35 Stylish Small Bedroom Ideas That Maximize Every Inch of Space
House Beautiful February 28, 2025
Seller
House Beautiful February 28, 2025
Seller
A small bedroom can present some major design challenges. The space cannot be a restful reprieve if you’re constantly feeling cramped and tripping over your dresser. However, a small bedroom can also be cozy and intimate—all it takes is a mindset shift and a few clever design solutions. You don't need to get rid of all your belongings or embrace extreme minimalism to create a beautiful small bedroom. In fact, we love it when the space bursts with personality.
The best small bedroom ideas prioritize making the space feel larger, and you can do this through clever optical illusions like using mirrors, opting for smaller art pieces, or painting the ceiling to draw the eye upward. Lighter paint colors, like whites and blues, can brighten a small bedroom and help it appear bigger. It's also a good idea to limit clutter where you can—use closed storage rather than open shelves or cubbies to keep messiness out of your sightline.
Even with a compact size and limited square footage, your small bedroom can still feel like a serene sanctuary. Whether you’re at a loss trying to figure out the right layout or just need a few decor ideas to spark your inspiration, we have you covered. To ease your small bedroom worries, we’ve gathered 35 of the best small bedroom ideas straight from designers.
In a small bedroom, there's often little choice regarding where to place your bed. If it's too close to a window, take advantage of the curtains and wrap them around your bed frame as well to create a cozy and cocooning feel. The design instantly becomes cohesive when the same fabric is used across the entire room.
Small bedroom ideas, especially in a shared apartment or home, have to be multipurpose. Ensure there's room for both gathering and relaxing by swapping your traditional bed for a daybed. Now, your friends have somewhere to sit and you can easily add a duvet when it's time to hit the hay.
There's not a lot of wall space in a small bedroom, so if you already have plenty of storage, build out a closet alcove to create a serene work-from-home area. Here, shelves and cabinets maintain the closet's functional qualities, but a fun wallpaper and peachy pink paint color liven up a dimly lit space.
An easy optical illusion that can make any small space seem larger is to pattern drench. Cover the entire room in a single print (like the oversized gingham here), and watch your small bedroom idea come to life. Choose tonal bedding and lighting to emphasize and complete the look.
To create the optical illusion of a wider (and larger) space, custom-fit your headboard to span the length of your small bedroom's walls. In this New York City apartment, designer Samantha Ware chose a cheerful pattern to keep the eye moving.
Minimizing visual clutter is the key to a calming small bedroom idea. Take inspiration from design firm Kobel + Co and use smaller-than-standard artwork to keep your bite-sized bedroom walls bare. This helps give the appearance of a larger room.
In a small bedroom, it makes sense to try and save as much floor and tabletop space as possible to make room for necessary accessories or to keep the clutter to a minimum. To add more light to your sanctuary, install wall sconces—like in this room by Ashley Maddox and Hilary Walker—to save space on your nightstand and take a potential floor lamp out of the picture. You’ll still get nice ambient lighting and you won’t have to turn on the big light nearly as much.
Sometimes with a small bedroom idea, you must accept the fact that your bed—if you want one bigger than a twin size—is going to take up all the floor space, and that’s okay. You can still create a stylish room that feels spacious like Noz Nozawa did in her Lake Tahoe home. Opting for a low bed frame makes the ceiling feel higher and creates more room for the statement pendant light to tie the space together.
Nothing beats the elegant look of a canopy bed frame, but if you have a small space, we suggest not hanging any drapery on it and letting it go bare. In this bedroom by Noz Nozawa, the canopy frame still looks chic, but it doesn’t make the room feel too cluttered or heavy with added drapery.
If your house has a few awkward alcoves where you’d like to put a bedroom, don’t give up—work with the space. In this attic bunk room by Martha Mulholland, the designer worked with the pitched roof when putting in the twin-size beds, creating this cool and cozy space that’s perfect for sleepovers.
A small bedroom often comes with a lack of wall space, so if you’re worried that adding shelves will make the room feel crowded or harder to walk around, install them a bit higher than normal for storage that almost feels hidden away. Greg Dutton dreamed of living in this home since childhood, so when he and his wife Liz Dutton, an interior designer, had the opportunity to buy it, they didn’t think for a second about messing with the layout. Instead, they worked with the existing home to make it better fit their needs without compromising the integrity.
Sometimes, you just need to embrace the cozy size. Painting your bedroom walls black or covering them in a dark wallcovering, like Tanner Sammons did in this room, can help make your bedroom feel like a cocoon—perfect for snoozing. It’s also an extremely sophisticated look, so if you want a small bedroom idea that doesn’t feel kitschy, then this is how to do it.
Whether you’re a fan of minimalist style or your small bedroom essentially requires you to embrace the aesthetic, adding wood paneling to your walls is a beautiful way to add dimension and intrigue to your room without relying on added decoration. In this small bedroom idea by White Space Design Group, the wood panels add to the cabin feel of the entire home but also ensure that extra wall decorations are required to make the space feel complete in design.
The drapery you choose for your room is extremely important when considering the heaviness of a space. Thick drapes and extra long curtains can make a small bedroom feel even tinier since they generally take up a lot of mass, but Roman shades—like in this bedroom by Ashley Gilbreath—are ideal for rooms with less square footage. They’re perfectly fit to your windows and they easily fold up, taking up little room while still adding style.
In this earthy bunk room, designer Samantha Struck doubled the use of the stairs leading up to the top bunk by making them drawers. Whether or not you design your small bedroom to be a bunk room, you could find clever ways of putting in storage through other features as well.
When there's no room in your bedroom for both a desk and a storage-friendly nightstand, find a furniture piece that can tackle both tasks. In this North Carolina home by Winsome Interior Design, a pair of drawers on each side of the desk ensure nighttime essentials and workday needs are kept close by.
What to place above your bed is an age-old design quandary in any small bedroom idea. For an alcove bed, like this one designed by the team at Winsome Interior Design, a functional solution is to install built-in shelving to store your books, knick-knacks, and other belongings your small bedroom needs help holding.
A bunk room is a great way to maximize sleeping space with minimal square footage. While we wouldn't recommend this small bedroom idea for adults, it can be a cozy and inviting way for your little ones to share a room on vacation, such as in this adorable space by Kemble Interiors.
Embrace the tight quarters and transform your small bedroom idea into a cocooning sanctuary with a wall texture. Plastered walls in this small bedroom by Katie Hodges instantly create a warm and inviting environment. Include the ceiling for an enveloping look.
Designer Ashley Gilbreath chose a narrow console table instead of a bulky dresser or credenza that would further block this already narrow walkway. This still allows her to drop her jewelry at the end of a long day without sacrificing more space than necessary.
Murals can sometimes overwhelm a space, but in the case of this small bedroom designed by Breeze Giannasio, the jungle-esque bamboo scene cocoons it in color. She carried its hues over to the bedding for a cohesive look.
Blue and red are about as oppositional as it gets on the color wheel, but when paired in graphic patterns, they can breathe boldness into a small space. The trick is to incorporate tones of the colors in other elements of the room (as the Novogratz family did here with the locker-style nightstand) so they don’t feel jarring.
Furniture that has plenty of negative space—think floating pieces or items with tall, narrow legs—is excellent for a small space because it takes up less visual space. Take a note from this small bedroom idea by Lauren Nelson, and use open side tables and a bed frame that sits off the floor if you can.
Mirroring design elements on either side of a room can help make it appear larger because there’s less going on visually. Designer Liz Bonesio achieved this to perfection in this Nashville home’s guest bedroom, where a space-saving shared nightstand by Made Goods separates the two beds.
Other than a mini wall sconce, designer Liz Bonesio kept the gray walls of this bedroom bare for a serene, calming atmosphere. The eclectic headboard and bedding bring all the pattern it needs. Pro tip: If you don’t have space on your nightstand for a table lamp, a wall sconce is a great alternative.
Designer David Kaihoi transformed this one-bedroom apartment into a family home. This little trundle bed tucks right back under the bed when it isn't in use, "first thing in the morning," says Kaihoi. And they use that windowsill as a bedside table.
For most small bedroom ideas, there is no wall space to spare, so don't be afraid to put your bed beneath the window. Vern Vip opted for bold curtains to ensure style and sleep-ins. A Cambria quartz desktop suits the sophisticated mood, but “doesn’t ever require resealing, reconditioning, or polishing,” says Yip. Plus, it doubles the bedroom's use-case as a home office.
To center a headboard on the wall, designer Shawn Henderson closed up a decorative fireplace in this pint-sized but perfect NYC bedroom. A coat of white paint helps the exposed brick wall blend in and feel much less heavy.
Less is more, particularly in a small bedroom idea. Despite a simple, soft color scheme and bare decorating approach, this minimalist bedroom by Studio DIAA projects a strong sense of personal style and easy living. That's thanks to the polished materials and cohesive look.
Designed by Balsamo Antiques and Interior Design, this small bedroom idea proves that even if your space is mostly neutral, you can add character—and coziness—thanks to textures, unique combos, and sculptural silhouettes. This one is also wonderfully dark and moody for late sleep-ins. And don't let a smaller space stop you from choosing larger furniture. This statement four-poster bed takes up most of the room, and that's actually a great thing.
Keep it tailored but unique with fewer, bolder pieces. From the vibrant red bedding to the mod bed frame and graphic lamp, this pied-à-terre bedroom by Anthony Baratta feels crisp and deliberate, but there's still tons of personality packed in. Each piece also nods back to the brilliant abstract painting above the bed.
Brian Patrick Flynn turned this teeny-tiny bedroom into a whole wide world with rich wallpaper, dimensional wall decor, and perfectly proportioned furniture. The pops of red add a fun surprise and encourage us to mix primary colors.
"I wanted to create a bedroom full of personality," designer Jae Joo says of the main bedroom in this Boston row house. With no room for both a dresser and nightstand, she opted for pieces that could do both at once. Though classic and understated, the room brims with character thanks to a shrunken photo gallery, curved furniture, and colorful accents.
In this bedroom by Martyn Lawrence Bullard, the preexisting architectural quirks are played up by a graphic, linear wallpaper that contrasts with the more traditional elements throughout the space. But the most genius element? This bed has drawers underneath for more storage when you're lacking closet space.
Can't fit an accent chair into the corner to pile all your clothes on? Use a slim stool instead—even better if it's foldable so you can tuck it away when not in use. This will the mess to a minimum. Decorated by Shaun Smith, this bedroom is a great example of a bold yet sophisticated style and cohesive pattern play in a tiny space.
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