small bedroom Furniture layout

A small bedroom can be really hard to decorate, many times because you don’t know where to first put your furniture. This is why space planning is so important. When starting ANY decorating project, it’s extremely important to take measurements of the space first, so you can efficiently space plan. One of my most popular posts to date is all about how to measure spaces. In the post, you’ll get step-by-step instructions on how to easily take measurements.

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So, after I measure a space, the space planning begins. I’m going to walk you through the space planning of a small bedroom project I worked on in the past. If you want to see the mock design board I created for this space plan, click here.

Here are before photos:

As you can see, this is a VERY small bedroom. There’s not a lot of space for any other furniture besides the bed and a dresser. Right now, there’s a Queen bed with headboard, a painted dresser, and a small chest of drawers that match the headboard. We could save so much space by switching to a Full bed, but for my client, a Queen bed is necessary.

The current headboard is at least 10″ deep, taking up valuable space in the room, so I suggested that we get another. My client is open to changing out all the furniture, but prefers a dresser over a chest of drawers. She’s also hoping for a mirror and a chair.

Original layout:

With the current layout, the space isn’t maximized well. There’s space between the bed and window that isn’t being used and the right side of the right set of drawers are hard to get into.

Below are four different options (I sometimes call them furniture plans) that I came up with:

Cons:

Bed in the corner. Can’t access both sides.
Not much room for a chair.
Dresser drawers still have little clearance. Still hard to access clothing.
Bottom right corner isn’t very easy to get to.
Can’t hang a mirror in front of the dresser (unless you want it in front of the window).

This option could work. I kept the bed in the same location, just removed the headboard, which frees up the space between the window and bed. This option lets me center the dresser on the window. There is over one foot of clearance between the dresser and bed to open up the drawers.

If you notice, in this option I’ve added a small, round bedside table so that a lamp could be placed on top. It’s close to the door, but there is still enough room to open the door all the way.

Bed in the corner.

In this layout, I’ve rotated the bed along the same two walls that they were on before. This option provides a lot more clearance between the bed and dresser.

Again, the dresser is centered at the window, giving much needed space in front of the closet to access clothes. In this layout, a bedside table is able to perfectly fit next to the bed. Notice I used a small round one, but you can also go with a larger nightstand with drawers (or shelves) for extra storage.

If I would take the dresser off center and push it closer to the wall by the table, we could fit a small chair by the closet.

No space for chair.
Bed in front of the window.
No open space. Room may feel a bit stuffy.
Still not a lot of clearance for dresser drawers.

This option is very different from the first two. The bed is now centered at the window, facing you as you walk in the door. The bed can now be accessed from both sides. It’s not a lot of walk-through space, though, and would probably be a hassle getting to the other side.

Having the dresser on this wall, opposed to in front of the window, gives us wall space to hang a mirror, and/or shelving for more storage. We couldn’t do this above the dresser in either of the other two layouts.

Not enough clearance around furniture.
Can’t fit in a chair.

This layout is actually my favorite. The bed is on the wall opposite the closet. A bedside table can fit on the side of the bed by the window, and the dresser can still fit on the wall opposite the window. Floating shelves and a mirror can be added above the dresser, to complete a beautiful vignette for getting pretty (or handsome) in the morning.