A rare Russian family can boast of a large children's room. Usually the rooms in which our children live are so small that the scattered toys alone already cause a feeling of clutter. But even in such rooms, the child needs both a bed and a wardrobe. The way out is a children's bed-wardrobe. How to choose such useful and functional furniture, and what to take into account, we will tell in this article.
Pros and cons
The main plus is that this furniture really saves space. During the day, the bed is neatly transformed and stowed away in the closet, and at night it is again a comfortable sleeping place. The child will be able to cope with the transformation process on his own - it is not difficult, the furniture is completely safe and easy to use.
You can also make such furniture to order, having announced to the master all your preferences in color, bed size, type of attachment and mechanism, as well as based on the footage of the room.
The undoubted plus is that there is no need to lay bedding for the child every evening, because such beds allow you to fasten the bed with special belts and put the entire structure in the closet, along with pillows, a blanket and a sheet.
The main disadvantage of such furniture - high cost. Any regular bed will cost 2-3 times less. In addition, it is almost impossible to install a wardrobe bed with your own hands, unless, of course, the family has a professional furniture maker. In other cases, installation requires an attentive and accurate approach, so it is better to use the services of specialists. Therefore, it is unlikely that you will be able to save money, for which you will have to pay.
Kinds
The bed in such furniture is always real, but the wardrobe can be fake. Depending on this factor, as well as on the way the bed is transformed, there are several types of such furniture:
- End. This is a model with a vertical bed retractable into a fake wardrobe. The wall-folding model is not suitable for very tight rooms. It is relatively inexpensive.
- Horizontal. This model implies a bed that transforms and stows in a wardrobe in a horizontal position. The cabinet itself can be either real or imitated. Saves space very well.
- Coupe. This model will have a full-fledged wardrobe, and it has a lot of shelves, drawers, including a built-in bed downstairs with additional lockers for various "little things". There are options for a single bed, sometimes there is a need to make a bed for two. This is also possible.
Mechanism types
The furniture can be equipped with various bed lifting mechanisms. The most economical is the spring-type lift. The mechanism uses coil springs familiar to most users. It should be noted that the service life of the springs is not so great: they stretch and need to be replaced after 4-5 years.
A more expensive, but also more durable and reliable mounting option is a gas shock absorber.
This is the most suitable type of lifting mechanism for a child's wardrobe bed, because the mechanism does not require any significant physical effort to open it. Even a child can easily cope with such a system - it is enough to easily push the mechanism with one finger and it will decompose on its own.
They try not to use a rough and simple manual mechanism in the production of folding beds, since it requires a lot of force on the part of adults, and a child cannot cope with it.
Material
The question of what to make a bed from is the most serious, since the health of the child depends on it. Many wood impregnations cause severe allergies.
If you have the financial opportunity, it is better to take a bed with an MDF base. Most often, manufacturers offer children's models with a chipboard sleeping base. This is also a good option, although MDF is stronger.
At the base, for strength and longer operation, metal frames or corners are used. They give rigidity and do not allow the base material to be pressed through. All the side parts, as well as the facade, which will be visible when folding the bed, is best made of beautiful durable types of wood - cherry, oak, pine.
The mattress for the bed should be chosen from natural materials with an otropedic base and a frame inside. The product must be rigid enough not to collapse so that the child's posture is not affected.
How to choose?
Before choosing a wardrobe bed for a children's room, you need to determine what size the furniture should be when unfolded and folded. Both of these parameters should be written down on paper, and the overall dimensions of the room should be indicated there. After that, you can go to a furniture store or to a company that is ready to make custom-made furniture.
The second option will turn out to be somewhat more expensive, but it will be exactly what you want and will optimally fit into the overall interior of the children's room. The designer will model the view of the future product in 3D format and even "insert" the bed into the overall interior, taking into account the size of the room. You just have to wait for the order to be ready.
If you decide to buy ready-made furniture, then you should consider models only from reliable and well-known manufacturers.
The materials must be of high quality, and the lifting mechanism must work like a clock.
The belts with which the bed is fastened must be strong, reasonably wide, with good fixings. If they slip or loosen, the laundry will simply fall out into the cabinet.
All these parameters should be checked in the most careful way, not forgetting to ask the sellers for a quality certificate for the product and a safety data sheet.
To make the bed comfortable for your child and to like him, you should take the child to the furniture store with you, so that he can lie on the unfolded bed, assess whether he is comfortable and whether something bothers him.
Reviews
The parents say that the only tangible disadvantage of such furniture in the children's room is the high cost (starting prices start at 50 thousand rubles). Most often, according to reviews, problems arise not with serial beds, but with custom-made models.
If the firm, which does not have the proper experience, has not calculated with gas shock absorbers-mountings, then the bed is constantly “striving” to slam shut.
Therefore, it is recommended to order children's furniture from large manufacturers with extensive experience in creating such built-in furniture.
Most of the parents who had doubted for a long time whether to buy a convertible sofa or a similar bed for their child chose the option with a wardrobe bed. They were quite pleased with their choice. True, some note that the straps holding the mattress and bedding sometimes interfere with the child, as they are felt in a dream.
Beautiful options in the interior
A wardrobe bed, especially in a single furniture ensemble, can "help out" parents of two children who have only one common children's room. With the right calculation, you can get two vertical beds at night, and a lot of free space for playing and doing during the day.
A double bed, which can be easily turned into an ordinary wardrobe with mirrored surface of fake doors during the day, will perfectly fit into the interior of a teenager's room.
Horizontal folding beds only visually take up a lot of space, in fact, the difference with vertical options is quite insignificant. If you choose a bed taking into account the general color background of the room, other pieces of furniture in it, you will get a very harmonious combination that will look spectacular.
A model of a bed for a schoolchild and a teenager should not be pretentious: the simpler the lines and color schemes, the more organic the furniture will "flow" into a small children's room. This is what a room might look like if the folding bed is combined with a functional wardrobe and shelves for textbooks, books and other important items for the child.
The folding bed with ornaments on the front part looks very stylish. The main thing is that the ornament matches the overall design of the room, in harmony with curtains and wallpaper. Then it will be possible to save space of the room not only due to the folding berth, but also visually.
Quite often, a folding bed is part of a complex children's corner for small rooms.
It also has shelves, a wardrobe, drawers and a desk. At the same time, many manufacturers try to stylize furniture with “universal” children's motifs - kittens, flowers, rainbows, fairy-tale characters. Such furniture is perfect for preschoolers and primary and secondary school students.
And this is how the bed-wardrobe looks when folded, when it was possible to choose the right color scheme for the entire room, including furniture. This option is relevant for a girl's room over several age periods. At first it will be a preschool girl's room, a little later - a student's room.
You will learn more about baby wardrobes in the following video.
