A teenager’s room to be proud of!

People not only struggle to plan tiny rooms and to squeeze in every necessary function, but also to fill a larger space with purposeful furniture and homey feel can bring up challenges too.

A lovely mother reached out to me to assist her in helping to figure out the layout for her son’s 25sqm room. Until now the two siblings have been living together in the room, but as the sister decided to move to a different room, the aim became to create a fully functional aesthetically pleasing living space for her son by creating a cosy sleeping area and a living zone where he can feel well.

I was requested to consider the following expectations.

• Improve the feel of the room, so that he feels well in it as he spends the most of his time here.

• He is a LEGO affectionate, he enjoys playing LEGO and is proud of his collection and his treasures should be displayed but also organized.

• The focal point of the room was a large black TV, which he used to play video games and the furnishing should demotivate him to play and rather motivate him to read!

• Optimize furnishing and find a place for clothes, books, toys, school materials and store the LEGO boxes.

• I also had a list of the furniture that they wanted to keep.

The spacious room has 25sqms, one wide 2 meter long window, a full glass balcony door and two entry doors of which only one is in use. I immediately fell for the properties of the room, really a gorgeous place to work with!

Whenever you decide to redo a room in your home, I highly suggest you start with meticulous decluttering. If you get rid of all the things that are not used for months, for a year you will see that you have more storage space than you thought!

The second step to be considered is the wall color, as that is the largest impact surface in each room, you see it no matter what and therefore its color makes a huge difference in the feel of the room! I know that many new homes come with white as that is simple, neutral and provides the perfect white canvas but when you already have a feel, a function and a person living there, it is time to personalize the ambience. Besides the wall colors, lights, curtains and rugs serve the purpose.

I decided to go with the layout you see because of the following reasons.

Let’s start by the balcony door. The daybed was already given, I placed it here to create the perfect light and bright reading nook, with several pillows and placed a floor lamp next to it so that it invites him to spend time here and read. We usually don’t place shelves above the bed to avoid the feeling of insecurity but as he won’t sleep here I suggested adding a long floating shelf to display a few LEGO treasures. The storage of the bed will be put in use to store LEGO boxes.

Next to the door you see the big black screen, this is the most awkward and most unprotected place in the room, that is why I placed it here. He wanted to keep the red - I think Kallax - shelf which is brilliant as a pop of a color and handy to place the TV on it. The rest of this wall is dedicated to store clothes, books and miscellaneous items. I highly suggest to everyone to use the top of the wardrobes to store in well organized boxes things that are rarely or almost never used, so that they don’t take place away elsewhere. He was not happy about having a white wardrobe; he prefers wood furniture. As the walls are currently painted white, white furniture has a hospital feeling, white furniture can pop if the walls have a color. For now I suggested not to change the wardrobe and see whether he likes it after painting. This lucky teenager is about to receive his first grown up double bed that also has storage opportunities under it! Next comes the white writing desk, which is optimal as it has plenty of legspace, on its left there is a lockable drawer for school stuff and he can put his bag on the top of it. It is also important that he can see from here the entry door, the balcony door and have a view through the window, that means he has the place for his thoughts and for his creativity. This is the master position in this room, when we see it through Feng Shui glasses.

We have arrived at the focal point of this room, to the display cabinet, this is what you see immediately when you open the door. The best use for this teen is to place his LEGO’s display cabinet here to show his creativity and his passion right away! The no see through part of this display cabinet can hide even more LEGO boxes and is close to the daybed too. The large rug defines his living room for the daytime activities and provides comfort at the time, complementing the curtains and the warm but light and bright wall color that replaces the starting point’s cold-cool white.

There are many more tiny little details to consider when we design a room, however

I hope you still could find a few useful hints and tips in these lines.

Do you have a makeover in mind and want help?

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