DSs bed. It wouldn't work in the smaller room.

How big is the room? My sons bedrooms are 2.5 by 3.5. They each have a bookcase, 3 drawer chest and divan with drawers underneath. The key is no toys and excess clothes taken away. He has hooks to hang school uniform.
Ps since added wall stickers. Rented flat do can't decorate

The 1930's house I grew up in had a box room that wasn't wide enough for a conventional bed. My poor parents wound up having a single bed made to fit.

We had a series of built in cupboards etc with stuff over the bed.

At 5 he probably doesnt need a desk in his room either. If you're not staying you dont need to thing about the teenage years yet. I'd be inclined to go with a regular single bed rather than a raised bed. You'll be able to use it in the next house.

Shelves mounted over the bed for toys and books might work. If he likes jumping on the bed they might be better on the wall at the foot of the bed so that he doesnt bump his head.

My son has the box room and we have normal bunk beds in there which means he can choose to either sleep on the top and use the bottom as storage with boxes of toys on there, or swap it round and sleep on the bottom and store stuff on the top. It depends how old he is as to where he'd be better sleeping, I suppose.

DD has one of these which is cheap, cheerful and does the job. The space underneath makes a great den/toystorage for a small person (DD still plays under there often at 8).

We inherited a box room with a bed alcove taken from the second double bedroom so both kids have similar space. Might that be possible?

Our 1930s box room has the same mid sleeper from ikea as above. It's on the lower setting at the moment as he's only 3, but I ccan't wait to turn it upside down and do a den underneath. No wardrobe here either, just drawers. it doesn't feel cramped.

The Ikea Stuva has loads of different combinations available. You can have shelves and drawers built in instead of a wardrobe and have a desk too.

We hacked a lot of stuff to give a built in effect, essentially.

The bed didn't quite fit across the room, so we hacked a £30 bed base (ebay) slightly shorter and wedged the mattress in. The remaining wall had an awkward triangle cut out of the wall/floor above the stairs. We covered this with a 3 door wardrobe like this: www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/2483326.htm

We had to hack off the back of the wardrobe near the floor and shorten the drawers a bit so they didn't snag on the cutout, and we obviously fixed the wardrobe to the wall. One side of the wardrobe was all shelves anyway, but we added loads of extra shelves in the main section too, giving tonnes of storage.

If you don't want to hack stuff, www.oddsizebeds do fairly cheap, unusual sized beds.

Oh and when considering high sleepers, duck down and look at it from your son's height, not your own. To you it'll look like it closes down the space, but from his there might be loads of space. It was no good for us though as the bed had to go near the window, and I'm funny about mixing windows and high beds.

The stuva wardrobe can be reversed, so you access it from under the bed. However, at 207cm long, it's likely to be too long for a genuine box room.

We have our DS in the box room (also 1930's semi). It's tiny, with a very narrow built in wardrobe meaning a bed can only go under the window. We bought the Ikea high sleeper and it has changed his room entirely - we were seriously ready to sell up and move beforehand. You can purchase a desk top that can be incorporated into the bed, but we didn't because he's only 6. The bed is high, like a top bunk, so lots of room underneath now for a bookcase and trofast storage unit and his assorted castles/bat caves/aircraft carrier ships. I was concerned about blocking the light from the window but it doesn't because of the height. He's not fallen out either which worried me at first. He does swing from it a lot though, but he's a 6yr old boy, I think this is normal