So the room is now all set and ready to be refilled. We’d upcycled some furniture, we’d painted new shelves, we’d thought about storage.
But how to choose the bed…
When we started the whole room, this is where we began the design process. The room is so very tiny that the bed had to the main feature.
We’d tried all sorts of options on paper.
We decided the best option was definitely to lift the bed off the floor, to make the most of all available floor space for playing on.
Sounds simple.
First plan was to design and build our own high sleeper across the end of the room. It could be done, it would stick out across the window, but we could work around it, and it would leave all floor space clear.
But it would still be much shorter than a normal bed – and though she’s only 7 now, with a mother who is all but 6′ she’s going to need every inch of leg room before long. No matter how clever we got with a bed that way round in the room, she would outgrow it in a couple of years time.
So plan B was a cabin bed along the length of the room – place all her storage needs in one neat cube.
But that would be a huge piece of furniture, really overwhelming in such a tiny space.
Back to a low level bed on the floor it was then.
But then that would mean her storage would have to be either free standing floor units (and there’s simply no floor space for that) or on the walls; not really ideal in a tiny space.
And so we went round in ever decreasing circles, hunting and searching for the right solution.
Who knew it would eventually come via Carpetright?
I know -we thought they did, um, carpets, right?
But they do beds too. We ran a comp a few months ago to win an amazing bed from them, and a light bulb went off when I looked at it.
Here – here – was our solution.
How the bed looked when it arrived *slightly daunted face*
The bed in question was a full sized mid-sleeper, so up off the ground, but not so high as to be inaccessible if there is a sick child inside (been there, hated that – no.1 son had a high sleeper), or if the sheets need changing (hated that too, balancing precariously up near the ceiling, wobbling around changing the bed). But it had two freestanding bits of furniture underneath. Freestanding, mind. So they didn’t have to be placed right at the front to create something overwhelming with a tunnel of dead space behind. We could place them where we wanted – or choose not to use them at all.
Under construction – the basic frame is up, and the ladder is underway…
Plus it has a slide out desk at one end which was more perfect than we hoped for. We could slide it out far enough to hit the other wall, but that’s not fully extended. We simply couldn’t fit a whole desk width in there too, so this was brilliant for us.
And… It was really pretty.
Sold then!
The bed arrived flat packed and we spent a merry* afternoon putting it all together. And it was… Perfect. No really, it was. Probably still a bit big for the space, but the room is so tiny any bed would have felt big in it. But with this bed there is plenty of room underneath, and you can see though it, creating a feeling of space rather than a huge block of furniture.
We left out the last of the bed slats so that we could use the ladder to put the shelves up. See how well the desk works?
You can see the cupboard in the picture above – pushed right to the top back of the bed she can access it for her toys (it’s now full of Playmobil), but it doesn’t impact on her space at all. We chose in the end to not use the second cupboard that came with the bed, deciding floor space was more important. Which totally worked – she’s completely convinced we have made her room bigger.
The room is so tiny that we had to leave the bed slats out until we had put the shelves up – there was simply no other way the ladder would fit!
But once the shelves were up and stacked, the bed slats went in, the mattress went on… and all of a sudden we were practically there…
(You can see the full bed picture here in the Grand Reveal…)
The bed was from Carpetright, who have unfortunately temporarily stopped their children’s bed range. You can see what they do have here – and do check back, because the children’s range is being relaunched really soon)
*it may not have been actually merry in atmosphere after three hours of furniture construction…
