Day bed for kids room?

[OrangeCars]

We are currently renovating our spare room to create a Big Girl Room for our preschooler.

It's quite a small room (though bigger than a box room) and we are having trouble figuring out how to position a single bed in it due to an awkwardly massive radiator and a huge amount of boxing for pipework all over the place. There's low boxing along the bottom of the most obvious wall for positioning the bed alongside, which means that if we put it there, there would be a significant gap between the mattress and the wall with boxing below. Not ideal.

We've been trying to think of a clever solution and I started to think about a day bed sort of thing? So that the board along the full length of the bed could prevent her from falling down the gap alongside the bed onto the boxing.

Has anyone else ever bought a daybed as a regular bed for a small child?? Something about it makes me feel uncomfortable but I can't actually figure out what! Obviously we'd buy a "proper" single mattress, not a cheaply foam daybed mattress. But I'm worried it won't be comfortable or will be awkward.

Any advice gratefully received!

If you get a wooden frame, could you cut the legs off so they sit on top of the boxing in? Then you don't lose the space and you get a bed against the wall?

In our old house we paid a chippy to come in and build us bunk beds. We couldn't fit normal bunks in because we had a small stair box in the room. They were brilliant, he built a cupboard underneath which was set back a bit so they had a bit more floor room. Might be easier to go down the bespoke route :)

We have the Hemnes day bed from Ikea White, daybed frame 80x200 cm - IKEA UK www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/hemnes-day-bed-frame-with-3-drawers-white-90349326/ IKEA Hemnes daybed. It has a back wall to it so would help with your gap. This one is great as it pulls out to a double for sleepovers! It has two mattresses that sit on top of each other so they make a double bed when pulled out. Both of my children have one and they have been amazing. The drawers are great for toys and bedding too!

These are massive for a small room though

I don't think they are any bigger than a standard single bed. Measurements at 80 x 200cm. Normal single bed is 90 x 190cm

It says that that is the mattress size on the description. The actual bed length is 210. I wanted one for my spare room, but they are bigger than they look on paper.

Jealous you could fit them :(

I’d definitely go down the route of fitting a bed round the box, as PPs said. Either DIYin it by cutting the legs off a cheap bed, or paying a carpenter to build you something including storage.

Particularly in a Small room, you don’t want to lose any space. And the gap behind the back of a daybed would become a magnet for dust and detritus.

I bought the Flair Leni daybed for my DC, mainly because I needed something that would fit in a 196cm alcove. It's got little shelves at the side and drawers underneath and doesn't look weird as a child's bed. It fits a normal single mattress.

DD had the Hemnes in a previous house. It is very comfortable,and the storage really helped! Has the added bonus of being able to convert to a double when they are sick and you need to stay with them. Huge amounts of storage underneath too.

Depends how small the room is, though, as it does take a fair amount of room.

If you don't want to cut a bed frame to fit over the boxing, you could build some shelving into the wall above the boxing so that theres a wooden panel up the wall to whatever height is suitable, and then some shelves above it? Would be useful storage and could also act as a sort of bedside table

Not sure why she would be more likely to fall on the boxing than on the open side? Would do one of the options PPs have suggested - either build over the boxing by adapting a wooden framed bed or building a bespoke bed or putting shelves above the boxing to act as a sort of bedside table and a normal bed next to it. The second option would look a bit like the Leni bed posted earlier.

We ended up with a Stompa day bed as we needed the storage under it and the Hemnes one was a bit too big for the space. It sounds as though bespoke might be a better option for you but maybe I’m
just being rubbish at visualising it!