Loft Beds: An Elegant and Space-Saving Bedroom Solution
Loft beds are almost invariably mentioned in articles aimed at college students as a great way get more space out of tiny dorm rooms. Yet university loft beds are usually rickety, wooden contraptions that shake if anyone so much as touches them. Shouldn’t we leave lofted beds behind after graduation? Not necessarily.
There are several things to consider if you are thinking about adding a loft bed to your home.
- Many loft beds come with bed options larger than twin-sized, so you don’t need to rule out loft beds just because you have a significant other. However, most larger beds will need to be thick and wooden to support the weight of the mattress, so don’t expect a delicate look.
- To get the loft bed you want (especially if you use a mattress larger than a double), you may need to build your own or have a custom one built for you by professional carpenters. Detailed loft bed plans are available online for about $10, and materials will set you back about $200. Professionally-built loft beds will be around $800 for a high-quality wooden loft bed.
- Loft beds can be an excellent way to “create” a bedroom if you are living in a studio-style home without a distinct bedroom. You can even store clothing and other bedroom-related items in the space you have opened up underneath the bed to create a full bedroom unit.
Children love loft beds. If you have multiple children sharing a room, and want to give them their own space without wasting it, you may want to consider a twin-sized (or smaller) loft bed for each of them. Two loft beds free up the same amount of space as a bunk bed, while leaving each child the freedom to hang out under her bed. Children’s loft beds are much more common, and thus cheaper, than their larger-sized adult counterparts.
Creating a loft bed can be a rewarding weekend project for the do-it-yourself people, or a space-saving investment for those who prefer to purchase pre-built models. Some of the most popular loft bed sellers are LoftBedStation.com and MC Woodworks. For more guidance on buying a loft bed, check out this loft bed buying guide.
Read MoreHow to Simplify Life with an Ebook Reader
A few months ago, I purchased a Sony PRS-505 ebook reader
To people who don’t own an ebook reader, it can seem a frivolous purchase. Why on earth would you need an electronic device for reading, for example? My answer to that is simply convenience. You probably own a computer and a television, neither of which you actually need, yet they are a convenience to you. And if you have any size of a book collection at all, I would argue that you could save huge amounts of space by making the switch to an ebook reader.
The next question out of most people’s mouths is then, why didn’t you buy a Kindle
Second, the Kindle reader only reads a proprietary Amazon book format created especially for the Kindle. I support open formats so that readers are not arbitrarily restricted by the limitations of their ebook reader as to what book formats they can purchase and use. The Sony PRS-505 reads the popular open format EPUB and Sony LRF ebook formats, as well as RTF, PDFs, TXT, providing much more versatility when you are looking for a certain book in ebook format.
A final point I should make is that reading on an ebook reader is not like reading on a computer screen, and that is to the good. There is no eyestrain-inducing backlight on ebook readers, for one. For another, the technology behind ebook reader screens produces a screen that looks a lot like – well, paper. It’s really easy to read off of, plus people with poor vision can adjust the font sizes on the reader itself, so in many ways an ebook reader is much easier on your eyes.
If you are comfortable enough with technology to make the switch to an ebook reader, you can open up space in your home previously taken up by bulky books. The Sony ebook reader holds almost 200 books easily, plus you can buy additional memory cards for the ebook reader. For travelers, ebooks readers can save you money on airline fees by weighing less than one traditional hardback book.
Though there will always be some books I prefer to read in traditional paper format, I have definitely enjoyed the convenience and portability of having my favorite books with me all the time, whether I’m flying, traveling, or just stuck in a line somewhere.
If you want more information, I have written a full, feature-by-feature comparison of the Kindle 2 and the Sony 505 ebook readers.
Read MoreDivide Up Your Space, Japanese – Style
In general, adding more walls to an already small space makes the entire place feel smaller. Sometimes, though, you need to give an area of your apartment or condo the feel of its own room – but only temporarily. Perhaps a niece is coming to visit and you want to give the child her own bedroom, or you have friends coming from out of town and they’ve asked to spend a couple nights with you. You might benefit from a room divider if you’re working on a project of some sort, whether it be a sewing, craft, or home renovation task that doesn’t look very pretty right now, but can be effectively contained in its own area of your home. Enter Japanese screens, stylish solutions for creating a distinct-feeling room in an otherwise open space.
Japanese designers already do many things right (we’ll discuss more feng shui approaches in another post), but Japanese screens are one of my favorites. If you place a light source behind them, they admit a warm, soft glow to the rest of the room, which makes the space appear larger and more airy. The screens are not just functional; they are stylish and classy in and of themselves. With a fan-like shape, they take up very little room when folded up, and can easily be stored flat and upright in the back of a closet. They may be more expensive than a more typical (but ugly) room divider or a curtain on a rod, but you can bring them with you to your next home when you move. The aptly-named Room Divider Store has a website with hundreds of Japanese-style screen dividers that you can purchase online, if you are so inclined. They’re also just nice to look at and to get some ideas for your future room designs!
Organizing with the IKEA Expedit
A few months ago, I splurged on a piece of very nice furniture for my apartment. It’s called the Expedit, and it is sold by Swedish retail chain IKEA. In case you have never been to an IKEA store (they are scattered all over the US, but only in some of the biggest cities), they are truly an experience. They are huge, multi-story, warehouse-style buildings with massive amounts of home furnishings. At my local store, you go to the second floor first, where they have complete rooms and even apartment-sized areas laid out, with the square footage, so you know if it would work in your own apartment. There, they have all their furniture, furnishings, and decorations set up in such a way that you can see how a complete room would look. It really helps to be able to see all the packaged furniture assembled, so you know how big and how much space your furniture will take up.
Back to the Expedit. The way that Ikea can offer functional, attractive furniture so cheap is that they specialize in modular compunents that they can mass produce, package flat in boxes, and through in the warehouse area right before the checkout on the first floor. You will have to grab a big dolly and do some searching for it, not to mention spending a half-hour or so to put it together, and the Expedit is no exception. However, for $90, you can have the two-by-four, a great-looking piece of furniture in your living room or office, and for $160, the big four-by-four.
You probably aren’t able to have a traditional bookshelf in your home if you are pressed for space, because you shouldn’t be storing that many books in one place in the first place. That’s what libraries, the Internet, audiobooks, and half-priced buy, sell, and trade, bookstores are for (But that’s a different post.). On a storage system like the Expedit, however, the depth and height are greater than the traditional bookshelf, and you can store pretty much anything that you need constant access to. In my own apartment, I have books filling two of the cubes, a lamp in one, games and puzzles in another, and reference books in another.
There has become somewhat of a cult following surrounding the Expedit, and for good cause. If you want to see more pictures of the IKEA Expedit in action, visit the Expedit Group Pool on Flickr.com for over 250 action shots by users. If you want to find some more creative uses for your Expedit (or any IKEA product), visit the ikea hacker blog. Good luck with your Expedit!
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