Before and after: a bedroom for three, a living room for six
This week, we invite you to visit Justina, a single mother who shares a two-room social apartment with her five children. She gave one room to the boys and settled herself with two daughters Rugilė and Beata in another room, the more spacious one. The latter got into makeovers by our interior designer Rūta.
Before the renovation
Although the room was spacious, sharing this space for three wasn’t as comfortable as it could be. The pieces furniture donated by other people did not match with each other, there was a great lack of storage space, cosiness, and privacy. Interior designer Rūta faced a challenging task: to equip two bedrooms in one room (one for the mother and one for her daughters), to create a work and hobby corner for Beata who likes painting, and to leave space for the whole family to gather.
Check the result
To create private spaces for both the mother and girls, Rūta divided their room into two separate areas. An open ELVARLI shelving system serves not only for storage, but also as a room partition that can be decorated with plants or other lovely details. On one side of the shelf, the interior designer set up a separate bedroom for Justina, and on the other side works as a bedroom-living-study-room for sisters. The eldest daughter Rugilė studies in another city and rarely returns home, so most of the time Beata will be able to reign here on her own: studying, doing homework, painting, relaxing, or inviting friends.
“The ELVARLI shelving system can be attached to the ceiling, so it will be very useful in a room with no free walls left or if a window prevents you from having a standard shelving unit. When installed as a room partition, such an open storage combination is convenient to use on both sides and can be upgraded as needed by adding drawers, clothes rails, shoe racks, and more.”
Rūta Gajauskaitė, IKEA interior designer
Two bedrooms in one
There are now two separate bedrooms in the room meant for Justina and for her girls. In the mother's bedroom, there is a single bed with slightly more generous dimensions than usual. It is 120 cm wide and makes it comfortable to both sleep alone and spend cosy evenings with the children.
For the girls and their guests, the interior designer chose a FYRESDAL day-bed that can be used as a free standing sofa, a single bed for one of the sisters, or a double bed for both, which is relevant when the older sister returns home. Under the day-bed, there is enough room for STUK storage boxes and extra bedding.
More storage space
One of the biggest challenges in this room was the lack of storage space. The family only had a small chest of drawers to store everything from clothes to bedding to personal belongings. After the makeover, this room features a row of open shelves, several solitaire wardrobes and a couple of BRIMNES chests of drawers. Now it will be much easier to find space for every little thing.
Proper lighting plays a significant role at home. We have used the HEMMA triple cord set to hang individual lamps in the most suitable places of the room, without changing the location of electrical inputs. The length of each cord can be adjusted individually: the set allows hanging each lamp higher or lower, placing them further from or closer to the centre point.
Another room?
Interior designer Rūta did a good turn in the family’s balcony too. She set up a cosy lounge area and decorated it with lighting chains. It’s now a great place for the whole family to spend evenings together or to have some privacy when needed. The balcony is furnished with TÄRNÖ foldable table and chairs and features a sturdy HYLLIS shelving unit that can easily be transformed into a greenhouse for herbs due to its transparent cover.