Published on October 5th, 2017 | by Guest

The Best Built-Ins for Your Bedroom

One of the most common complaints individuals have about their living space is a lack of storage rooms. This is particularly true for bedrooms, rooms where we try to strike a careful balance. Our bedrooms are our most personal spaces and they are the places where many of us strive to put our personalities at the heart of our decorating efforts. With all our most treasured items and heirlooms to cram in, alongside the obligatory displays of books and pieces of art, there is sometimes barely room to fit the bed itself!

One of the most popular and elegant solutions to this problem is to invest in some ‘built-ins’. Built-ins refers to pieces of furniture, particularly beds, that have extra storage space, and sometimes other features, built-in. The best built-ins are those which offer the most extra storage space with the least impact on the aesthetics of the furniture itself. For those with some DIY talents, every surface, no matter how small or awkwardly shaped, can be transformed into storage space. If you thought that your room already contained as much as was physically possible, then read on to find some new, creative ways of maximising your bedroom’s storage potential.

Under the Bed

Many of us have beds that are sufficiently raised off the ground so as to allow us to use the space underneath as additional storage space. Although many of us take advantage of this, surprisingly few of us are using the extra space we gain efficiently or effectively. In flat rooms, consider whether you can raise the bed further off the floor, either through modifying the frame, or by creating an artificial levelling effect. If you have enough space under the bed you could construct, or slot in, a set of drawers to use. If you’re feeling very adventurous and want to test your DIY skills to the limit, then you could try constructing a platform, including stairs to access the bed, and building storage, in the form of either draws or cupboards, into the base.

Utilising the space under your bed doesn’t have to be nearly as elaborate as in the above example. Beds that have a lower ground clearance do a better job of obscuring whatever is underneath, as such you can get away with using some simple, cheap containers to store clothes or other items and slide these out of sight under the bed.

The Tardis Effect

Just like Doctor Who’s spatially flexible police telephone box, by being smart with the design of your bedroom you can give even the smallest of rooms a good deal more space. Shelves are useful for creating some extra storage higher up, but lower down they end up cutting into the precious little space available. Similarly, you will need to choose cupboards and drawers with the smallest handles available, this way you can make every single inch of space count.

If the room is small but tall you could consider using similar tactics to those described above in order to maximise your usage of under the bed storage. If, however, height isn’t on your side, then it’s time to get creative! One popular solution for small rooms is to build a cupboard on either side of the bed, around the height of a bedside table, and then a larger cupboard on top of it. By raising the second cupboard, you can create a shelf effect, thus ending up with a bedside table and two cupboards all rolled into one. Now that’s efficiency!

Hide the Bed

With many more young people and first time renters than ever now looking to buy, there is a lot of competition for available properties. An increasing number of savvy landlords are therefore now taking advantage of the possibilities opened by a bed that can be folded away during the day. While these designs have traditionally been seen as a mark of a ‘cheap’ or downmarket property, these connotations are rapidly evaporating. Practical concerns are now at the forefront of most young people’s minds when selecting a property to live in, and the fold away bed has led to an increase in the number of smaller, affordable properties available to those without the means to invest in anything more luxurious.

This was my major takeaway from the conversation I had with Euchar Vella, the Director and Founder of Karkanja property investment; that designs and ideas like the fold away bed that have been derided and subsequently discarded in the past can experience a resurgence. When looking for ways to maximise the amount of storage available in a room, our design choices should be based on considerations regarding both the practicality of a design and the amount of space gained versus the amount of space lost. Every additional piece of furniture represents a trade-off, and our goal is to gain as much space as we can while conceding as little as possible.

Shoes, Glorious Shoes

For those who are far too proud of their extensive footwear collection to ever seriously consider parting with it, shoes represent one of the more complex storage challenges. After all, despite how one may perceive it from the outside, most shoe lovers aren’t hoarders; they want the right shoe for any given occasion available. It is therefore important that shoe storage takes accessibility into account, in order for the owner to be able to take advantage of the variety in their collection they need to be able to browse and access their shoes easily. Building some shallow cupboards in any remaining space and making use of shelving within allows for efficient storage and is easy to browse quickly.

Built-ins are rapidly asserting themselves as both essential to meeting our increasing storage demands while simultaneously watching average property sizes shrink. When used efficiently and effectively built-ins can dramatically increase the amount of space available for storage and, subsequently, free up more space for decorations and art.

Author Bio:

Elena is our resident design guru at Karkanja Malta. She enjoys reading up on the latest fashion and design trends and blogging about them.

Tags: bedroom, best, built ins, home improvement