6 Considerations for Your Loft Conversion
A lofted bedroom offers excellent use of space, whether you’re saving space or showcasing a room’s architecture. Plus, there’s nothing like a cozy nook above the main living space for a place to rest your head at night. Although making the most of this limited space can be challenging in terms of design, getting the look right will definitely pay off.
Here are a few ideas and considerations to think about when planning your loft conversion.
- Ditch the Box Springs
When designing a loft space to use as a guest room, you’ll often be working in a smaller area than the rest of the house. Using every space to your advantage is important; that includes on and under the bed. You might be asking yourself, what is a bunk board? Basically, it’s a board that replaces your bed’s box springs, and it can save a ton of space. Ditching the box springs for a bunk board opens up options for under-bed storage and reduces the vertical space used in your loft. This is especially helpful if your loft has lower or slanted ceilings.
- Use Light to Your Advantage
Many times you can use light to open up smaller spaces. Adding a skylight to a slanted ceiling will add appeal and a sense of space to an otherwise cramped room. If a skylight isn’t in the budget or configuration, use light-colored or gauzy curtains on the windows to get the same effect.
Although choosing a light color scheme – you can’t go wrong with white – has the power to make a loft feel larger and lighter, it must be balanced out to avoid looking too clinical.
To make the space feel cozy and inviting, try pairing lighter colors with warm woods and the occasional soft furnishing in a darker shade – this is particularly necessary if your loft conversion is being used to create a guest or spare room.
- Decide Where to Put Your Furniture
Long before you begin work on your loft conversion, think about how you want it to look when it’s done. This entails deciding on the placement of furniture, the toilet, and any built-in storage.
If you’re designing an en suite, consider the space’s ceiling height and choose parts that need more headroom, such as the shower and hand basin.
You can be more dramatic in your layout if you have a larger loft bedroom. Keep your bed in the center of the room for maximum visual impact; otherwise, consider breaking up and zoning the bedroom. Rather than pressing anything against the walls, consider a stud wall, such as the one shown above, which will enable you to build an ensuite or wardrobe, and you may even use a tall headboard as a room divider to hide further storage behind it and keep the rest of your room clutter-free.
- Consider Proportion
If you have all of the living space you need downstairs but lack bedrooms and bathrooms, a loft conversion might be the ideal way to make your home more proportionate. The majority of loft conversions are used to add an additional bedroom or two, each with its own bathroom. Teenage dens, cinema rooms, and home offices are all common uses. If your home has spectacular views, you may want to consider relocating some of your living spaces to the new loft to make the most of them.
Awkward proportions and heavy beams don’t have to be a stumbling block when it comes to designing a bathroom for a loft. Showers need a minimum of headroom and easy access, but a freestanding bath can be placed under a low ceiling. With period architecture, simple shapes and a typical color palette work well.
- How About an Office or Playroom?
If you don’t need an extra bedroom in the loft but work from home, a home office could be a nice lost conversion idea for you. A home office needs plenty of natural light to maximize efficiency, so avoid black-out blinds and heavy materials.
Instead, choose pale blinds in calming neutral shades that let light in but minimize glare when closed, enabling you to function efficiently even as the sun sets – as essential for dazzling summer days as it is for shorter days in the winter months.
Lofts also make excellent children’s bedrooms, playrooms, or additional living space for children and adolescents, but they must be kept warm to be used often.
Keep the scheme simple and add personality with soft furnishings and other accessories so that adjustments can be made easily (and affordably) as their preferences change.
There are many options to consider when planning your loft conversion, but with a little attention to detail and imagination, you will be able to create a welcoming space for either your guests or whatever use you have in mind.
