Layout/furniture help

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We live in a 2 bed house, with 3 DCs (same sex, so no issue with sharing). It’s unlikely we can afford to move any time soon as the house prices keep going up, so we need to make the house work for us now.

Luckily the bedroom they use is quite big, but I need to figure out how to make it work as they get older. We’re already having issues with clothes storage, and I think it’s going to get worse as they get older. A lot of the layouts I’ve seen on Pinterest are for the DCs are much younger, so I don’t think they’ll work too well for growing DCs.

As we’re planning on staying put, I think we can afford to spend some money to make it work long term, but I don’t want to spend money for something they’ll grow out of soon.

I’m attaching a diagram with the current layout and current furniture, but am looking at ways we can replace things if need be. We thought of partitioning things, but the window and heater would get in the way, so it doesn’t seem to be the way forward. They also have the biggest room, so swapping rooms wouldn’t help.

DCs are 9, 6 and 1. (DC3 is actually still in our room, but I’m hoping to move them soonish to the other room, but we need to sort out the shared room before making the transition)

Other options are bunk beds with a trundle underneath (we used under the bunks for Lego and other small toy storage that you could pull out and push away)

Also we kept our tall DC in a continental size cot until the were 4/5 just took one side off and it was solid enough to use as a bed and still had storage space underneath.

Keep the single bed where it is.
Put the bunk beds running parallel to it where the current wardrobe is.
Get under bed drawers / plastic boxes on castors.
I think the idea of lights (eg the IKEA cloud wall lights) are a great idea to have one each!
And put in floor to ceiling IKEA PAX wardrobes with sliding doors for clothes & toy storage along the wall where the bunk beds currently are.
Be ruthless with what you keep but make sure each child has a dedicated space for their own stuff, eg set shelves / under bed boxes. And then dedicated area for shared stuff.
You could put a couple of shelves on the wall above the single, or an IKEA Trofast between the 2 beds.
I have attached my extremely simple diagram!

Be utterly ruthless with clothes. Surely you can easily do a load daily, dry it overnight - we used to do loads to dry on the hangers.

By doing that how many outfits do they really need? Literally how many pairs of socks, pants, trousers & top or dress?

Each child had 10 pairs of socks of all the same school approved design

Too many clothes is a burden get them less but stuff they love and wear them wear the same 5 outfits to death!

PS I have no affiliation to IKEA I have just been trying to sort out similar house storage / furniture placement dilemmas so have spent a lot of time on their site!

We used IKEA trofast the tallest one for storage. Means you can put stuff up high that isn't for the youngest to have out.

I would anticipate you have toys for the youngest downstairs and they sleep up there for as long as possible!

what about this:

@whatisthislifesofullofcare I love this idea! I can totally see how that would work as the older ones reach secondary school. It’s very clever!

@gretagreengrapes this would definitely give them a lot more storage space if we built a wall to wall wardrobe, and may be a cheaper solution for the time being.

@RandomMess I thought we had been ruthless with the clothes but they keep multiplying!

I bet if you count up how many "outfits" each has you will be horrified!!

Pack away extreme summer or winter war to either keep for the younger one or in the hope it may fit the next year but the less they have the quicker it goes from being dried to being worn and miss out the tedious being put away stage!!

@whatisthislifesofullofcare I can't work out where DD3 sleeps or is that a cot bed in the corner with wall storage above?

I was going to comment along the lines of @whatisthislifesofullofcare (how kind of you to take the time to draw it all out for the OP! ) - I saw one of those offset/partition bunks on a property programme and thought it looked brilliant for sharers. OP you could also put curtains up for them to partition into cubicle-type spaces if they really wanted more privacy and then the little girl would have a sort of strip of space. There could also be scope for them to decorate their areas individually rather than having to agree on the same decor.

@RandomMess one of the older DCs would be on the high sleeper with a desk under. DC3 would be on the lower bunk in the middle.

I’d definitely go for Pax wardrobes - perhaps even in place of the Kallax - because you can customise them so much so maximises the storage for both clothes and toys.

Oh wait - @whatisthislifesofullofcare is 10 steps ahead as you’ve already drawn in curtains! You should be a concept planner.

random...yes, eventually a high sleeper with desk and clothes storage under.

cot bed for now, yes. though while they are little I might be tempted to follow greta green grapes bed layout using existing beds, and maybe just have lots of shelving/hanging space behind a wall to wall curtained off space behind the bedroom door.

@Extendmeupbuttercup yes, it’s a really great layout, I’m quite excited about trying it out as the DCs get older!

@NoSquirrels yes, I played around on the IKEA planner and a wall to wall to ceiling wardrobe would definitely be better than the kallax for our needs I think.

I love working out spaces on Ikea.

I would go with the triple bunks in the corner with the bookcases now. Then run Ikea Pax along the wall towards the window use the corner unit. Forgotten the ceiling height - is it more than 236? Super high pax. The drawers are all inside the wardrobe. Double rails for hanging. baskets for shoes along the bottom. And definitely fold clothes like Mari Kondi - I insist you research this. It is revolutionary.

Definitely get clip on individual beside lamps.

With the triple sleeper, now you would stack them with oldest at top. But when she is about 13, you stack them the other way round. She can sneak into bed without waking the others.

On the opposite wall, use the new Ikea platsa units. Put cupboards like kitchen cupboards up high for storage and toys. Desk underneath with more full height cupboards.

You could even squeeze in a cosy chair if you triple stack their beds. Eldest could read whilst younger play on floor.

Don't bother with desks - my two airways used the kitchen table for homework

Oh I forgot
I built an Ikea wardrobe in the loft. Not a pax, it was a three door but with drawers at bottom. I would literally swap out the clothes on their hangers winter to summer.

Get a loft ladder if you haven't already

My aunt lives in Sweden and they use every single wall for cupboards and storage. Like we use top kitchen cupboards, but usually with lift upward doors, often with glass doors and always with lights - aka Ikea.

@pipsqueakbollock clever to think about building a wardrobe in the loft! We haven’t boarded the whole loft yet, but that is definitely a good idea that I’ll investigate.

@ThePoetsWife funny you should say that, we borrowed a camping table for the eldest DC to do school work in their room during lockdown but they much prefer being downstairs even though it becomes very noisy with 3 DCs doing different things!

Oh yes we used our loft for storage- essential!!

I think you need to accept that every 3 years or so their needs change so you need to try and think ahead and be flexible.

Shelves rather than drawers hold so many more clothes when it comes to T-shirts and leggings etc. Or use those IKEA drawer divider boxes for pants and socks each with their own colour or label.

@RandomMess I remember having piles of clothes on shelves as a child and they’d always end up falling over, but maybe we didn’t quite have the right shelving for it to work.

I’ve been folding clothes the konmari way recently, but they quickly become a jumbled mess in the DCs drawers... so I need something that’s not a shelf, not a drawer or a hanging rail... (and not a floordrobe which seems to be the preferred method for the DCs) easy, right?

As I said earlier

LESS CLOTHES 😂

Do you have a curtain rail in the dining room or similar where you can put their clothes on hangers to dry? Honestly it was brilliant out on hangers then once dry out straight in wardrobe! I would make them up into outfits.

If they have few clothes they could just have a box/crate each with clean clothes in and they can pull out what they want 🧐 pants and socks in a smaller one each.

Ideally if you haven't put the dry clothes away they should have barely any left in their bedroom!!!!

@RandomMess a project for me to try out once the DCs are back at school!

What's the measurements from the door to left hand wall? We have 3 dc share the biggest room atm and have an Ikea tuffing bed for oldest dd with two of the extendable junior beds underside each side of the ladder.

www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/tuffing-loft-bed-frame-dark-grey-90299449/

We have created the perfect 2m recess in their room, from taking 20cm from linen cupboard to match the bed size. Oldest dd that shares that room is now 10 so linen cupboard will soon be turned into a doorway and biggest room split so only ds has a room and two middle girls share.