Creating a fun kid’s bedroom in a box room

Earlier this year we went to meet a potential client to discuss their loft room and helping them make the most of the space. However, in doing our usual walk around of the rest of the house we started discussing their five-year old’s bedroom.

As with many period homes, the first floor consists of two large double bedrooms and two small box rooms. And in this case, the eldest child had one of the larger bedrooms and the youngest, Barney, had one of the box rooms. In the long term, it’s likely that the parents will move up into the newly renovated loft bedroom and the two children will have equal size bedrooms. However, in the short term they were keen to make this little boy’s bedroom somewhere that felt like his space, where he could play and provided them with the storage they needed for clothes, toys and the general paraphernalia that children accumulate. It wasn’t something they had necessarily thought they would need our help with. But in chatting with them it became clear that they weren’t sure what to do to maximise the space and didn’t have the time to think about it or to research the various options out there.

So, it was decided that our first project with them would be to get this room re-done in time for the little boy’s sixth birthday and that we would tackle the loft plans in 2019.

And here’s the story of how this bedroom become a Dark blue Transformers themed space!

Utilising the space

The biggest challenge was always going to be the space, or lack of it. With a 3m x 2m room, we felt the key to the design was to incorporate a high bed. Not only does this create more floor space for play, but it also adds more storage and an element of fun for children themselves.

There are two ways you can do this: building a bespoke bed for the space or buying a ready-made cabin bed. Given that we knew that he would ultimately be moving into one of the larger bedrooms we thought building a bespoke would be a waste of time, effort and budget so we decided it would need to be bought.

After much research we decided on the made.com Rubix cabin bed as it provided the smallest footprint, had great storage and wasn’t going to eat up the budget in one go!

Once we’d decided on the bed, we then worked with a 2D floorplan to decide on what other furniture could be fitted into the space and allow enough room to move and play in the space. We went with the slimline IKEA Fritids/Stuva wardrobe. This is a range of furniture which meant that the collection of furniture can be built on in the future when he moves into the bigger bedroom.

Another reason why the IKEA Fritids/Stuva range is a good one is that you can choose the colour of the doors. We let the client decide whether to go for the white or green doors.

Mood boarding

Although we knew that the room would only be used as a bedroom in the short term, we wanted to make sure it felt like a child’s bedroom and was a fun place to be in. But we were also aware we had to think of the more permanent things in the room like carpet and wall colour as things that could work for a different purpose like a study in the future. So, the mood board for this room looked like this.

Barney is really into Transformers and Asian martial arts animation so we thought we could bring the more child-like and fun elements into the space via artwork and other things that can easily be moved into another room. It took a fair bit of research but we felt that there was more Transformers based accessories that they could buy into so the Transformers theme was brought to life with artwork and a light.

Finished space

In this instance the client then went ahead and implemented the design themselves including getting decorators in, buying the carpet and furniture etc. At the last minute we did get a call to say that they weren’t sure about the bed once it had been assembled. But, a quick visit and some moving of the furniture beneath the bed as well as a chat about how different the space will feel to a six-year-old vs. us grown-ups resulted in some very happy clients.

“I went to Jon and Beth with a request to help us make the best use of space in a very small child’s bedroom. Jon spent time making sure he understood the requirement in detail, before producing a proposal with various options and a recommendation for the optimal furniture and layout, with everything included, down to options for decor and accessories. We’ve been delighted with every aspect of the process and Barney loves his new room!

I highly recommend Fresh Start Living and will certainly use them again, thanks very much”

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