The right plan for designing a shared room for two boys:
- Choose only among contemporary styles because they look acceptable with disorder, and disorder is inevitable.
- Read about a teen boy’s room, paying attention to the finishes. Since redoing the permanent work is not our goal, we will make the remodel as we would for adults.
- Add bright accents with accessories, toys, drawings, posters, decals, bedding, and curtains because boys like bright colors in childhood too. As they grow, all this will be replaced by itself. There are more than 130 great photos in the article about a boy’s room.
- During the first stage, when we add accents, understanding color combinations in an interior is extremely important because bright colors are the most difficult. Next is how this works in a shared room for two boys.
And yes, there are two approaches to kids’ room design: white furniture and neutral finishes, or a purely preschool fairy-tale option.
My advice is to choose the first. It is more universal, remains relevant regardless of the child’s age, and looks stylish even to adults. I discussed the style with white children’s furniture in detail in the article about a shared room for a boy and girl, and the first half applies one hundred percent to a shared room for two boys. I strongly recommend reading it – and looking, because it has a ton of real photos.
Design and Colors in a Shared Room for Boys
Let’s stick to the facts:
Children like everything bright. Bright colors do not work with the unsaturated wood colors of furniture, doors, baseboards, and floors.
That is why, for example, in Scandinavian style, where there is also a lot of wood in addition to white, all the accent colors are pastel.
Hence a simple rule for a boys’ room:
- If you want many bright colors, the furniture, doors, and baseboards should be white.
- If all of the above is an ordinary wood color, add accents in pastel tones.
For perception, it makes no difference whether the brightness comes from the finishes and furniture or from accessories and textiles. But the latter are easy to replace. That is why they are our choice. Notice the photos – the remodel is ordinary, and accents turn it into a boys’ room.
Furniture and Contents for Two Boys
The main thing in rooms for two children is placing the beds. But what else would we like to fit? Boys like to compete, and that is good. Give them a chance to do it usefully:
- A sports corner with a pull-up bar, rings, mats, and a children’s punching bag.
- A place for board and intellectual games: chess, checkers, Go, and Monopoly. Either a children’s table or simply an area with a rug.
- The study desk can also be shared – there can be competition in studying too.
Since most kids’ rooms are small and boys need space, vertical zoning is essential. In other words, the furniture should use the room’s height. The bed should always be on two levels. The first level can also be a bed, or a cabinet, sofa, chair – anything. The main thing is to raise the bed and use the area underneath.
Most boys like sleeping up high. A feeling of coziness and control. If you use a classic bunk bed and there is a dispute over the place, it is better to leave the decision to chance – flip a coin. Children under six should not use the upper bunk. Competition over the place and other perks can be arranged from about age eight, when children are more aware and more often accept losing reasonably and without resentment.
The best way to resolve disputed situations between children is to flip a coin.
The coolest theme for a room for two boys is technical drawings of machines. It is stylish, educational, gives room for imagination, improves spatial thinking, and does not lose relevance with age. Find wallpaper with technical drawings, print posters, or simply hang posters. In general, we already discussed this kind of feature in Boys’ Rooms.
Another series of photos of themed kids’ rooms. But remember that children grow quickly, and teenagers and adults clearly will not like this style:
Analysis of Boys’ Room Designs
To avoid repeating bare theory from previous articles and filling space, we will take photos of a real shared room for two boys, identify its advantages and disadvantages, and say what could have been done better.
Car Theme
For the second design approach, the result is not bad. The wall mural with the popular cartoon Cars is bright, and young children like bright things, but it is not outright daycare-style; school-age children will be comfortable in this room too. On the other side of the room is Formula 1 wallpaper, which is also a long-lasting option.
There are wall bars with gymnastic rings – a big advantage. The table and chairs are correct too. Two globes at once are also a plus.
Now the disadvantages. The furniture design is very old-fashioned. The choice of colors is doubtful too. Red and green are conflicting colors that work together as poorly as possible, and they are also too aggressive. Neither color works with natural wood. In short, white furniture would fit much better here.
The second unused opportunity is vertical zoning. If each bed were raised to the second level, additional storage could be placed underneath. This is almost always worth it.
Nautical Theme
To an adult, the design is old-fashioned and clearly inexpensive, but we will not pay attention to that. For children, it is quite good. There is a clear nautical theme, many handmade details, and even a chandelier shaped like a ship’s wheel. But the most interesting thing is the furniture.
In terms of function, all the furniture is perfect. The bunk bed even has pullout drawers underneath. There is a full-size closet and a corner desk. There is even a chalkboard. A sports corner is definitely missing. A pull-up bar or wall bars would fit the nautical theme perfectly.
Here are photos of another 160-square-foot room for two boys in a similar style, but with more mistakes in the furniture’s function:
Without two-level beds, much less fits into the room right away. This is the most serious mistake. Placing the beds in a row does not provide enough zoning. The interesting things are an aquarium and keyboard. Once again, we will not analyze the appearance because genuinely stylish kids’ rooms are possible only with the other design approach. The link to the room for two children is at the beginning.
And for contrast, a more correct approach to the same nautical theme. Brighter and more contemporary furniture, but not completely childish, so it will also suit older school-age boys. Thanks to the bunk bed, a full-size sliding-door closet and sports corner fit:
For Two Teen Boys
After age 10–12, a boys’ room design already turns into a teen bedroom design, which means an adult one. Some bright things can remain, but the main emphasis is function. Let the children take an active part in developing the plan.
Although there are interesting themed designs for teenagers too. For example, British style:
An interesting photo example of a room for teen boys where one bed is raised to the second level and there is a cabinet underneath.
Notice the cabinets in the last photo. These cabinets must be secured – screwed to the wall – otherwise they can tip over and injure a child if someone tries to hang on them. We discussed things like this in detail here: Kids’ Room Design: Choosing Safe Furniture.
A budget kids’ room that nevertheless has potential. Smooth, empty walls are a place for posters and decals, which have already begun to appear:
Platform in a Kids’ Room
Vertical zoning in a kids’ room is good. Many people go farther and make a platform. In general, a platform belongs to the category of interesting and cool things that look good in photos but are better avoided in real life. There are too many hidden problems. Here is an interesting example of a platform in a shared room for two boys:
Besides a pile of implementation problems, this particular option has another one: the boys will grow very quickly, but the bed sizes cannot be increased. As a result, after a few years the remodel will have to be completely redone. Overall, we do not recommend making these platforms. A bunk bed is perfectly sufficient.
Adults are not supposed to like most of the photos in this article; that is not what they are for. The main thing is to take furniture and zoning ideas from them. For stylish options, see the article about rooms for a boy and girl.