Designing rooms for kids can be a difficult task. There are a lot of factors to be considered, and the vision that you have for the space may not always align with your child’s. Plus, these rooms often need to be multifunctional; handling space for toys, books, and clothing, and adaptable over years of a growing kid’s changing interests and needs. Over the next few weeks, we are going to be talking about each of my girl’s rooms and the decisions that we made to take into account aesthetic, storage, and the reality of growing up! This week, we’re starting with my youngest daughter’s room.

The total square footage of my home is 5,000 s.f., and I wanted to maximize every square foot of my top floor. Within 1,500 s.f., we put in all four bedrooms for my family, as well as two bathrooms, a laundry room, and a family room. That left me with perfectly sized bedrooms, no room to spare, with my youngest daughter Lauren’s being the smallest. That was okay because I had wanted to do a built-in bed and wardrobe for years and this was the perfect opportunity.

I have loved designer Veere Greeney and his charming built-in bedrooms for years, and the one below served as loose inspiration for what we wanted to accomplish. As I planned out the storage for this space, I was especially attracted to built in wardrobes instead of a closet because I think it offers a unique and organized way of storing clothes that can be more efficient than a closet. There’s a place for everything and everything is in its place, so wardrobes can pack more of a punch in a smaller space. In recent years, it’s become more trendy for people to incorporate built-in wardrobes instead of closets in their home projects (you can read more about that here).

My youngest is 5 years old and will be going through many stages of life in this bedroom. While she is little, this wardrobe is more than enough storage, and as she grows it will grow with her very efficiently. Both sides of the wardrobe are for hanging clothes, dresses, and coats, with enough room to store shoes on the bottom. The drawers in the center have made organizing her clothes easier than a closet. Every drawer is just big enough to house one category of clothes: bottom drawer pajamas, next one is underwear and socks, then shirts, etc. It’s easy enough that Lauren has been able to keep up with it as well!

In my opinion, a built-in bed is perfect for a kids room. The shelving option this type of bed offers solved my problem of where to store all my girls’ books upstairs. Having shelves on both sides of her bed creates almost too much storage, but I love having one side more decorative where I can have art, stuffed animals, and her “prettier” books and the other side is more utilitarian, where all of my girls books, colorful and ripped from years of love, can live. My two other girls keep the books they aren’t currently reading in her room and it’s been a better-than-expected feature of our upstairs living space. 

I made the bed a full-size and it’s rather large for her little 5-year old self, but I have also slept in it and it is comfortable for me at 5’6”. Another bonus of building in the furniture is that the bed and wardrobe are tight against the wall. This creates more space in the center of the room, so it’s possible to have a desk and chair, or space for a lounge chair and a lamp sometime in the future.

As much as we’ve loved this set-up in Lauren’s room, there are a couple of downsides to the built-in bedroom. First, it’s more permanent than furniture. Second, it can be more expensive than furniture and a closet. While it is more permanent than a typical bedroom setup, features like these make a home endearing, and they actually help with resale. Even though it feels like a custom feature to the owner, it’s not so specific that this room wouldn’t appeal to most homeowners.

As far as cost goes, bedrooms can be the least expensive rooms to furnish, especially for children, so this was a more expensive option. However, to get the same kind of storage space I would have needed a chest of drawers for the closet, two bookcases and a bed. Once you add all of that up, the built-in bed and wardrobe option was about $1,000 more and definitely worth it. 

The built-in bed also created a smaller space to add wallpaper without having to paper the entire room. We added the plug-in sconce as a reading light and I have liked this form of lighting much better than a lamp. 

A lot of time, thought, and money went into this room, and it’s no surprise it’s my favorite room (I like it better than my room). I highly recommend re-thinking the typical bedroom set-up and exploring more built-in options. 

Shop Lauren’s room:

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