Dream big: How to maximise space in tiny bedrooms

Our top hacks to make the most of every millimetre with clever furniture placements, colour choice and storage solutions

Here are our top hacks to get more out of your bedroom space. 

Struggling to be creative with that smaller bedroom, be it a main bedroom or currently insulted as the box room? 

Here are my top hacks to push back with clever furniture placements and storage solutions.

Bed position

A conventional mistake with a cramped square or rectangular spare bedroom with standard ceilings is to set the bed in the centre of a short wall. Gain up to 25% more floor space by staging this full-time or occasional bed into a corner with the long side on a long wall, upholstered down one side with a side panel matching your headboard. 

Consider the long bed wall panel topped with a board as a deep shelf for display and books. Now we can detail shelves over and beside the bed and have room on the open side for a proper wardrobe that can even swing through the corner of the short wall as an L arrangement, with an integrated bedside table. 

Use a room's strengths: A nook in an attic bedroom.  File picture

We’ve returned an 80cm x 200cm (0.6 sq m) corridor to the floor plan that would be useless for anything but an extra bedside locker unless you’re terracing the bed between wardrobes. The remaining, generous L-shaped floor space of the room might rise to a small home office or allow a stroll to a view or French door. 

Finally, every time you slip any bed into a nook, even that adorable Scandi-chic cabin-style position nestled fully into a window recess, ensure you can make the bed. Casters with brakes allow you to slide the whole rig out to you.

Lose the lamps

Wall lights at each side of the bed will wash the surface of the wall, reflecting and diffusing light in a flattering manner. They can be used to focus on your book in a range of brilliant, articulated mechanisms and dimmers. Now your bedside locker or tiny table has a free surface, and there are no dangling wires or other visual stutter. 

Astep VV Cinquanta Twin Wall Light, €1370, lampmasters.ie, Design wall lamp black two-light, adjustable, Lune, €94.95, lampandlight.ie.

Rechargeable USB wall lamps set on magnetic supports are growing in popularity, so for occasional use or a lightning-fast weekend make-over, take a look at the Baton designs in solid timber by Gingko Design, available through a range of suppliers here in Ireland, no sparky required. Where you do use lockers, think curves over angular boxy profiles that make small bedrooms look tighter and less inviting. 

Where you have a solid headboard, explore 10cm deep storage verities that can take shelves above your pillows and use the depth of the board as a further cabinet accessed at both ends.

Pillows

Did anyone notice Carrie Bradshaw and Aidan nesting down in an Ikea Bjorksnas bed in Che’s apartment in Season 2 of And Just Like That (HBO)? A Continental classic is becoming a 2024 trend, with cushions and stiffened wedge bolsters used instead of a conventional headboard. 

Continental-style pillow support; Bjorksnas frame, €534, ikea.com/ie.

A tall headboard will send a ceiling back, and with a decorative surface it can form the focal point of a room otherwise painted in pale or neutral colours to let light fly. Hooks or a simple curtain rail are set across the head of the bed and then suspended in fat, box-profile oversized pillows that protect the wall (choose from one large one or double for couples). 

These super pillows have removable covers, making them hygienic and easy to care for, and you can buy a few patterns and colours to flip up your style by the season. There are similar bolster types that free-stand, just ensure you they don’t dominate the sleeping space. Keep your eye out for interesting seating cushions that could be used to build out your own comfy collection.

Built-in units 

Now, finding a spot to make up or work in a spare or smaller room might seem far from Apartment Therapy. Still, there’s an increasing interest in these multi-tasking spaces all over the house as they are masterful storage heroes. 

Alderley Shaker styling in Dark Blue, The Panelling Centre, panellingcentre.ie.

Fitted, relatively skinny furniture applied to a sliver of wall space is having a moment, and you can pay for a pricey install or tailor up something using modular products from somewhere like B&Q, Ikea or The Panelling Centre. 

Oliver Bonas Aurelia, €1150 (UK site oliverbonas.com).

There’s a lot we can do with 35cm to 60cm of conventional wardrobe depth including cubbies, shelving, rails and working surfaces. Explore living wall ideas started in the kitchen design and hallways. Give those eaves and alcoves a job, or fully realise otherwise useless runs of the wall now just wearing a lonely wardrobe. 

To keep things streamlined and calm in rooms doing double duty, extra working parts like a desk are best disguised behind pocket doors that flip open and park along the short sides of your table or use tambours or sliders with a silken action. Micro-manage the interiors yourself (a huge money saver with storage elements) but leave the structural carcass and any moving parts to a seasoned carpenter. Firm, level installation is everything.

Storage beds

Replacing the divan (it should get the heave-ho at the same time as any matching mattress), it’s time to fully explore storage possibilities. Two drawers, four or even five drawers — why waste that greedy box frame that can take all your linens? With feather-light operation, a full ottoman bed that springs open at one end can answer a lot of questions. Multi-function storage pieces can reduce the amount of furniture in the room, and this instantly delivers a more serene space. For inspiration explore storagebeds.ie . 

Still, choose wisely. I’m not a fan of the domestic gymnastics and eye-watering expense of the drop-down Murphy bed. They are being normalised in new adult-living apartment complexes in Irish cities, marketed with tiny bijous studios. Beds are by their nature, dusty creatures, and lifting them up and down to the wall huffs out particulate matter, impacting air quality and increasing housekeeping. Look into a truly comfortable sofa bed for guests and occasional use.

Colour-drenching in paint and wall-colour is a 2024 alternative to white or neutral walls; linens, William Morris collection from €95-€170, M&S.

Colourways

It might seem obvious to paint a smaller room white or off-white to inflate its perceived dimensions. As someone teased me for my lifelong devotion to the all-white interior, I would stop there. Still, for a room with a colder aspect on the north or west of the home, or pierced with mean natural light — there’s no doubt brilliant white could prove a chilly prospect. 

Natural light enhances a bedroom. File picture

There are two bold potentials with paint alone, and I’ll leave the colour adventures to you — colour drenching and feature walls. 

Drenching takes one full-on colour or at most close companions on the colour wheel, using them for all walls and in some cases including the ceiling and skirting. It’s quite a commitment, but worked well, dark dramatic shades can be a beautiful, comforting and cohesive companion even in a small room. 

Feature walls used behind the bed will add a lot of character for the price of 500ml of whatever you fancy. My style disrupter for this year? Look into routed wood panelling as an alternative to feature colour or papers. Warm, organic, stylish, hotel chic.