Bedroom Facelift

Since returning to our Portland homestead, we have turned our winter focus inside to making our tiny house feel as comfortable and space-efficient as possible. We started with our narrow bathroom and Bug’s nursery. Our nesting has spread to our bedroom now as well.

Our poor bedroom has a few challenges. Storage is an issue, as we only have one tiny closet. We also needed to find a home for hundreds of books since the second bedroom transformed from a library room into a nursery. The total room space is about 10′ x 11′ – tight!

We started with paint color. We loved the strong, turquoise blue that we originally painted years ago, but we wanted to make the space feel bigger and more crisp. We choose Yolo Paint color Leaf .03 for our bedroom and the nursery, which in these rooms appears as a light gray with a hint of green. It makes every other color in the room stand out vibrantly with this simple backdrop and blends nicely with our other new interior colors.

Next we moved into three narrow bookshelves at the end of the room. This is not a choice for everyone, as it makes the room packed with furniture. However, you can move around them easily and we like waking up to a wall of books, or as we call them “our old friends.” (See what happens when you marry someone with an English degree?)

To deal with the closet storage issue, we purchased a huge, 8′ tall wardrobe from Ikea ($400). It’s expensive, but it functions as a dresser and closet, with a mirror on one door that makes the room feel bigger. It sits on one side of the bed, with the other side having a tall chest of drawers.

We made a DIY upholstered headboard for the bed to soften that area between the wardrobe and dresser. It is really cozy to sit against for reading in bed, watching a movie on our laptops, or feeding the baby. The fabric has some nice texture, but is neutral enough to not look busy. The tutorial can be found here and the total cost was about $60 bucks.

Lighting was an issue since we didn’t have room for large nightstands. Instead, we bought these two wall lamps from Ikea ($15 each). That allows us each to have a light for reading or feeding times without taking up floor space.

Finally, we needed a little place to set miscellaneous things: cell phone chargers, a cup of tea and a book (everyone reads murder mysteries before going to bed, right?). It was hard to find the perfect fit, but we stumbled upon these super-narrow shelves from Ikea ($15) intended to hold standing pictures. Instead, we purchased one long length, cut it to size, and turned it upside down so we aren’t using the lip side. That gives us about 4-5″ of flat ledge space. We now each have a little ledge screwed into the wardrobe and dresser just wide enough for these little items.

I don’t think it’s possible to get more storage or use out of this small of a space. There is a lot in the room, but keeping the furniture all a consistent light wood color, the walls a light grey and the clutter to a minimum has helped it feel like a cozy, tidy space. Hopefully this bedroom facelift gives you some ideas for your teeny tiny spaces!