How I Changed an Under Stairs Cupboard into a Calm Room with a Bed on a Budget

What Did it looked like?

There was a door either side, one leading to the living room, one leading to the dinning room. You had to open one door, shuffle into the space to open the next door, if you left both doors open they opened onto the actual under stairs area so you could walk through, but couldn’t get to the space?!

It had been used as a storage area and not updated for several decades. The wallpaper had layers and layers on the wall one which was hand drawn stencils or printed onto paper, may have been an original.

What Did I do?

After stripping the wallpaper with my trusty helper Clayton – his Home Ed journey involves a lot of practical work to keep him busy, he loves these kind of jobs as he sees a finished result, which is very satisfying to him.

I had to scrape some gloss paint off sections of the under stairs wood ceiling section and strip the gloss off the beautiful Oak window sill and surround. Stained some wood panelling before going up and gave the area a good clean before panelling the wall.

I wanted a headboard shelve at the end to have a nightlight or books or plants on. I built the frame put a shelve on and panelled it in. If I had more skills and time on this project I could have made that section into a drawer or cupboard, but there’s always a chance to come back and develop it more.

This was my first project in the house and we had been renting for the last 8yrs so my tools were dusty and my skills rusty 🙂

I then started on the bed frame, I had an old divan bed frame that I used, I thought it was pointless buying more wood to build a wooden frame when this was already done. I built an end frame screwed into the wall and bed frame so it didn’t move and attached slats across the frame.

You can see how wide our stairs are, far bigger than a single bed, but a few inches off a small double. I have yet to get a mattress/foam cut to size, it just has a futon mattress on for now.

Again I would have liked to have a pull out drawer under here for duvet covers etc, but it will be something I come back to for sure!

Once this was done I laid a carpet, an off cut I had. I laid it over the bed area and the floor and finished with some wooden edging. Wallpaper went up and it was coming together.

This is my favourite space to sit, anytime of the day you can curl up with a cuppa, a book, a blog post and relax in the…..Calm Room. A much loved space for the whole family.

I am so glad I used this space for this and not just storage. Both doors are off so you can walk through from living to dinning room freely too.

This blog is from Home. Other related blogs from this area are: