Decorating Dilemmas: Small Bedroom Ideas

Anyone with a small apartment or starter home has needed some helpful small bedroom ideas at one point or another. Storage, cleaning convenience and the avoidance of clutter are all common concerns. This list of helpful suggestions will help get you pointed in the proper direction. (See also: 5 Cheap Ways to Avoid a Full Bathroom Remodel)

Beds

The space under the bed is typically underutilized in most bedrooms, but particularly in those of a reduced size. One of the most powerful small bedroom ideas you have at your disposal is to use this area for day-to-day storage needs. This can be done either by purchasing a platform bed with drawers on 2-3 sides or by placing a universal bed frame up on a set of risers and sliding individual plastic drawers from a home goods store underneath. Either way, you’ll have organized storage that won’t take up any additional floor space in your sleeping area.

Night Stands

One of the most stylish budget decorating ideas you have at your disposal is to simply pare down. With regards to night stands, my advice is to skip them completely. Think you can’t do it? Consider what you actually use them for in order to visualize this suggestion properly. If you only have a few items you store in yours, could they also be accommodated in one of the pull-out drawers underneath your bed by simply adding a bargain bin from your nearest dollar store? What about using your window sill to house your alarm clock or a glass of drinking water in the evening? When it comes to small bedroom ideas for decorating, less is definitely more. The fewer things taking up floor space, the more room you’ll have to move around. And hey, it’s less furniture to dust and vacuum around so what’s not to love?

Lighting

The paring down concept also applies to lighting. Those with a loft-style décor can use precision-angled track lighting or moveable lights on wires from Ikea. Even if you prefer something close by, do you really need a clunky table lamp that will only cause you to buy those nightstands you’ve recently decided to go without? There are lamp solutions for your wall that swing out like a floor lamp and plug into the wall, avoiding the need to use any floor space at all. Placing one on each side of the bed provides a traditional look with no extra clutter on the carpet. Teens are often happy to get by with a clip-on light attached to the rung of a headboard. The point is there’s no need to get big, bulky lighting solutions and place them on bedside tables. Both of those products can be skipped altogether, saving cleaning time, money and space.

Walls

You’re probably expecting me to recommend a light neutral color scheme at this point. While that’s certainly worthy of inclusion on any list of small bedroom ideas, I’m going to go a bit further and suggest using your walls as a place to work in storage without subtracting from usable floor space. Ways to do this include hanging long mirrors instead of using the standing floor model, incorporating wall shelves for your makeup area rather than a full vanity and trying a pet net instead of a toy box for housing your child’s stuffed animal collection.

Foot Lockers

These flexible and high-functioning gems don’t just make great gifts for college freshmen, they are also helpful to those in search of affordable small bedroom ideas. Place one at the foot of the bed to serve as a place to store out-of-season clothing load your messenger bag each day, or use it to house extra bedding while standing it on its end in the corner and covering it with a drop cloth to use as a stand for your jewelry bowl.

These small bedroom ideas should make helpful additions to your repertoire of small space survival strategies, while helping you save money at the same time. Do you have any helpful small bedroom ideas you’d like to share?