ᐅ Children’s and Bedrooms – What Sizes Are Recommended?

Eldea schrieb:
My priority is not that the children leave the house quickly, but that they receive a good education.

Do you see a contradiction here? So, no good education is possible if they leave “early”? Although I wouldn’t consider 19 or 20 particularly early. Or did I misunderstand the contradiction?

@Nordlys Bedrooms smaller than 15 sqm (160 sq ft), when you want to fit a wardrobe in as well, can get really tight. I agree with you there. We currently have 12 sqm (130 sq ft), but apart from the bed (about 2.1 x 2 m (7 x 6.5 ft)) and a Kallax shelf unit, there’s nothing else in the room, which works fine. It also depends a bit on the room layout.

Our children’s rooms are 10.5 and 11.5 m² (113 and 124 sq ft), and the bedroom is 17 m² (183 sq ft) in a 140 m² (1,507 sq ft) single-story house with a basement. This is partly because we didn’t build the house ourselves; it has stood like this for 60 years. Otherwise, the bathroom and the children’s rooms would each be 1–2 m² (11–22 sq ft) larger.

However, we have a 75 m² (807 sq ft) living-kitchen-dining area, of which 15 m² (161 sq ft) can be separated with its own garden access. The children can use this space later if they want a separated living area—unless it turns out we have three kids, in which case the room will become a third bedroom. Until then, it serves as a playroom.

I don’t think children will appreciate in 20 or 30 years how large their rooms were, but rather remember the shared days and moments with their parents, no matter the size of any room.

dertill schrieb:
I don’t think that in 20 or 30 years, children will fondly remember how big their bedroom was, but rather the shared days and moments with their parents, no matter the size of any room.

I shared a room with my sister until I was about nine years old. After that, I had just under 20m² (215 sq ft). Sharing a room didn’t emotionally harm me and since I didn’t know it any other way, I certainly wasn’t unhappy. My Lego and Siku toys actually lived in the dining room, which was more like a playroom for me and my sisters. In my own room, though, I would sometimes have liked 30m² (323 sq ft). Until I moved out for university, I only had a 1m (3 ft) wide bed plus a sofa bed. Today, that would apparently be a no-go. For example, 10-year-olds now have 1.4m (4.6 ft) beds to accommodate their 735 stuffed animals.

If you consider what really harms a child, the answer is almost nothing. Children can grow up perfectly well in 8m² (86 sq ft) rooms or shared bedrooms without any harm. That isn’t really related to happiness either. Similarly, a child doesn’t need a console, a smartphone, brand-name clothes, or thousands of toys. Still, many children have these things nowadays without much thought.

Personally, I find living spaces under 12m² (130 sq ft) quite cramped. I don’t mean to offend anyone; it’s purely my subjective opinion. We had both a 12m² (130 sq ft) bedroom and an 11m² (118 sq ft) office. We managed well with the furnishings, but the rooms felt a bit oppressive to me, and I didn’t feel fully comfortable there. That’s why I wanted all our living spaces to be at least 15m² (161 sq ft). Of course, price is also a factor. I would personally prefer to spend 3,000–4,000 euros more per child to give them 2m² (22 sq ft) of extra living space, rather than buying all the latest iPhones every two years during their teenage years.

I don’t see a huge difference between boys and girls, either. In my opinion, girls under 10 often don’t need as much space, but when their friends come over for a “tea party,” a seating area, makeup corner, etc., becomes important. From my experience, girls also like to have a separate sleeping area, which can be arranged quite well with a room divider or an L-shaped layout within 15–20m² (161–215 sq ft). Boys often have a lot of Lego, Playmobil, etc., which simply requires space—at least that was true for me. During my teenage years, I also had many friends over at home. First, we played games, then there was the console phase where we held serious Mario Kart and FIFA tournaments, and later video nights (with more or less alcohol). I never felt like I didn’t need my room or that it was too big.

My sisters each had rooms around 15m² (161 sq ft). Later, one was converted into my parents’ office, and the other became the bedroom of my nephew, who spends one or two days a week at my parents’ house. My old room is now a guest room with an infrared cabin. My mother still “has to” iron in the storage room. So it’s not necessarily the case that you don’t know what to do with all the rooms later on. More often, people end up building extensions (additional children’s room, conservatory, hobby room, etc.).

So, we are also planning rather limited space for ourselves, as many write: we basically only use it for sleeping and watching TV, while the children will probably spend much more time in their rooms. We are very tall, which will likely apply to our children later, so we are planning the children's rooms to fit a 2.2m-long (7 ft 3 in) bed right from the start.
Even if the grown child later has a partner who often stays overnight, a wider bed (at least 1.4m / 55 inches) should fit as well. The children should also have at least a 1.5m (5 ft) wardrobe, a large desk for homework and computer use, and cabinets for toys. It’s hard to imagine less than 14m² (150 ft²) working for that.
I myself once stayed with my in-laws, and it was a very nice time in my husband’s “child’s room” (we actually built our current bed there ourselves at that time).
Maybe our bed in the future house will be replaced with a new one, as we are not sofa TV watchers but bed TV watchers. I can imagine that on quiet Sundays we might all lie together with the kids in the bedroom bed, so the current 1.8 x 2.2m (6 ft x 7 ft 3 in) bed will probably be replaced with a bigger one. Otherwise, there shouldn’t be any unnecessary extras in the bedroom.
Of course, there will be a walk-in closet, but it should have enough space to store the children’s winter clothes and bed linen as well. So the walk-in closet is not intended for us parents alone.

I follow the reasoning that the (parents’) bedroom is only for sleeping, while the children’s rooms are for all aspects of life (sleeping, playing, studying, working, meeting friends...) and would therefore have planned to build children’s rooms of about 20 m² (215 ft²) each in a fully custom-designed house.

However, for us, location and centrality take priority over a fully custom layout and unlimited size. Therefore, we had the choice between two children’s rooms of about 15 m² (160 ft²) each on the northeast side without a loggia versus children’s rooms of about 11–12 m² (120–130 ft²) each on the southwest side with a 10 m² (108 ft²) loggia. The decision was made in favor of smaller children’s rooms with better orientation and a loggia. As a result, the bedroom is now quite large, located on the northeast side and without access to the loggia. A few square meters in the bedroom feel wasted, but it was not possible to shift the space to the other side. On the plus side, there is a separate bathroom for the children, which is also nice.

I’m not sure if a house with a garden really needs a loggia.