16 × 20 ft bedroom layout
A 16 × 20 ft bedroom is 320 sq ft (29.73 m²), with 72' (21.95 m) of wall around it. Everything below is worked out from those dimensions rather than written for a room in general — the plan is to scale, and the furniture is measured against the real walls.
16 × 20 ft bedroom in numbers
- Floor area
- 320 sq ft
- 29.73 m²
- Perimeter
- 72'
- 21.95 m
- Longest wall
- 20'
- 6.10 m
- Wall area at 2.4 m
- 49.3 m²
- door and window deducted
Planning a bedroom
A bedroom is planned around one object. The bed goes in first, and everything else — wardrobe, drawers, a chair nobody sits on — works around whatever floor is left. That is why two rooms with the same floor area can feel completely different: a long, narrow room can swallow a king bed and leave a usable walkway, while a squarer room of the same area leaves you shuffling sideways past the footboard. The numbers that matter are the width of the wall the bed stands against, the clear space down each side, and whether a wardrobe door can open fully without hitting the mattress. Get those three right and the room works; get them wrong and no amount of clever storage rescues it.
A master bedroom
At this size the room stops being a container for a bed and starts being a room you spend waking time in. A US king fits with room to walk right round it, and there is space for a seating area, a proper dressing zone, or an en-suite carved off one end. The main risk is scale: a standard double bed in a room this size looks lost, and standard-height wardrobes leave a band of empty wall above them that makes the ceiling feel lower than it is. Go bigger on the bed and taller on the storage. Float the bed off the wall if the room is genuinely square — a headboard wall built out into the room with wardrobes behind it is the classic way to get a walk-through dressing area without adding a single wall to the building. Whatever you do, keep one clear route from the door to the window that does not pass through the seating area; rooms this size fail when the circulation zigzags.
What fits in a 16x20 ft bedroom
Each piece is measured into a furnished room, not an empty one: it needs its own width plus enough clearance to get past it along the wall, its depth plus that clearance out into the room, and it is checked with a 600 mm wardrobe on the opposite wall already in place. Both pairs of walls are tried, so a long wall counts either way round. Tight means the piece is physically in the room but the clearance is not — you are edging round it.
| Item | Wall it needs | Depth it needs | In a 16x20 ft bedroom |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single bed (900 × 1900) | 1.60 m | 3.20 mincl. 700 mm clearance and 600 mm opposite | Fits2.90 m spare |
| Double bed (1350 × 1900) | 2.05 m | 3.20 mincl. 700 mm clearance and 600 mm opposite | Fits2.90 m spare |
| UK king bed (1500 × 2000) | 2.20 m | 3.30 mincl. 700 mm clearance and 600 mm opposite | Fits2.80 m spare |
| US king bed (1930 × 2030) | 2.63 m | 3.33 mincl. 700 mm clearance and 600 mm opposite | Fits2.77 m spare |
| Double wardrobe (1000 × 600) | 1.90 m | 2.10 mincl. 900 mm clearance and 600 mm opposite | Fits4.00 m spare |
| Chest of drawers (800 × 450) | 1.55 m | 1.80 mincl. 750 mm clearance and 600 mm opposite | Fits4.30 m spare |
| Bedside table (450 × 400) | 0.75 m | 1.30 mincl. 300 mm clearance and 600 mm opposite | Fits4.80 m spare |
| Dressing table (1200 × 500) | 2.00 m | 1.90 mincl. 800 mm clearance and 600 mm opposite | Fits4.20 m spare |
Clearances that decide the layout
- Beside a bed700 mm
- Enough to walk down and to make the bed from that side. 500 mm is passable but you will catch your shins.
- In front of a wardrobe900 mm
- A hinged door needs its own 600 mm arc, plus somewhere for you to stand while it is open.
- In front of a chest of drawers750 mm
- A drawer pulls out around 450 mm, and you need to stand behind it.
- At the foot of the bed600 mm
- The minimum walkway between the footboard and anything on the opposite wall.
Materials for a 16x20 ft bedroom
Quantities from the real floor and wall areas, with the waste allowance already added. Estimates to plan with — measure again before you order.
| Flooring | With waste | Boxes |
|---|---|---|
| Laminate2.22 m² a box, 10% waste | 32.7 m² | 15 |
| Engineered wood1.8 m² a box, 10% waste | 32.7 m² | 19 |
| Vinyl tile (LVT)3.34 m² a box, 10% waste | 32.7 m² | 10 |
| Ceramic tile1.44 m² a box, 15% waste | 34.2 m² | 24 |
- Paint — about 9 litres for two coats on 49.3 m² of wall, at a 2.4 m ceiling with a door and a window deducted.
- Skirting — 21.12 m once one doorway is taken out of the perimeter.
- Ceiling — the same 29.73 m² as the floor, so roughly 5 litres for two coats.
Change the numbers in the flooring calculator or the paint calculator, both already filled in with this room’s dimensions.
Common questions
- How big is a 16x20 ft bedroom?
- 320 sq ft (29.73 m²), with a perimeter of 72' (21.95 m). The walls are 16' (4.88 m) and 20' (6.10 m).
- How much flooring does a 16x20 ft bedroom need?
- 32.7 m² including a 10% waste allowance, which is 15 boxes of laminate at 2.22 m² a box. Tile and engineered wood come in different box sizes, so check the pack before ordering.
- How much paint does a 16x20 ft bedroom need?
- About 9 litres for two coats on the walls, based on a 2.4 m ceiling, 49.3 m² of wall after a door and a window are deducted, and 12 m² of coverage per litre.
- Will a US king bed fit in a 16x20 ft bedroom?
- Yes. It needs 2.63 m of wall and 3.33 m out into the room once its clearance is counted, and this room gives you 2.77 m to spare on top of that.
- How much space do you need around a bed?
- Allow 700 mm down each side you use, and 600 mm at the foot if there is anything to walk past. You can drop one side to 300 mm if that side is only there for access to a window, but never both — a bed you can only reach from one side is very hard to make.
- Should the bed go against the long wall or the short wall?
- Usually the short wall, so the long walls stay free for wardrobes and so the walkways run the length of the room. Change your mind if the short wall holds the window or the door swing, because neither should be blocked by a headboard.
- How deep is a wardrobe?
- 600 mm is the standard depth, and it is not arbitrary: a clothes hanger is about 450 mm across, so anything shallower than 550 mm forces the rail to run front-to-back rather than side-to-side and roughly halves what you can hang.
- Does a bedroom need space for a door swing?
- Yes, and it is the clearance most often forgotten. A standard 762 mm internal door sweeps an arc about 900 mm deep into the room. Nothing taller than the handle should sit inside that arc, which rules out putting a wardrobe on the wall the door opens against.
Other bedroom sizes
The same size as another room
Before you draw it: how to measure a room and how to draw a floor plan to scale. Real rooms are never exactly 16 × 20 ft — draw yours from scratch if the walls do not match.