Are you looking for new bedroom furniture but don’t know where to start?
Do you have an odd-shaped bedroom that you’re struggling to work out whether your furniture will fit?
Well, help is at hand!
In this article, we explain everything you need to know about bedroom measurements and what you can realistically fit into it without making it too cramped.
It’s not only the size of the room that’s important here, though. Most bedrooms are located upstairs and it’s important to consider how any furniture will navigate successfully through doorways, stairs and awkward corners.
Legal requirements
There are some Legals around the size of bedrooms, which you need to be aware of.
For a bedroom to be legally habitable, it must be more than 7’ x 10’ (2.13m x 3.05m) and the ceiling height must be more than 7’6 (2.28m)
If the dimensions of your intended bedroom are less than this, then you really should reconsider its function, as it is illegal to use it as a bedroom.
It would be awful to kit the room out as a bedroom only to find that you if you want to sell the property, it may be classed as a 2 bed rather than a 3 bed house.
Now that you’re confident that your bedroom dimensions are above the legal requirements, you need to consider the furniture you need in the room.
Perhaps you want a super king size bed, a wardrobe, bedside tables, a dressing table, a full length mirror and an armchair. Nice to have, but you need to think about how much floor space you’ll have when all of these items are placed within it.
As a general rule, you need 2’ minimum space around the bed. This is for ease of getting around it in comfort. A note though – if you’re thinking about a divan bed, you’ll probably need extra space because of the drawer pull out space requirement.
Measure the bed frame itself, not the mattress. Some beds have bigger frames than the mattress they accommodate!
Here’s a quick guide to the room size needed to house different sizes of beds:
Bed size Room size needed
Single 7’ x 7’
Small Double 9’ x 9’
Double 9’ x 9.6’
King 9.6’ x 10’
Super King 9.6’ x 11’6
So, from these measurements, you can decide what size of bed is most practical and suitable for your bedroom space.
Space saving
If you’re really intent on having a super king sized bed but only have room for a double, then it stands to reason that you’ll have to scale back on other furniture items in your bedroom.
If this is the case, then we would recommend thinking carefully about storage space.
Wardrobes can be a godsend when it comes to extra storage in a bedroom. With modern, modular designs, you can pretty much design the space within it.
You can incorporate drawers, cut back on hanging space or design it around other important storage areas.
For instance, you could halve the hanging space, insert a 4 drawer chest, add some shelves and narrow pull out trays for placing jewellery, belts or other accessories.
If you’re limited for space, we would recommend that you buy the largest wardrobe you can but organise it to incorporate all other storage solutions as well. This will drop the need for free-standing chests of drawers, which will take up a lot of floor space.
Floor mirrors can be eliminated by using your wardrobe doors as full length mirrors too.
Sizing up
Once you’ve decided on your bedroom furniture and that it fits in your bedroom without being cramped, you need to make sure that it’s able to fit through your home and up the stairs to its final destination! You really don’t want your new wardrobe or brand spanking new bed to be stuck in the front door or not be able to get through any internal doors!
Summary
So, now you know what the legal requirements are to ensure that your bedroom space is adequate and you know the dimensions you have to work with, you can then make informed choices about the furniture you can realistically fit into your space to make a comfortable sanctuary away from the rest of the family!
We hope this has given you a starting point when designing your new bedroom space, proper bed size and wardrobe storage space.
