Small Bedroom Arrangement: Decorating Ideas for Small Bedroom

The shades you choose to paint the walls are highly significant. For small bedrooms, always use stimulating and light colors for the walls. Use more of white and cream, to give the room a refreshing look in the mornings and a comforting feel at night. Light shades of paint will make the room look more spacious, unlike shades of blue, yellow, green, mauve, etc. which make the room look less spacious. The advantage of using light shades is that, the light color reflects the light falling on it on the deeper parts of the room, thereby creating an illusion of more space. Also avoid using more than one color for the wall. The more the colors, the more crowded the room appears. One can also paint horizontal or vertical stripes on the walls, to give the room a wider or taller look respectively. If your wall is painted with a dark shade, then you could also put light colored and sober wall paper. For the ceiling, use white shade, which will give the room a sense of height. Paint the doors the same color as that of the walls.

Small bedrooms should have soft and gentle lighting. Installation of lights close to the bed would give the room a more spacious appearance. You could also go for dimmers situated at one or two points in the room. Avoid stand-alone lamps, instead mount lamps on the walls. This will save space in the bedroom and provide more free floor area. For bedtime reading, you could have a lamp mounted on the wall with a thread hanging down for convenient on and off. Versatile lamps in the ceiling are also good options, however make sure they don't come in the way of other objects. Ambient, accent and fluorescent lighting have an elegant and soothing appeal and can be utilized in small bedrooms. Choosing proper lighting will give your room a warm, glowing and inviting appeal. People will feel the comfort right from the moment they step into the room. So make sure you pay special attention to this aspect of bedroom decoration.

When it comes to flooring, most people prefer carpets, primarily because carpets are more comfortable when one is barefoot. Especially in winters, carpets are a blessing to have in the bedroom. Moreover, carpets enhance the aesthetic look of the room and are cozy. However, even though carpets give the room a cozy look, they also participate in making the room look smaller. For small bedrooms, it is better one avoids carpets and opts for laminate flooring instead. You can even go for tiles, which also give a more spacious look to the entire room. Replacing the carpet with light colored hardwood floor is also a way to increase the visual space in the bedroom. You can place small rugs on the floor if you miss your carpets too much. However, if you are sure you want only carpet in your bedroom, choose a light-colored carpet, which mostly matches the color of the walls. But, this will increase carpet maintenance efforts.

It is advisable to use beds made of thin metal frames for small bedrooms. This is because thin metal frames provide more visual wall space and give the feeling of a spacious room. Bulky beds take up more of the floor area and reveals lesser wall area, giving a feeling that the room is crowded. Folding beds or Murphy beds are common space-saving alternatives, which fold away into the wall. Varieties of Murphy beds are available, which when folded resemble parts of closets from the outside. However, if you are the kind who doesn't want to do away with your double bed, then you could go for 'platform bed'. Platform beds are beds which are low in height and appear to be bigger in the room. You could also go for Futon beds, which would make your room look more spacious. Futon beds appear like sofas throughout the day, and can be extended to form a bed. If the bedroom is for kids, bunk beds are a good option. You could also go for Hind's bed which can be folded into half and bolted. However, before purchasing any bed, check if the bed fits properly into your bedroom.

Use plain-colored bed sheets for your beds and as far as possible choose light pastel shades. This will give the room a more spacious feel. Moreover, limit the sheets to a single design pattern, as mix and match colors make the room look crowded. While making the bed, let the folds of the bed cover flow down on all sides of the bed. This will help the room look longer. As far as the curtains are concerned, small bedrooms should once again have light-colored curtains. If you purchase curtains the same color of the walls, the room will look more spacious, or else you can purchase any light shade. Choose curtain holders that are of the same shade of the walls. The material of the curtain should be light and airy, which will permit light to enter the room during the day. Try to avoid heavy curtains in small bedrooms as they give the room a crowded feeling. Moreover, thick curtains will not permit the entry of light, thereby making the room look darker during the day.

For small bedrooms, storage becomes quite an issue. Since there is no space to build cabinets for storage, one will have to find more innovative ways to store things. One innovative storage idea is bed storage. When you buy your bed, you could get the bed storage cabinets as well. Most of the platform beds come with bed storage cabinets and drawers. However, make sure you have enough room space to pull the drawers out. All your seasonal clothing can be packed into these bed drawers, so that you won't have to open the drawers frequently. As for storing clothes in the wardrobe, make sure that the wardrobe touches the ceiling, so that no space is wasted. Organize the clothes in your wardrobe well, such that the space is utilized efficiently. If possible buy small vinyl storage bags and store sorted clothes in them. This reduces the speed with which the closet gets cluttered. Color coding the bags will help you find clothes more easily. Avoid free-standing wardrobes which do not blend into the room. Build the wardrobe into the walls (if it's possible), using up all the space.

Purchasing the right kind of furniture for a small bedroom is crucial, because the furniture purchased can either make or break the look of a room. Because the room is small, it is important to remember bulky furniture, no matter how gorgeous it looks, will just make the room look cluttered. So, while considering furniture for the bedroom, it is important for one to purchase smaller pieces of furniture. Then again, it is important to remember not to fill the room with lots of tiny pieces of furniture. This will again give a cluttered look. Thus, it is important to purchase few pieces of furniture, whose size is in proportion to the size of the bedroom, so that it will balance the look of the room. In case of wall cabinets, avoid floor to ceiling cabinets because they make the room look crowded and congested. Moreover, while purchasing furniture, try to choose one color for all the pieces, as this will give a more uniform look to the room. Avoid furniture that take up too much floor space and try to put up as much as you can on the walls.

Now, if place is such a constraint in small bedrooms, where does one place one's showpieces, picture frames, trophies and other souvenirs. No, you don't have to put them away, because there's no space for bedside tables. Get floating shelves, which are in fashion today. They not only add to the stylish look of the room, but also contribute to storage space. These shelves come in all kinds of shapes and sizes and are quite inexpensive. Buy shelves that will go with your wall color and furniture. The size should not be too large, such that it occupies the whole wall. The floating shelf should enhance the look of the room, not clutter it. Nevertheless, floating shelves do have their cons as well. Things placed on floating shelves collect dust easily and have to be dusted regularly. Moreover, one can hit one's head or shoulders on such floating shelves, if they are placed low. So think this through, find a suitable set of floating shelves and place them at an appropriate place in your bedroom.

Usually the front portion of the wardrobes are plain and empty. What you could do is have a wardrobe designed in such a way, that on either sides are cupboards for storing clothes and in the center is another unit resembling the two cupboards on its side. Construct this centerpiece in such a way that it consists of a storage space at the top, a drawer in the mid section and a trolley chair at the bottom which can be pulled out and pushed in. The space above can serve as a dressing table. All your cosmetics can be placed inside it. The chair can be pulled out when needed. In fact, to optimize the space, have the chair built as a hollow box, in which you can store things. Have a wooden lid for it with a cushion on top. So you have your wardrobe, dressing table and storage space, all in one. You could also place large mirrors on the doors of the wardrobe. While getting the closets or wardrobes done, have sliding panels, instead of doors that open outwards. This way, the wardrobe will use less space in the room.

Placing the television in the bedroom is not such a good idea in the first place. Several studies that have been conducted on sleep disorders, state that placing the television in the bedroom affects sleep patterns. Moreover, placing television sets in children's bedrooms is seen to have a link to child obesity. Thus, it is always better to place the television in the living room. Nevertheless, if you still wish to place one in your bedroom, try avoiding the box televisions. Bulky box televisions take up a lot of space and give a very bulky feel to the room. Moreover, they are almost outdated now. It is best to get a flat screen television which can be mounted on the wall. Since it is flat and sleek, it doesn't rob the bedroom of space and also gives the room a sophisticated look. But if you have a box television and don't wish to go in for a new one, you could mount it at a corner of the wall, in such a way that you can watch television while lying on the bed.

It's best not to place picture collages on the walls in small bedrooms, as this will make the room look smaller. Opt for a lovely picture frame and place it on the wall. Single, large frames are better than several tiny frames put together. Moreover, buy picture frames with simple and elegant frames, as too fancy and decorative ones will again give the room a crowded look. Make sure the color of the frames go well with the rest of the bedroom décor, or else this small addition can mess up the room. You can also get a picture of your family enlarged and framed on the wall. This will be a good option instead of a collage of several small frames. Or else you can have a picture collage made and then have it framed, so in one frame, you can have a look at all those wonderful times you spent with your family. If you do not wish to place a frame on your wall, then you can opt for wall stickers, which also give fantastic finish to the room. However, go for subtle designs as elaborate ones can cause the room to look cluttered.

Mirrors when placed on the walls, add an illusion of more space in the room. Usually offices, salons, dentist's clinics, etc. make use of this strategy to give a more spacious look to their offices. One can adopt the same concept inside the bedroom as well. Instead of placing a frame on the wall, you can place a large decorative mirror. However, make sure the mirror is facing the opposite side of the light source, as this will maximize the amount of light reflected in the bedroom, thereby making the room look spacious. Instead of one large, decorative mirror you could also have a few, small decorative mirrors mounted on the wall. Try any shape you like and make a mirror collage of your own on the wall. This will accentuate the spacious feel of the room. Nevertheless, while choosing mirrors for small bedrooms, choose simple, sleek mirror frames because decorative frames will give a crowded look to the room. If you don't want to hang a mirror on the wall, you could also have a large mirror on the wardrobe.

Room corners are often considered as useless and thus, neglected. However, if utilized properly, room corners can accentuate the look of the room. Moreover, they can be solutions to lack of storage space for books and other article. There are several kinds of room corner shelves available. There's the wood, metal and glass variety. Glass shelves, being transparent give the room a more spacious look. However, since glass cannot handle weight like wood or metal, be careful what you place on it. You also get wood corner stands that can be readily placed in the corner of the room. These are great for storing books. Metal corner shelves can also be used to place potted plants. Corner shelves can be placed at any corner and can be easily moved from one corner to another. Thus, corner shelves are effective ways to use room corners. Nevertheless, when you choose a corner shelf try to choose a simple one, with thin frames, as this will increase the visual appeal.