From Storage Room to Kids Bedroom- Sneak Peak Into My House

In our teeny tiny 484 square foot apartment we have 1 bedroom, and one "half bedroom", approximately 9 feet by 6 feet.
Until not so long ago, my husband, Mike, kids, Lee and Ike, and I all co-slept in the big bedroom, but with a little baby on the way, I decided to move the kids to a room of their own. Only the room was a storage room, and it was tiny, and we didn't really have much money to spend to make it into a children's bedroom. But I felt that co-sleeping with 3 would be too squishy, and so, my husband and I decluttered like crazy, reorganized, and decorated (a drop) and turned our storage room into a room for the kids.
In all honesty, the kids start off the night sleeping in their bedroom only about 75% of the time, and of the nights that they start off there, they only stay in their room the whole night about a third of the time... so we still co-sleep for the most part, but this is their room... :-D

In my post, when I wrote about doing that, many people commented, asking to see before and after pics... I hesitated for a while, because we still haven't gotten the room perfect, and I'm a bit self conscious about that.  (And I'm wondering what people will decide to criticize about this room...)The goal is to build a loft bed out of wood, so that the mattresses aren't directly on the floor and we have some more storage room beneath them... I'd also like to paint some of the furniture in there, and decorate the walls some more, but for now, this is what it is. We have a small apartment, and we're making the most of it.
In case you're wondering why we don't go with regular beds or a bunk bed, the ceiling of this room is very, very low, too low for a normal bunk bed to fit, and because the room is so narrow and short, if we used regular beds, there would be no room for more than one, and no room for anything aside from that one bed. Which is why, in case you were wondering why we gave this room to our kids instead of taking it for ourselves- our beds don't fit into this room, otherwise we would use it.

So, with that prelude...

Here's how terribly cluttered and cramped the room looked before.

There was a long low cabinet with doors, piled high with drawers, a dresser filled with and piled high with things, a wicker shelf piled high with things, and a mattress and a chair stuck somewhere in there. (The mattress was standing up until someone would sleep over, when we would lower the mattress onto the floor in the middle of there.)

0 dollars and a few hours later...
Here's what the room looks like now.


Left wall of the room.

The low shelf that used to contain various odds and ends, now with the doors removed and now filled with toys. One plastic set of drawers is still on top, but its secured so it won't fall over, and is filled only with non dangerous items. (The box on top contains my sons' Legos.)

Further back is the wicker bookshelf, also secured. The lowest shelf contains kids books for easy access. The kids' "beds" are mattresses on the floor. Good, comfortable mattresses, one an expensive crib mattress hand me down from my neighbors, and one an adult length, narrow mattress that used to be my husband's until we got a larger new to us mattress for him.
You can't see it, but on the white wall behind the "beds", my kids stuck white glow in the dark solar system stickers that they enjoy seeing when they sleep.

Right wall of the room.

There's a beautiful poster that my mom made for my kids on that wall as well as a mirror and a clock. Mirrors reflect the space back and make a small room look much bigger, especially a room like this without windows. Their clothes are kept in the plastic drawers- we had 2 sets of plastic drawers which we were able to connect together to make 1 taller set of drawers (so it takes up less of the valuable floor space).

You can see a bit of peach colored curtains in the upper left of the picture. This room was stupidly made (along with the rest of the house- the bathroom has the same exact issue)- the room is tiny and the door swings inward, taking up lots of floor space when it opens and closes, making a too small room even smaller. Our solution was to remove the door from its hinges and hang a curtain from the door instead to give our kids some privacy. (As for quiet, this bedroom is upstairs while the rest of the house is downstairs, so fortunately sound isn't an issue even without a sealing door.)

To make this room more user friendly, we took the cabinet that used to be there and removed the door, because doors that swing open require more floor space (and we wouldn't be able to open the doors with the mattresses on the floor). It was a very simple process to just unscrew the doors and the hinges. We took different baskets we had around the house (originally bought from the dollar store) and filled them with the kids' toys. This makes it neater without needing drawers, and be able to put more toys in the shelf. (Not to mention adding a touch of whimsy with the color.)

One day I'd like to paint the toy shelf, but for now its its original color.

Above the shelf, I keep 2 types of food I bought in bulk. One day that'll go under the loft bed, but for now its the ugly thing in the room. Oh well.

Here's a close up of the right side of the toy shelf.

The left side of the toy shelf. Decorated above with a picture of my elder son, Lee, my stuffed animal collection from when I was a kid, which has been passed on to my kids. Oh, and where I store a spare blanket.

In the left side of the shelves, there's a basket of my sons' shoes, some more toys, and replacement filter parts for our water filter.

So, there you have it. That's how we turned our storage room into a kids bedroom, albeit a teeny tiny one.

Not the most spacious or the most elaborate, but cozy, comfy, and fun.

So, what do you think? 

Have you ever repurposed a room in your house? What was it? What did you do?

Any suggestions how to make this room even nicer without spending a lot of money?

Linking up to Frugal Friday