Welcome To Kiddie Nation: How To Maximize Space In Your Children’s Bedroom

An organized and clutter-free children’s bedroom happens only in our dreams or so you think. But with a bit of creative design, ideas from magazines and the internet and help from people in the construction industry, you can expand limited space to contain your kids’ books, toys, coloring stuff, clothes and all the other knick knacks that they have in their rooms.

And as the tiny toddlers grow into school-age kids and into their teens, you have another issue to deal with – growing their rooms along with the different stages in their lives. With today’s home building business putting emphasis on economy, it is inevitable that rooms become more condensed than ever before.

Here are space- saving tips savvy homeowners use to invent storage space while keeping the room neat and orderly and the children’s belongings stacked systematically.

Elevate the bed. If the ceiling permits, raise the bed so that the space beneath it can be used to put underbed drawers and closets. These can store anything – from clothes to toys to linens. Install doors on them or make them pull out drawers to conceal their contents and give the room a neat appearance. Keep in mind that elevated beds must be safe for children to sleep on. Place detachable rails to protect your sleeping child from falling and a removable ladder for getting on to the raised bed.

When your child reaches that age where sleepovers are popular, you can use the underbed space to accommodate extra bed space for friends. At hayden-homes.com in Washington state, they have move-in homes that you can customize to design and incorporate more space-utilizing ideas for storage.

Build shelves on the walls to create vertical storage. Open shelves can hold decorative pieces, books and other things from school, and unbreakable jars for holding pens, crayons and the hundred tiny items children are loathe to part with. If you make the built-in shelves reach all the way to the ceiling, it will give an impression of height. Painting the shelves a contrasting color from the back wall adds layer and depth to the room.

Use mirrored doors on the closets. Make them as tall and wide as possible. This old trick always visually enlarges any room while serving its mirror functionality.

Hang decorative containers. These can be baskets, jars, canisters and the like that function as a repository for gadget peripherals, earplugs, remote controls and smaller devices. These hanging containers come in all sizes, shapes and colors to match any room style. Pick light ones that swing when hit by a child’s head so that no untoward incidents occur.

Choose lamps and fixtures that can be screwed onto the wall or ceiling. That way, they don’t take up surface space. Another practical and contemporary design is to use pendant lighting for each side of the bed for reading or other activity that needs focal lights. Hanging lights are best if ceilings are high; otherwise, track lights are better and gives a trendy space saving illusion. Track lighting presents a clean uninterrupted wall and is great for rooms with low ceilings.

Paint the ceiling the same color as the walls. This will erase delineating lines that give an image of shrinking space. Choose light and pastel-colored hues for an airier, cooler and bigger appearance.

Pick furniture that hugs the wall perimeters. That way they don’t occupy more space than necessary. Choose furniture with clean sparse lines and avoid heavy-looking and ornate desks and chairs that add illusory weight to a room and make it look cramped and small.