Tiny third bedrooms

[mnahmnah]

Hi

Every house we look at has a tiny third bedroom. Some tinier than others, but all small. We have found a house that is otherwise perfect. We could convert the loft, but obviously until we moved in we couldn’t get a quote to know what the cost so and whether we can afford it. So just in case we can’t…

Have any of you made a room work as a bedroom on the measurements of 2.34 x 1.7? It would be for a 6 year old. Hopefully by the time he is bigger we could definitely convert the loft!

We did this.
Still a tiny room but it is functional.

Tbh mine have moaned about their room sizes and what we did was create a separate den downstairs with an additional internal wall. They have that for privacy etc and friends found.

Out of interest why is your elder son getting the smallest room? Genuine interest not meant to sound snooty!

He’s not - the 6yo is. Our eldest starts high school in September so needs a desk etc

We have a similar house and are considering building a one story extension to the room over the side access (it's a semi). We haven't seen anyone actually do this though! Perhaps people build into the loft first.

We had our older DD in the tiny room, and then pre-school DS had the second big double. DD had a bed, a Kallax unit on its side for storage and as a shelf, a little tray desk for working sitting on her bed.

DS might have had the bigger room but it had both of the kids clothes in, and also my desk and computer for wfh.

Worked for a few years until we were able to move. Can you do something like that?

My sisters house has a tiny 3rd bedroom. Enough for single bed and chest of drawers - that's it. Her kids now in their 20's have always managed in that room- yes it's very small but if that's all there is then no choice. They are swapped rooms when one was away at Uni.

A 4x1 kallax with draw inserts and a 1x2 kallax at right angles to it to make the bed 5 kallax holes long (iykwim) with a 1x1 kallax as a bedside table.
Baton fixed to wall for support on other side and bed slats on top.
Hopefully pictures show it ok. She has storage in tubs/baskets on shelves above bed.

We have a tiny third bedroom. Changed the door to open outwards. Single beds are 180cm so if you can put one in for a spare bed. We used it as a) nursery and now b) home office. You could use it as the space for a staircase up to loft with loft conversion. But we can't afford that.

Our DD8 has the box room, it’s slightly bigger than yours and doesn’t have a bulkhead in it. We’ve made use of the space but tried not to overcrowd it. Her sister who has the bigger room has a huge pax wardrobe which stores extra clothes and bedding/toys. Then DD8 has this bed from IKEA which is great as it has storage under it but isn’t too high. https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/slaekt-bed-frame-w-storage-slatted-bedbase-white-s29291956/

Then an IKEA Stuva wardrobe fits at the end of the bed. On the other wall we have a Billy bookcase and a Kallax unit for toys. She’d like a desk but I’m not user there is room so we’ve put that ide aim hold for the moment.

He’s not - the 6yo is. Our eldest starts high school in September so needs a desk etc

Obviously, nothing to do with the rest of us, how anyone else sorts out bedroom allocation, but I actually think it is easier for a teen / pre-teen to have the smaller room.
Get a high rise bed with a desk underneath.
6 yr olds tend to need more space for their trainsets / lego or whatever they are into playing with, whereas as they get older a) they are safer on a high sleeper b) you don't need to be tucking them in / reading a story / trying to get up onto their bed with them and c) they need less floor space. d) you'd hope they have slightly better planning skills in terms of if they are keeping a wardrobe in another room.

This is how our box room (for four year old) is kitted out. I think it's fine especially as you plan to extend in the longer term.

@TheRealKatnissEverdeen

That room is lovely!

Everyone’s pics are super helpful. It’s good to see it in action. Thanks.

Thank you @mnahmnah glad the pics are helpful.
The boy loves his room. My other son (six) has a larger bedroom.
I do have another larger bedroom I keep as a spare room and they both use as a play room - this will likely become the four year old's room in the future (when I've managed to save enough to convert the garage to a guest room!).

Good luck 🤞🏾

We did draw up plans to add a built in cupboard to our little room, by taking the space from the adjoining bedroom.

in the adjoining bedroom, the cupboard would have created a sticky out bit at the end of the bed which naturally extended the doorway - I now appreciate I need a diagram at this point…
anyway, our builder said he could do this for under £1000

Like this, proposed cupboard in purple

Change the door so it opens outwards rather than in.

Please tell me your step daughter is studying some kind of design. This is an impeccable drawing!

Sorry, I forgot to reply properly but posted some photos and explanation, now on page 3 of this thread. Hope it helps!

Someone at work today said they had the same issue and extended a bit of the room over the stair space - as shown in the floor plan I have scribbled on. Anyone else done this? Could it be an option?

It's really going to depend on the head height above your stairs, they differ a lot. A lot of houses come with that already, that's when you get the bulk head in the room and often it gets a cupboard built over it. My tiny box room already has this. It would be even more teeny tiny without it!

The agent may allow you to take a builder around to get a quote.

Hi OP when we were looking at houses last year we viewed one with a tiny third bedroom. I put out a message on the local FB page asking if anyone in a similar property had extended their third room. A lady kindly offered to show me their modified room, which had been extended forwards from the doorway into a cupboard in the hall, then sideways into the main bedroom. It went from about 7 x 5.7 feet to around 8 feet squared IIRC and her son was very happy with it. I think it may have cost about 6k pre-covid for this, can't recall exactly though.

You could probably do that by way of making it as a raised platform bed.

We over time had the door opening out, then as a sliding door

I developed a house like this to meet HMO standards, which meant that the 3rd bedroom had to be 6.51m sq to be used by one person aged 10 or over. (Nb this doesn't apply to private homes, only HMO rentals) . I moved the wall into the next bedroom, which cost about £1k for the knocking through & rough stud wall construction from a builder & then I had to do lots of work finishing it. The builder had done a few of these and had a good idea to reduce disruption, which was to not cut into the ceiling at any point, but instead to cut a hole in the wall an inch or two below the ceiling, finish the edges like a big door frame, then build the new wall inside the 2nd bedroom's original floorspace. This meant the extra space was an alcove and it felt like a cosy feature. Photos attached showing the new stud wall frame so you can see how the floor plan changed, and of the finished room. Pics don't show the single bed, which is one adapted as PP have suggested to go over the bulkhead. This isn't a very big job to adapt.

Another house on the same street had gained useful space by building a wardrobe / cupboard out over the stairwell, as you suggest above. They preserved headroom over the stairs by only starting the cupboard about thigh-high in the room, but it still worked well as storage.

The Ikea Kallax bed suggestion up-thread is a great one; just search "DIY kallax single bed" to get lots of ideas. A cabin bed seems like an obvious win for you though. Have you seen the Flexa bed range? You can configure them as cabin beds at different levels, bunks, singles etc. I have some that I've rearranged into L-shaped bunks, standard bunks, and finally single beds.