This Tween Bedroom Makeover Transformed Wasted Space into the Chicest Hangout Area (So Brilliant!)

When New Jersey-based interior designer Hillary Cohen was commissioned to design a tween’s bedroom in an older home, the room was basically a blank canvas — but a quirky one. Cohen didn’t have much space to work with; the small, bland bedroom under the house’s eaves had one tiny closet and awkwardly sloped ceilings. 

Brainstorming how to make the most of the room, Cohen and her team at HCO Interiors came up with an unusual arrangement: What if they stored the child’s clothing in another room, so she could have a more functional bedroom? The solution freed up valuable space. 

“I wanted to design a space that felt like a little world of her own, almost like a mini studio apartment,” says Cohen. By co-opting the closet and claiming the often-unused under-eaves space, Cohen managed to fit in a lounge area, a sleeping nook, and a desk for homework or journaling. The room also got a complete aesthetic overhaul that took it from something dated and plain to something that’s youthful and totally of-the-moment, including some ingenious DIY ideas.

Here’s how Cohen made use of every inch and designed a bedroom that would grow with the child.

Tweens are in an in-between stage of life, so Cohen says it’s important to account for changing tastes. “Kids go through phases as they’re growing up,” she notes. “One day they might love blue, the next day they might hate it. So, we tried to pick a foundation that was timeless.” For example, the wallpaper is graphic and fun, but still sophisticated and relatively subtle. The bedside table and stools are a quiet cream color that will match whatever bedding the tween might choose in the future, but with fun feet and knobs for a touch of whimsy.

The room had one tiny closet that couldn’t hold very many clothes, so Cohen decided not to even try making it work. Instead, she removed the door and transformed it into a desk nook that the tween could use as both a desk space and vanity. If you have a similarly tiny closet, ask yourself if there’s somewhere else your child’s clothes can live (often kids don’t have much need to hang clothes anyway and can squeeze their clothes into a guest-room closet like they did in this home). Cohen notes the scallop trim (similar) on the shelves is a DIY detail that you can add to any wood shelf. 

You can take more risks with things that are easy to change, like Cohen did with the periwinkle paint (Benjamin Moore’s “Violet Mist”) on the fireplace surround. “They could repaint that and it’s not a huge expense,” Cohen says. Likewise, Cohen didn’t actually remove the original fireplace tile; she had her contractor install new tile on a piece of plywood cut to fit the fireplace surround, so it can be removed later, if the homeowner chooses. Picture ledges above the sofa let a tween change up their art whenever the urge strikes — without messing up the wallpaper.

Cohen was inspired to create a canopy for the bed to give the room a focal point befitting the older architecture of the house. It also introduces the cozy, cocoon feeling that tweens often crave. Cohen had a local drapery maker craft this petite canopy, but if you don’t have someone local, there are Etsy vendors who make similar small canopies (tip: try searching “crib canopy” for something similarly sized).

Cohen is a professional interior designer, who often commissions totally custom pieces like the sofa, but she’s also not above a little DIYing. The wavy mirrors, for example, didn’t come in the color she desired, so Cohen painted them periwinkle. And the Anthropologie bedside table got a style upgrade, courtesy of new oversized ceramic knobs. These little tweaks can help create that balance between the little kid domain and teenage zone that a tween room straddles. 

“This type of older home with the slanted ceilings is a condition that a lot of people have,” says Cohen. “It’s a challenging space: What do you do under there? The ceilings are lower, it’s not great to walk under there.” Cohen’s solution was to make a hangout space; she designed a custom sofa to fit the narrow space exactly, but you could re-create the look with an L-shaped sofa. Choose a design with removable back cushions so it can double as a sleepover spot for friends. Cohen loved the patterned fabric, but felt it would be overwhelming on the whole piece, so she opted for a two-tone look with a solid for the arms and skirt. 

Cohen says there’s no hard-and-fast rule about when to wallpaper (or paint) the sloped ceiling/wall, but she errs toward treating it like a wall, as she did here. The trick to making it feel intentional is actually on the ceiling. Cohen added what she calls a “flat crown” (molding mounted to the ceiling). It differentiates between the wall and ceiling and gives you a straight, clean edge for the wallpaper to end at — so smart!

• Wallpaper: Kravet
• Mirrors: Anthropologie (no longer available; similar here)
• Shelf ledges: Mustard Made
• Stools: TOV
• Bedside table: Anthropologie 
• Knobs: Sazerac Stitches
• Table lamp: Vaughan Lighting
• Pleated lampshade: Fermoie
• Fireplace paint color: Violet Mist (Benjamin Moore)