Can I make this space work for an adult bedroom?

[bathsh3ba]

In the process of buying a 3 bed house; the smallest bedroom is 8 ft 8in by 7ft 4in (2.26m x 2.66m). It's just me and my two daughters moving in, I don't have a partner/boyfriend (and due to my religion, I wouldn't sleep with a partner before marriage anyway) and the girls are tween age. Plenty of space downstairs - 20ft lounge and we are extending out back to make a kitchen diner. There's also a spacious landing.

I might be crazy but I am thinking about taking the smallest bedroom myself, as the girls' need for their own space for homework/to play/have time to themselves is probably greater than mine. I'm not sure a double would be workable but a queen would be big enough for me on my own. In due course, I plan to extend over the garage, which would make a fourth master bedroom, but that is 3 years off at least, barring a windfall.

Has anyone made a small space work for a bedroom for a single adult or will I end up hating it?

Would you have room for storage?
Could the girls share the largest room as an alternative and you use the small room as a study space ?

Would you sleep in a single bed? You'd have a lot more space.

I currently have a wardrobe which is 85cm x 50cm and that fits all my clothes. I reckon I could fit a small chest of drawers in again with a queen bed. I don't have a lot of stuff - the kids certainly have more than me.

The whole point of buying a house is so they don't have to share so I don't want to put them in one bedroom. Either I take the smallest room, or one of them does.

I could sleep in a single, but I am used to a double so a queen feels like a compromise! But I've yet to get properly measuring and planning what else could fit in the room. Currently the boiler is in a cupboard there, which further limits space but I'm probably going to replace that and move it to the kitchen.

How about a good quality sofa bed?
Do you can get to wardrobes etc in the day time.
Or Ikea do double loft beds.
You could sleep up high and have your furniture underneath the bed.
Clothes rails and chest of drawers would definitely fit underneath.

Could you get one of those beds you store stuff under the mattress? (not explaining it well!) so you wouldn't need drawers and have more storage?

But isn’t a queen larger than a double? It’s 5ft as opposed to 4ft 6ins surely?

We have the smallest bedroom for me and DH - it was a bit of a crap cramped fest with a double bed and couple of chests of drawers in until we got properly designed fitted wardrobes in there to get as much storage space as we could - and now it's actually a really decent size. I'd really suggest looking into what you could do in that kind of regard as our rooms are all crap shapes with the chimney breasts in terms of buying furniture to try to fill the space compared to how you can do it if you get something actually made to fit in it.

Was a local company who do kitchens and bathrooms that we got to do ours and actually now it's a very very liveable double bedroom.

A queen is in between a single and a double. A king is bigger than a double. I think, anyway!

I've considered getting a bedroom designer to look at it. As long as I have room to sleep, store my clothes and get dressed, I don't really mind about space, I could put some kind of storage on the landing as well.

The length of the bed will be the same whatever way I go, so it's how much space I need the other side, I guess. I may try to do a diagram!

Queen size is bigger than a double. Bathsh3ba would a single bed be ok for you to sleep in? It would give you more space. A larger bed would look oversized in such a small room and make the room feel smaller and cramped. I like the idea of a good quality sofa bed. During the day you can have a nice place to relax on the sofa and at night a good sized double bed to sleep in. The loft bed is also a good idea if you're ok with climbing up and down the ladder. A loft bed would give you the entire floor space to use how you like. You could google tiny house to get some ideas. Tiny houses are popular in some countries.

From Wikipedia: A Queen size mattress in the UK is often misunderstood to be one of the larger sizes as is the case in many other parts of the world. At 120cm in width, however, it is smaller than a UK double.

I'm thinking a 'small double' which is 120 x 190 as opposed to 90 x 190 (single) and 135 x 190 (double). But yes, a single would be ok if I had to. I have mild arthritis in my knees so a loft bed probably not the best idea!

I think you could depending on the shape of the room and door position but it's not very spacious. In our spare room which is a similar size, we have a small 4ft double bed, bedside cabinet and 3 door wardrobe. It also has a cupboard over the stairs which we've put a chest of drawers in for more storage.

In the picture the bed is right under the window, the wardrobe is now where the dressing table used to be and the door opens next to the wardrobe.

Thanks Cabawill, that's kind of what I was thinking. The window would be to the left of the pillows in your photo, but there's also currently a boiler cupboard which opens at the bottom of where your bed is (probably above the level of the bed though). The door is in the bottom right corner and opens inwards, but there's space on the landing to rehang it to open outwards.

DS has a queen sized bed and it works well. Could your wardrobe and storage go on the landing?

Single is 90cm wide. Small double is 120cm, double is 135cm. I'm pretty sure OP is talking about a small double.

In the UK a Queen size bed is a small double, 4 foot wide. We had one in a tiny spare bedroom, it worked well.

If you hate it, switch one of them into it. You are the adult.

The room is big enough to get a bed across either way so I think it should be doable. It depends a lot on where the door is. You might even find that you might as well get a normal double in. It's only 1.5ft wider than a normal single. Can you hang the door to swing out onto the landing?

You could also consider putting the bed in the middle of the room and having furniture round it. It sounds a bit counterintuitive but it can work in quite a small room, and you could have cupboards or shelves over and around the headboard.

Do your girls actually work in their rooms? If so, great. Mine just won't, so we use the dining table in our main living area as the main workspace, and have a second TV elsewhere for chilling out. You could even put a wall hung TV in your room.

We had a good static caravan where the bedroom was about that size. You need storage in cupboards above the bed and choose a bed with no footboard.

My DS has a queen sized bed in his room and it works well. He also stores a lot under the bottom of his bed. He also has a desk and set of drawers, it's amazing what he fits into the small space really.

I imagine you’d have to get this custom-made but if you could source a mid-sleeper queen sized bed with lots of storage drawers underneath then you wouldn’t need a separate chest of drawers, and you could use that floor space for a wardrobe or hanging rail.

I've done the tiny room thing - it's fine as long as you're just sleeping in it and have space to dress, and somewhere to relax elsewhere. Not so good if it's your only private retreat, mental health reasons!

Friends kids in small rooms have these, which may be interesting to you either for yourself or to punt a kid into the small room :)
www.studybed.co.uk/

Rather than cram a wardrobe in there as well, if the other bedrooms are bigger, couldn't you have your wardrobe in one of those?
An ottoman bed would give you plenty of storage. Our spare bedroom is like yours size wise, but has a double bed in it. I provide hangers and there is a run of hooks on the back of the door if anyone wants to hang stuff up. There is no room for a wardrobe. The room is more bed than floor.

Yes, especially as you have a god sized landing for clothes storage.
Make sure your girls realise what you’ve give up for them, even lovely tweens/ teens can need encouragement with gratitude!

I had a small bedroom when I was a child. It had a two-door wardrobe but they were sliding doors! Saved a lot of space that way.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I think I've pretty much decided I'm going to make a go of it somehow. As a PP said, I can always make them switch rooms later!

I guess I feel guilty because I left their dad 4 years ago and since then we have been through a procession of rented homes where the younger tween has always had the box room. This is our chance to really make a space our own. They do play in and use their rooms and they are much better doing homework separately than together at the table. I'm a student, so I need a study space too but I'm happy to work at the kitchen table and store some bits on the landing. There is plenty of room downstairs for me and I've never been one to spend long in my room - it's for sleeping and dressing/undressing and not much else.