Two beds, one wall, and two completely different opinions about dinosaurs. Choosing a poster for a shared children’s room is less about the subject than about how two children can each have their own space in a room they share around the clock. This guide draws on the dimensions of a typical loft bed, what a British survey of 2,000 participants says about sharing a room as a child, and how to divide up the wall so no one feels left out, whether the children are three and six or eight and thirteen.
Quick facts: IKEA’s Tuffing loft bed frame is 208 centimeters long, 97 centimeters wide, and 179 centimeters tall, with 145 centimeters of clearance underneath, and is recommended for ages 6 and up. In a survey conducted by furniture company Hammonds in February 2020 with 2,000 Britons, 62 percent said sharing a room had taught them to respect boundaries, while 17 percent felt they had little privacy. A 2019 study linked room sharing with children taking longer to fall asleep.
The 179-centimeter loft bed: what really determines how you can hang things in a shared bedroom
A shared children’s room is rarely large, so the furniture often dictates the walls. Take IKEA’s Tuffing loft bed frame, for example: it is 179 centimeters tall. With a ceiling height of 2.4 meters, that leaves just over 60 centimeters between the top of the bed and the ceiling, which determines both how much light reaches the wall beside the upper bed and where you can hang anything at all. The bed is 208 centimeters long and 97 centimeters wide, taking up almost two square meters of floor space, but leaving 145 centimeters of clearance underneath: enough for a desk, a reading nook, or a soft sofa for a child of intermediate age.
IKEA’s own website says that high beds, meaning both the upper bed in a bunk bed and loft beds, are not suitable for children under 6 due to the risk of falling. In practice, this often means a clear pecking order in a shared bedroom: the older child sleeps on top, the younger one below. This affects the art in an unexpected way, because the upper sleeping space has the ceiling as its nearest neighbor, while the lower one has a wall on three sides. The bed should also be anchored to the wall to prevent tipping, so don’t hang heavy glass-framed pictures directly above someone sleeping: choose lightweight frames or place larger pictures on the wall opposite the beds.
If you want a broader foundation for choosing art for children, you’ll find it in our guide to posters for a child’s room. This article is about what sets a shared room apart from a room of your own: the wall has to work for two people at once.
Shared wall, different tastes: three ways to give two children their own side without dividing the room in two
The mirror-image arrangement: same frame, different designs
The simplest approach is to hang pictures in pairs in identical frames but with different designs. Each child gets a picture of the same size, at the same height and the same distance from the bed, so neither can claim that the other’s is nicer. Choose frames that don’t feel childish, such as black or oak, so the same frames still work when tastes change direction in a couple of years. A pair of 30x40 prints beside each bed is enough, and you can add frames from the same range when new designs are added.
The shared zone: a theme both children can enjoy
The central wall, the one you see from the doorway, works best as a shared space. It needs a theme that’s bigger than any one favorite, and animals are usually a hit with both three-year-olds and ten-year-olds. An animal poster in 50x70 on the wall at the head of the bed serves as the room’s focal point and reduces the need for each child to claim the whole wall. Avoid characters from a current show: they may have lost their appeal before the frame wears out.
Their own space: an area the child gets to decide on
The third approach is to give each child a defined area where they can choose and change things themselves. It could be a picture ledge, a row of clips or a corkboard above the bed, where they can hang cards, drawings and one or two small 13x18 posters. The point is that even a shared room can hold something that’s entirely yours, without the parents having to rearrange the decor every time tastes change. In rooms with a big age gap, this is often what saves the peace treaty. For teens, there are more ideas in our guide to posters for the teenager’s room.
"In a shared room, the wall is the only thing that can be private."
30x40 by the bed, 50x70 on the end wall: size, height, and placement in a room with two beds
Measurements are what most often go wrong in children’s rooms. Adults hang pictures at their own eye level, leaving the children’s pictures too high. It’s even more noticeable in a shared sibling room, since an adult hangs a picture meant to work for both a five-year-old and a twelve-year-old. For pictures near floor level, use the younger child’s height as a guide, placing the center of the picture about 110 to 125 centimeters from the floor, and hang the older child’s pictures higher on the wall above their bed.
There’s so little space above the top bunk of a loft bed that only a small picture will fit. In that case, 21x30 works better than 30x40, and you should hang it at the head of the bed, where the child can see it while lying down. The picture should also be high enough that a child sitting up in bed won’t hit it. For larger areas, such as the end wall opposite the beds, 50x70 or a row of three pictures in 30x40 works best.
When the room changes: plan two years ahead
A shared sibling room changes faster than a regular child’s room. What’s a room for a two-year-old and a five-year-old today may need to fit two school-age children with desks in three years, and the loft bed that suited the older child may be free for the younger one when they turn six. So choose frames and sizes that are easy to move: using the same frame size for all the pictures means you can change the designs without drilling new holes. It’s a good idea to keep the old pictures in a box, because what a nine-year-old thinks is childish may be something a five-year-old loves.
Tip: Let each child choose one picture from three options you’ve already picked. They get a say, and you stay in control of the color, frame, and size. Then sketch out the layout on paper together before you drill, so both children can see that their side is just as big.
The room’s color matters less than you think. A room shared by two children quickly fills up with toys, clothes, and beds in several colors, so designs with just a few clear colors work best. Stick to two or three shades per wall and let the pictures tie the room together. On children’s prints, you’ll find designs with soft outlines that can stay on the walls as the children grow older, without feeling like something they’ve outgrown.
One final practical tip concerns lighting. A room with two beds rarely has a single lamp that works for both: one child is reading while the other is supposed to sleep. So place the most colorful pictures where they won't be lit by the reading lamp, and let the wall facing the window carry the lighter images, since daylight makes the soft colors clearer there. An illustrated image with lots of small details belongs where the children stand or sit close by, such as at the desk or in the reading nook, not above the pillow.
What the surveys say about sharing a room: 62 percent learned about boundaries, 17 percent lacked privacy
Research on siblings sharing a room is thinner than you might expect, and most of it comes from surveys rather than experiments. The furniture company Hammonds asked 2,000 Britons what it was like to share a room as a child, and the results were published in February 2020. Half of those who had shared a room, 46 percent, described it as a positive experience. Six in ten, 62 percent, said it had taught them to understand and respect boundaries, 59 percent said it had helped them manage shared spaces, and 39 percent said it had had a positive effect on family relationships.
The figures have a downside. Seventeen percent felt they had little privacy growing up, just as many said their sibling affected their sleep, and 10 percent said it increased their anxiety. This is a commercial survey, not a controlled study, but it points to the same thing many parents notice themselves: sharing a room works when there is something the child can call their own. According to ParentData, a 2019 study linked room-sharing to children taking longer to fall asleep, but the researchers grouped together children sharing a room with siblings and children sharing a room with a parent, so the results say little about sharing a room with a sibling specifically.
The conclusion for the wall is practical. Since sleep can be affected by both light and anxiety, the images closest to the bed should be calming: resting animals, nature, soft color fields. Active or dark images belong on the wall farthest from the beds. And since privacy is what is most often lacking, the wall becomes the child's only safe space, which is why every child needs an area of their own. If you have a small play area in the room, find ideas in our guide to posters for the playroom.
Frequently asked questions about posters in a shared sibling room
Start with the shared headboard wall: one large animal poster that both children can agree on, then add a small picture above each bed in identical frames. That way, you have a room that works for both a five-year-old and a twelve-year-old, and a wall that doesn't need redoing every time someone has a birthday. Take a look at the children's room collection for more designs that work for two.