To make a child's bedroom feel larger and function better, opt for a bed with storage drawers, shelves or a guest bed beneath it so that there is no dead space under the bed. This funky four-poster bed from Cuckooland is available with a storage drawer and is height adjustable, so it will literally grow with your child.

Whether your child is a toddler or a teen, a table top in the room will be invaluable at every stage in their childhood. It can first serve as a nappy changing station and later on become a desk and maybe even a dressing table, just make sure it comes with storage. Lift up the top of this  Nidi Secret Desk and reveal a host of storage compartments and even a mirror – it looks great open or closed.

When space is tight, you need to make the most of every little bit of it. Alcoves, window sills, nooks and crannies, make it all work hard. Here the dead space above the bed has been filled with modular shelving, which is fixed to the wall. And, being able to see a little under the bedside table and bed as here, also helps to make a child's bedroom feel larger.

You might not have a great deal of wall area to play with in your child's bedroom, but you want to make sure that what you do have, that isn't covered by a bed or furniture, is made to work hard. To make a child's bedroom feel larger, use the walls for storage hooks and shelving. This Umbra concealed books shelf makes books appear to float along a wall, injecting a little piece of fun into any scheme.

While you can cram the walls and sides of your child's bedroom with storage, a bed and a desk, keep the central floor area clear. Not only will this ensure that the room looks and feels more spacious, it will also give little kids room for imaginary play with their toys. While older kids can have a space to hang out with friends.
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By employing these five ways to make a child's bedroom more spacious, you will ensure that your kids have more space to work rest and play! Please post the results in the comments! 
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25 ways you can make your small home function better

What age can a child sleep on a top bunk? This bunk bed buyer's guide answers this and your other pressing bunk bed questions
What age can a child sleep on a top bunk? This is a frequent desperate question to come from parents who live in small homes where their kids have no option, but to share a small bedroom. When your family is growing and your property isn't, bunk beds are the ideal solution for freeing up space in your children's bedroom. ​​​

Let's answer that most pressing question first? At what age can a child sleep on a top bunk? A child should be six-years-old or older to sleep up high on the top bunk. If your child is a bit of a dare devil and might be tempted to jump off instead of taking the ladder or stairs, hold off until they are a bit older than this.

Bunk bed safety features
To keep your little one's extra safe in their bunk beds, look for one with a high safety rail. If your kids are on the younger side consider a model that is specifically made with little kids in mind.
​This Oliver Furniture Wood Mini+ Low bunk bed from Nubie is especially designed for children under nine-years-old. Slightly lower and shorter than a standard bunk, your under six-year-old can take the lower bunk and your under ten-year-old the top bunk. Also, note that a sloping ladder, as shown below, is easier for a younger child to climb than one that is flat to the side of the bunk. This will take up more precious space in your room though.

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​The Flick Triple bunk, shown above, can even cater for three! It's perfect for sleep overs, a space short three-child family or even a whole family living in a one bedroom apartment. 

Look for a bunk bed that splits into two singles
A bunk bed that splits into two single beds, such as the one shown above, will have a much longer life span than one that doesn't. If you move house or extend to create an extra bedroom you don't have to go to the expense of buying an extra bed, you just split the bunk bed in two. 
Space for a trundle bed tucked beneath the bunk bed, also shown above, is useful when it comes to sleepovers as well. 

Novelty bunk beds
There are a whole array of fantastic novelty bunk beds on the market. Such as the Adventure Hang Out bed, shown above. Your kids will delight in hanging out here, but they will likely grow out of it before they reach secondary school. It's a fun short-term investment, .but one that should have a reasonable resale value if it's kept in good condition. 

Bunk beds with storage
You can also get some great bunk beds with storage options, which are particularly useful for small rooms. The one shown above incorporates drawers beneath the bottom bunk and a wardrobe and shelving beneath and around the top bunk. A pull-out desk is another useful feature to look for. Just be aware that these storage bunks often have a larger footprint than standard bunks so make sure you have the space to accommodate one before purchasing.

Triple bunk beds are a thing
You can really stack em up with a triple bunk bed. This Flair Furnishings triple bunk bed is from Amazon. Bed linen changing day will be calorie-burning work out with with this one!

Free up play space with a mid sleeper
If you have one child in a small room, free up play space in the room by going for a mid or high sleeper bed with no bottom bunk. This Sydney high sleeper cabin bed  from Vida Designs, is pretty reasonably priced from Amazon. You can stash a whole train track beneath it. 

If you enjoyed this bunk bed buyer's guide, you might want to check out these cool mid-sleepers

Whether you agree with it or not, children are barely out of reception class before they are coming out of school with homework. There is nothing wrong with doing it on the kitchen table, but if you can squeeze in a desk they can call their own they may find it beneficial. Here are some of our favourite children's desks:

If you want a desk that will take your child from finger-painting to algebra, look for a timeless piece that doesn't appear too childlike. 

Even when space is really tight, you may be able to squeeze a drop down desk in that drops down from the wall and can be hidden away again once homework is done..

Or go up with a high sleeper bed with a desk below it. You could als  sneak a little vintage flip-top school desk into a hallway or landing or the corner of the bedroom. 

Read on here for more on high sleepers and here for how to turn even the tiniest corner of your home into a study.

Mid-sleepers or cabin beds as they are sometimes called, tend to not be as high as traditional bunk beds, but they still allow you to free up valuable space beneath the bed.

If your child has a small room and no play space downstairs, raising the bed a few feet off the ground can really grow the area they have within which to play. And, invest in a bed that doubles up as a Wendy House and yours will be the house everyone wants to play at.

Of course that space could also be used for extra storage too. Fill it with a cupboard, a toy box and book cases. 

Or you could even slip a pull out desk and chair under there, perfect for a slightly older child. 

New mums and dads are suckers. I know I was one. But when you only live in a little place, or if you're on a budget you need to distinguish between the necessary; and the nice, but not necessary. 

It's hard because every day something new hits the market that is cleverly advertised to make it appear to be a life changing must have. But you need to train yourself to question every purchase. Ask yourself, each time does this have a use that I couldn't achieve without it?  

Here is a list of things you don't need: 

• A moses basket, crib or any other bed that a baby will have grown out of by the time they can smile. Yes, newborns like to be cosy and wrapped up, but if they are swaddled effectively they won't know whether they are in a cot or a cradle. 

• There are so many ridiculously pointless toys being pushed at us too. People have spent time inventing products for tummy time, for example. Just put baby on her tummy in her cot or on a blanket and stick a rattle just out of her reach, that will give her just as good a work-out as any new fangled exercise contraption.

• I'm not advocating you follow my lead on this last point, because where health and safety is concerned you need to make your own judgements, but I didn't clutter up my worktops with a steriliser either. Breast pump attachments, dummies and bottles were just washed in the dishwasher. 

Have you bought any other products that turned out to be pointless to add to this list?

Sometimes loft beds try too hard, they are over designed and too much is packed into their little footprint. If you're furnishing a box room, a bed that sits atop a wardrobe, a desk, a chest of drawers and a book shelf is great, but if you have a little more space than this, look for a loft bed that is allowed to breathe a little. This Oliver Furniture luxury high loft bed in white and oak from Cuckooland is our favourite loft bed design to date. 

It comes with two cute benches with open shelving beneath, ideal for books and games; and, you can slip a little desk at one end for homework. Positioning the ladder at the side makes the 'ground' floor area so much easier to access and this, together with  the slatted sides, lead the eye further into the room too, which should make the whole area feel bigger. At £1,637 it should be built to last.

Before you buy a raised bed, check out our bunk bed buying guide here. It's full of hints and tips to buying the best bunk bed for your kids and their room

​Fed up with your hallway being cluttered up with bikes and scooters? It's time to stop tripping over those wheels by taking them off of the floor and on to your walls, perhaps even on to the kids' bedroom walls.

This may look like trophy bull sculpture, and indeed it is; but it's also a bike rack. Its colourful plastic outer layer conceals a tough solid steel frame that can be afixed to most masonry, timber and brick walls. When the bike is at home it can masquerade as a piece of modern art hung up on this. When it's out, you are left with a little contemporary sculpture.

Kids' scooters can be taken out of harm's way off the floor too. Scooterpeg will grab hold of the end of the scooter handle and keep it suspended in the air. A bargain at under a tenner too. 

You normally have to choose between one or the other: a bed with a pull out trundle bed beneath to be slid open for sleepovers; or, a bed with storage. Noa & Nani has realised how important both are; and, this one, provides the two options.

The row of drawers on the top are part of a facia that conceals the trundle bed .

The bottom row of drawers is actually three separate storage drawers, perfect for clothes, toys or books. 

​This is the Loki bed, ideal for kids' rooms or guest rooms.

Our favourite mid-sleeper beds

As you know if you've read All the Things You Don't Need For A Newborn, babies don't need as much clobber as you might think if you gorged on baby magazines for an afternoon. But one of the things that is useful, especially if you suffer from backache, is a waist-height, nappy-changing area.

Silver Cross's Soho nursery furniture set includes a patented changer unit. Here it is shown folded away, but this tiny table top pops out and expands into a reasonably roomy changing area. Underneath, there are three deep storage drawers, whilst the wardrobe features adjustable shelving and hanging space, which can grow with your child. It doesn't look like nursery furniture either, so, when baby's ready for school, he or she won't be able to claim it's babyish. There is also a matching Soho cotbed, shown in cot formation here. 

.How to create a room that will grow with your child.

Okay, so this isn't strictly for a kids room, in fact it doesn't really fit in any room, but when my kids were small our buggy spent a lot of time inside the house. Not having a porch or hallway, I'd wheel the baby straight into the kitchen from a walk and leave her there whilst she finished her nap. Now I had a car boot to store it in when not in use, but if you don't, your pushchair has to live with you, which is why this little number is great for those of us pushed for space.

Claiming to be the world's tiniest fold up pushchair, the Baby Zen YoYo 0+,  folds up so small you can fit it into a plane's overhead locker, useful if you travel a lot, but I guess this also means you could stow it in a chest by the front door, at the bottom of a wardrobe or maybe even under the sofa?

It weighs 6kg, which is pretty lightweight for a pushchair. It can take you from birth through to nursery or until your kid tips the scales past 15kg. It's passed the IATA standard for cabin luggage and it costs around £445 with various accessories.