7 tricks to plan, organise and transform a small room

Before choosing furniture, write down what the room has to do. In a child's bedroom, for example: sleep, store clothes, study and put toys away. Each use needs a zone and a piece. Whatever is not on the list stays out.

In a bedroom, the list almost always ends with the bed, the wardrobe and a surface. Bedside tables can give way to open niches in the furniture around the bed.

Many colours in the same space add up to a lot of information, and a small room feels full before it has any furniture. Choose 2 or 3 tones and repeat them on the walls, the furniture and the fabrics. Light, neutral tones reflect more light and make the room look bigger. The accent colour comes in small amounts, on a cushion or a rug.

To split colours in proportion, see the guide The 60-30-10 rule.

Daylight does more than anything else to open up a small room. Do not place tall furniture in front of the window; put a desk or a low bed there instead. Hang the curtain rail about 15 cm above the window and wider than the opening, so that the curtain, when open, sits clear of the glass.

In a small room, the walls have more free area than the floor. Use them: a wardrobe up to the ceiling, wall cabinets above the desk, niches above the headboard. The highest storage holds what is rarely used; the lowest, what is used every day.

There is space under the bed too: a bed with drawers or a Lift-up Base holds bed linen and out-of-season clothes.

When the floor is not enough for everything, combine uses in the same piece. A desk inside the wardrobe disappears when the doors are closed. A raised bed frees the floor underneath for studying or playing. A bench with drawers is both a seat and storage: the STRATA has 2 drawers and a tray.

Sloping ceilings, pillars and recesses are often left empty, because no catalogue piece has their shape. Made-to-measure furniture is designed for that shape and uses those centimetres: a wardrobe that follows the slope of the ceiling, a desk in a recess, shelves around a pillar.

To measure a room before designing, see the guide How to decorate a small bedroom.

A mirror extends the room and returns the light. Placed opposite or beside the window, it takes daylight further. In a small bedroom, the wardrobe doors can be the mirror. More ways to make a room look bigger are in the guide Small room, bigger home, and those for the bedroom only in the guide 9 tips for decorating a small bedroom.