Home idea with IKEA: new beginnings in the upgraded children's room

Lack of childish colours
Although one room in the apartment is dedicated to children, you would never guess it belongs to two little brothers. There is no colourful furniture or accessories that you would expect in the children's room. Dark-coloured wallpapers and a wardrobe that blocks the window are more relevant to grandmother's living room. All toys, books and drawings, as well as the kids themselves, are more likely to stay in parents' bedroom.

Kids grow faster than furniture
The chest of 5 drawers dating back to when the children were young, serves for a wardrobe. Formerly it was roomy enough to store all brothers' clothes, yet now their school uniforms can more often be found hanging on the door handle.
Other stuff shares space with parents' clothes, family albums and books in the old-fashioned storage combination, or goes to storage boxes on the floor. This often causes quarrels at home: none of the brothers wants to tidy up their room, because there is simply no place to put their toys neatly.

Sharing a desk with brother and flowerpots
The fourth-grader Karolis and first-former Darius share one desk and do their homework in rotation. They cannot study together, as the majority of their desk top is occupied by a computer and their mother's potted plants. Studying would be much easier, if the brothers had more space for schoolbooks and learning tools, as well as posture-improving, child-friendly chairs.

It's time to change
Although the room is quite large (16 square meters), it is oblong and makes furnishing a bit complicated. "I wanted to plan two separate areas for both children, without making the room look even longer," explains Vaiva. To stop brothers from fighting, now each of them has their own place for play, rest and storage. Even more, every piece of furniture in brothers' room is marked using their favourite colours: green for Karolis and blue for Darius.

For homework and more
By combining two MICKE desks (one with a longer table top and drawers for Karolis, and a compact one for Darius), Vaiva designed a comfortable workspot for both brothers. She also added two height adjustable ÖRFJÄLL children's desk chairs, a drawer unit on castors, and TROFAST wall storage over the desks. The BOLMEN step stool helps reaching the shelves easier.

Rethinking the walls
To make the most of the walls, Vaiva hung SKÅDIS pegboards with accessories above desks and next to the door. Now, there is enough space for backpacks, sportswear bags, water bottles, keys and other stuff the boys need when preparing for school. With every little thing in just one place, there is no need to look for everything in the morning while still rubbing the eyes.

"This height of the shelves is convenient now and can remain later,
when the boys grow up. I wanted the lasting interior that
will not become too childish even after several years."

Green is mine, blue is yours
Our interior designer chose paintable wallpapers to bring in some colours and divide the room into separate areas. The side of the room that belongs to Karolis is now green, and the Darius' side comes in light blue. The same two colours are also used to mark the FRITIDS/STUVA wardrobes, other cabinets, drawers and shelves.

Enough room for guests, play and rest
When two kids are sharing their room, a bunk bed or a bed frame with underbed are both great solutions. No matter which of them you will choose, both help save the floor space and leave more room for studying, playing and having fun. As the parents of Karolis and Darius were against bunk beds, Vaiva planned the room with two flexible SLÄKT bed frames with boxes on castors and pouffes underneath. Both can be used for storage or as side tables when playing checkers or chess (these are two favourite games of the little brothers).

Making beds on their own
As this children's room also serves for a living room, the multifunctional SLÄKT furniture, besides their main function, can be used as coffee tables or additional seating. To keep the room neat and tidy for any time guests come, the boys are taught to start every day by making their beds, which means they need a place to store the beddings. Our interior designer suggested using one of the STUVA drawers. It is deep enough and the castors make it easier to pull out and push in again. When making the bed is an easy game, there is much more motivation to do that!