The most important piece of furniture in any bedroom is a bed. Or maybe you need multiple beds so you set out to research beds for small bedrooms. Furnishing a new home these days can be challenging. Bedrooms are getting smaller while closets are getting bigger. Follow my journey to find the best bed ideas for a room that my granddaughter and other guests will use.
What are Standard Bed Sizes?
While the house I'm building is close to my granddaughter's home, I hope we can do some sleepovers. They're fun regardless of your age, so why not plan for movie nights with popcorn and a sleepover. That means I need one of my guest bedrooms designed for young children. And double duty furniture will make this bedroom perfect for other guests.
The question then is what beds will fit in this rather small bedroom? My dream bedroom is one that has a twin over full size bed like the one shared above (but my granddaughter said no to the pink). The idea came from an open house we visited maybe a year ago. Chloe saw the steps and climbed up to the top bed before I got into the room. She loved it!
In another house I learned that how you arrange the beds can make a room feel bigger or smaller. Of course you also need to decide what bed sizes make the most sense for a bedroom. So here are bed sizes and recommendations to help.
Now that you know bed sizes, the more interesting thing you want to look at is how much space each bed configuration will use. So let's look at the numbers for a simple 10 by 10 sq ft … or 100 square feet. Your priorities will differ based on how you plan to use a bedroom.
Do you want to host more guests in a single guest bedroom? Maybe you need kids to share a room or have space for lots of sleepovers? Kids probably need more floor space than adults – for playing, homework and relaxing in their own space. My emphasis is on storage so I'm planning:
- Drawers under the twin bed to store extra bedding.
- Drawers in the stairs leading up to the top bunk bed.
- Dresser built into the closet (follow my journey to catch my designs) to free up floor space in the room.
| # People | Adding 2.5 ft Around 4 Sides | ||||
| Beds | # Sq Ft | % Room | # Sq Ft | % Room | |
| Twin | 1 | 20 sq ft | 20% | 24 sq ft | 24% |
| 2 Twin Beds | 2 | 40 sq ft | 40% | 48 sq ft | 48% |
| Twin Bunk | 2 | 20 sq ft | 20% | 24 sq ft | 24% |
| Twin over Full | 3 | 28 sq ft | 28% | 33 sq ft | 33% |
| Full | 2 | 28 sq ft | 28% | 33 sq ft | 33% |
| Twin & Full at 90° | 3 | 34 sq ft | 34% | 42 sq ft | 42% |
| Queen | 2 | 33 sq ft | 33% | 38 sq ft | 38% |
| King | 2 | 42 sq ft | 42% | 48 sq ft | 48% |
Bed Configurations that Maximize Space
Think about your typical bedroom furniture. We've covered the beds. Now you need to think about side table(s), a dresser for storage, a desk for homework and/or a chair to sit in while dressing. Just like the beds, this furniture also needs space around them for walking, opening drawers, etc. Or what I decided to do with a smaller master bedroom, was to build dressers into the dual walk-in closets (shown above).
My original hope was to find a twin over queen bed. So far I haven't found this combination. But if you like the idea, there are lots of twin over full size bed options to pick from. And it wasn't until I put the bed sizes above together, that I realized why a twin over queen bed solution often doesn't make sense. That's because queen beds are not only wider than a full bed, they're also longer by 5 inches.
What fun it was to explore the many different choices for the twin over full bed. I'm no longer looking for twin over queen options because I want to save the floor space for my granddaughter to play. Other guests will appreciate the extra room for their suitcases.
Beds for Smaller Bedrooms
So here are all the options I found you can get with a twin loft bed over a full bed below, where the beds point in the same directions. With this configuration, you'll gain more usable floor space than any of the other beds for small bedrooms.
- Steps on the side of the bed, a safer way to get to the top bunk.
- Drawers in the steps on the side of the bed … or outside the steps, offering a bit of extra storage.
- Open shelves under the steps for more storage.
- Trundle bed under the full size bed … so the room can sleep four.
- Storage drawers under the full size bed instead of a trundle.
- Built-in night shelf for those who love reading at night (remember those flashlights).
The next bed offered a nice surprise as I'm not a fan of ladders that are seldom stored or used correctly. Yes, I had bunk beds when I was a kid and we learned to climb up without the ladder. This design is truly creative with a built-in ladder on the side. The toss up for me is whether I want to give up the floor space with the twin bed turned 90 degrees?
Want something extra special? something your boys will lover?
Need a few extra beds for guests? Let me know what you pick with a comment below …
I’ve always had at least one bedroom in my house that was super small and I wonder what was the builder thinking!
Charlotte, Their thinking about the best way to increase the price of the house, for the least cost! What I’m seeing now are smaller kitchens & bedrooms … but larger bathrooms & closets but really, how much time do we spend in those rooms? If you’re stuck with a small bedroom, look for ways to arrange the furniture to give yourself more usable space like I did with this bedroom, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7faEAg3Yz4&t=2s