Redesigning a tiny box room for a teen

[BoxRoomRefurb]

Hoping for some ideas here. We need to redo my DD’s room, she’s 12 and her room does not work for her. She is in the box room, 248cm long, 212 cm wide roughly. Currently in a high sleeper lengthways down the room, with desk and drawers underneath. Just about enough floor space left over for a Trofast unit opposite.

Her high sleeper can be converted into a single, so I’m thinking of moving it so it goes widthways across the room under the window, rather than length ways. Then we’d have more option to use the walls and hopefully give her an actual wardrobe and drawers. She uses a desk downstairs so I don’t think she’d need one in her bedroom. Although I’m conscious she might want more privacy to study when she hits GCSE time.

Does anyone have a similar size room and how have you made it work for your DC? Any clever desk ideas? She’s not that bothered about wardrobe space because most of her clothes don’t need to be hung. But she does own a billion books and would ideally like space for those. Any ideas for layout gratefully received.

I had the box room as a teen, so did my best friend in her house. I also had the stair bulkhead taking a huge chunk out of the only good wall. The only space for my bed (on the short wall) blocked the radiator so in winter I had a small plug in convection heater which we removed in summer.

Either an Ottoman bed or one with drawers or shelves under.

I had a flip-down desk against the bulkhead just wide enough for my knees to go under so together with the bulkhead that created a large desk area. Shelves above the desk all the way to the ceiling. I used my dad’s workshop to make my own shelf to go above and around the window. I had a wardrobe which had a half hanging rail - clever hangers meant I could squeeze heaps in. Then the rest of the wardrobe was shelves.

Small wooden chair which I could stand on to reach top of wardrobe and top shelves.

For me it was about maximising space for books and study. I was very studious and wanted my own space to read and reflect.

i kept a downstairs desk but by A level I rarely used it and worked in my room the whole time.

I loved my bedroom - my tiny haven - I would sometimes get so frustrated with the lack of space but I was also grateful that my parents helped make it the best little room it could be. Although there was never any question of me getting my brother's room which was 3 times the size.

I never understand why these family houses are so disproportionately sized!

Your room sounds lovely @Surfsenior. I've checked and my DD does want a desk, for similar reasons to you I think. So I'll make sure that goes in.

She chose the box room when offered between her brother's big room (they used to share) and it. We did think we'd convert the loft to get another double room, but unfortunately the economy has rather tanked that idea for now.

How about something like this? : www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/platsa-wardrobe-with-2-doors-2-drawers-white-fonnes-white-s79436914/

Books on top with bookends?

Have you thought about having a carpenter build a fitted bed under the window, you'd have to get a custom mattress of course. a good carpenter will build one that lifts up along the long edge, lots of storage underneath. The small space to one side of the window plus the space above the foot of the bed could have wall shelves and some corner shelves above the head end of the bed for knickknacks.
Fold down desk (in two sections, two thirds and one third) along the radiator wall. The one third could stay down for make-up etc. mirror above.
Sliding door wardrobe one side 2 tiers of hanging space, the other with pull-out wire shelves on the opposite wall.
Hangover shoe storage on the door.

What about bookshelves built around the window with a storage window seat? Could then have a folding desk that she uses sitting there.

Bed in bottom right hand corner.

Vertical radiator?

Then big chest of drawers along the same wall as the radiator.

We’ve just redone my 11 year olds room and that’s quite small. She wanted a high sleeper so we got the highest we could find which has a desk and wardrobe underneath, plus some book shelves. It also has book shelves built in around the sleeping part (parisot high sleeper with extra width). Whilst she can’t stand up under there without stooping she can comfortably sit at the desk. We’ve gone for a tall wide chest of drawers (for the endless hoodies and t shirts) and she has space for a very narrow tiny dressing table and a bean bag reading corner at the end. She also had a small radiator so we put in underfloor heating to make sure it’s warm enough.

We have exactly this. We put bed widthways across the window.

We also knocked through to the room next door and had a wardrobe build in there. So you accessed the wardrobe from the small room, but used the space next door. It worked really well.

That wardrobe idea is clever! We've just had our bedroom, which is the room next door, decorated though. No way am I giving up any of it. It's too beautiful 🤣.

Bed width ways is definitely the way to go I think. We definitely don't want to keep a high sleeper as she's already 5ft5 at just 12 and I expect she's got a lot of growing to go if she takes after her dad. She'll be cracking her head off the ceiling before long.

My daughter has a tiny room. I actually bought a tall pax wardrobe for it. Her bed is on the short wall. After lots of other storage ideas the wardrobe is actually best, it takes up loads of room but she keeps everything in it. We had to cut the bottom off to fit it in, it's literally floor to ceiling.

In the wardrobe she has a high shelf with blankets, summer fan, spare toiletries special things like primary leavers hoody and signed shirt etc on it. Hanging space with boxes at the bottom for toiletries. 3 massive drawers for clothes with divider boxes for underwear then a cubby hole at the bottom with 2 Ikea trofast boxes for school books though she keeps the majority downstairs in a hall cupboard (both teens do). She has push battery lights in it as it's so big the doors block the light!

Her bed is a special bed which is 6ft instead of 6ft 3 long to accommodate the edge of the radiator so she has a small space at the end of it. She just sort of shoves stuff down there atm she has a folding easel in there. The bed has a long drawer that she keeps things like canvases in and a short drawer that she can't open because of desk, that has childhood special stuff in it.

Between her wardrobe and bed there's a desk which is less than a metre wide (Amazon, took me ages to find!) it has shelves over and one under for stationary and art supplies. Then above that is a double shallow cupboard that she uses for paint. I don't know what they are as I got them second hand but like ikea metod.

On the opposite wall she has the ikea moslanda shelves X3 which has jewellery, and general teenager bits and jobs, a full length mirror behind the door and 5 hooks for hanging on back of door. Then 2 deeper shelves for books. She also has 2 laptop hanging pockets low down by the sockets for iPad, laptop and hair dryer

The shelves free up the floor space on the one wall (which she then fills with piles of crap) but she doesn't really need as much floor space now she's 16 and not playing with toys any more.

I drew it for you.

Oh she also has a small moslanda next to bed for Alexa and chargers and bedside light.

Oh I also added a double headboard along the side of her bed to make it a comfy sitting space like a sofa

The skadis pegboard storage from ikea is great too there's loads of different shelf, box and hook options

Could you have a carpenter build a loft bed above the height of her bedroom door? So it would go width wise across the bottom of your drawing.

Image sorry for idea

Was going to say similar to what PP said.

What could work is if you build the bed into the wall as a loft bed but you'd have more space underneath without legs.

Potentially you could have a wardrobe one end and a bookcase the other? Wooden steps up to the loft part could have storage underneath each step, though a ladder might be better size wise...

Could her door be sliding to give more space?
Can she have some high box storage along the walls to not impact on floor space?

My eldest had the 2m x 2m box room until age 20. We initially had the high sleeper but obviously he grew too big for it. The best solution we eventually found was as follows: kallax hack bed - this meant that there was air flow and mold reduction (a big problem in that room as there was simply no space for air flow!). It also gave loads of extra storage by using boxes in most of the holes (leaving a few for air flow). We used 2 1x4147cm long ones then an extra 2x1 for the end to give the length required.
We also utilised the back of the door for any hanging clothes (he didn't have many) as no wardrobe space. The best thing we did was 3 190cm shelves across the 3 walls without the window. So much stuff went up there! I've got a couple of old pics which I've attached to show the shelves before we had the kallax bed! But I'd really really recommend doing that. We also had another of the old expidits which was a 5x1 in there for even more storage. Yes there was very little floor space, but all his stuff had space. Tv wall mounted and his xbox sat on top of the shelf where the TV was under.

Eventually those shoes were all put in kallax boxes BTW and the space better utilised 🤣.

Thanks for all the suggestions. @ThisMustBeMyDream how does the Kallax bed work? Is it the mattress on Kallax? Or something else?

@BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz that is a cool loft bed but she's just going to end up too tall for a high bed. Our cat would love it though.

We have a similar sized room and have the bed lengthways under the window, a bedside cabinet with drawers then a wardrobe that fits exactly between the door and the wall with drawers in for extra storage. Between the bedside table and the wardrobe, there's a wall mounted fold up desk that she can use to do her homework which sits flat against the wall when not in use so she can still open the wardrobe doors. She also has shelving above the bed which she uses for make up and books. Works really well

DD2 has a small IKEA dressing table for her desk.
Otherwise I was thinking of getting a laptop table (IKEA of course) which would’ve slid under the bed (like a hospital bed table).
ive also seen the pax wardrobe fitted with a pull out shelf as desk space.

I’ve been trying to find a room planner where I can put in the size of items and move them around to visualise the space. Failing to find anything free and simple to use. I may have to resort to trying to do scale drawings myself!

Would the IKEA one work? I’ve resorted to graph paper before with cut out furniture pieces to scale!

I can’t find the IKEA one on their website. I click on things and it takes me on an endless loop where all I can do is look at their furniture ranges. I’m probably being really dense not finding it.

Oh they’ve changed it! It used to be part of bedroom but now it’s all separate furniture planners. You can design the pax wardrobe but that’s it.
sorry for sending you on a bum steer.

I’ve just looked again. It’s only the furniture you can build. That’s annoying!