Can I realistically divide rooms into tiny bedrooms?

[TitsalinaBumSquash]

We are a family of 6 (Me, DH, 13,11,5 yr old boys and 2yr old DD)

We have a tiny 3 bed house and currently DH and I sleep on a sofabed downstairs. I hate it more than I thought I would.

Currently DD is in the biggest bedroom that's halved by an Ikea big Kallax unit and DH's office/junk room is the other side.

DS2 and DS3 are in the marginally smaller bedroom in bunk beds but fight like cat and dog and DS2 really resents having a 5 yr old and the accompanying mess in his space, he is undergoing an assessment for spectrum disorders and is quick to temper and violent outbursts.

DS2 has the box room, we gave him the room to himself as he has a severe life long health condition and has a lot of medical fridges, medication, equipment and sensitive drugs in his room.

The bigger rooms are small doubles and the box room is tiny.

I'm thinking of splitting the 2 bigger rooms with these to make 4 tiny bedrooms, they'll literally just have a single bed and some drawers and a few shelves on the wall each, whoever got the window side wouldn't get the main light but we'd install wall lighting and the divide wouldn't be all the way across the room anyway, I'd put a curtain in the divide 'doorway' to create a small, private space for each child.

I'll probably put the 2 older boys in one split room and the 2 little ones in the other.

I'm hoping this will allow me and DH to move a small double bed into the box room, god knows where we'd have our clothes. It we'll work that out.

Is this crazy? I didn't think I'd mind having no bedroom but I do!

Are you meaning to actually build a stud wall, or do you mean put the wardrobes in the middle of the room or hang curtains across or something ?

Put 2 bookcases side by side - one facing each way?

Having a bedroom without a window is a terrible risk in case of fire...

OP says that the divider won't go all the way across, so it shouldn't be that much of a risk.

Cabin beds with storage are good for small bedrooms .

Mirrors maximise light.

Do you have a dining room? My friend moved into a 3 bed with her kids and the box room was very, very small. She let the kids have the 2 double bedrooms and slept in the box room. But then she wanted more space so she ditched the dining room and made it into her bedroom.

My mum partitioned one large room into 3 separate sleeping areas when we were kids.
We all had our own space and each section was decorated individually. She used screens to separate the areas.
We loved it.

The house I grew up in was too small and had too many people too. My dad built a stud wall down the middle of one room, I had the windowless half, my DB and Dsis were in the other half in bunkbeds. Both sides about 6" by 8". We made it work.
My DB eventually moved into the loft. Not a loft conversion, up a ladder and through a hatch, no windows, 5" max in the middle with a very low sloping roof. Sounds ridiculous but he got privacy and his friends all loved it up there.
Do what you need to do, needs must. Didn't do us any harm

There was no door between the two section by the way, just a foot and a half wide gap we squeezed through. The bunk bed was in there before the wall was built.

I think not having a window wouldn't be great- bedrooms need airing so they must get a bit smelly!

Could you just put up screens or a wall which left a couple of foot gap at the top?

google "bedroom dividers" lots of ideas come up.

B&q sell these screens and they require not screwing etc so ideal as easy to change etc

Sorry. I was meant to put the link to those B&Q dividers, they have gaps for air flow and wouldn't go all the way across so no fire risk.
I'm finding the Ikea unit bulky and deep so it's taking up precious cm in an already tiny space. Thanks for all the replies.

Is your dh's office/junk room strictly necessary? I'd be considering a she'd in the garden for that if I were you.

I think it could work

Dp and I used to share the box room for this reason. It was fine. It fit a small double bed, single wardrobe and tall chest of drawers. We had a lift up ottoman bed so lots of storage underneath

With a family of 6 it is ridiculous that any bedroom space is given over to you DH to have an office/junk room. Get rid of the junk, he can use a table downstairs if he really needs to work at home.

Dividing a double into a tiny single could work but I agree with pp that having no window isn't great - can't you position the divide so that each side gets half the window? Can we have a floor plan?

No DH's office isn't necessary, it's there purely because we had that room before DD was born and we came from a bigger 2 bed house that had a doing room which was used for DH's office space, he used to do an awful lot of work from home for days on end, he is going to transfer everything he needs to a laptop and get rid of the desk/computer/multiple monitors. It's not there because we feel it's more important iyswim?

The junk is just because we bend a massive declutter and sort out but we've had a year of surgeries and hospital admissions one after the other for at least 5 of us.

It's a HA house so I don't know how I'd get a floor plan.

I think door height dividers would be good - let a bit of light and air over the top.
There are lots of lovely Led lights that are easy to fit and can go under shelves and around mirrors etc to create a bit more light.
The billy units are thinner than kallax so you could have I each of those combined with a divider

Could you put bunk beds in the middle of the room and then each child have one side of the room as theirs? You could put some curtains on the bunk beds so the beds are accessed from different sides?

Can you put the wardrobe / drawer unit / bookcase in the middle of the room - so they become the 'division', but no floorspace is lost and no money spent, as they'd be in the room anyway - just not against the edge, so the space lost in the middle is gained by the wall ?
We had our shared room divided like that when we were growing up. Still get some light and air coming over the top of the furniture but can keep their own space as clean / messy as they want and one can go to sleep while the other has a lamp on, etc.

Are you on the list for a larger property?

I was in that situation....sleeping downstairs and hated it

Once the HA realised this we were moved very quickly due to gas fire and gas boiler being too close

No we've not bothered to go back on the list, 4 beds houses are like hens teeth around these parts.

I think you should at least go on the list. You should be a higher priority given DSs medical needs. All of this should just be a stop gap surely. As they get older it's only going to get worse.

Those B&Q dividers look fab. They're just what we need as we want to split a room to make two smaller bedrooms and it'll take us a while to get planning permission etc for a dormer .

Can't they spy on each other through the slats though? That seems ripe for arguments.