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For many of us, our bedroom is the most important room in the house. It’s our inner sanctum, our escape from the world, the place where we fully relax and can be our truest selves. So it's little wonder that decorating a bedroom is one of the more enjoyable aspects of renovating your home. Unlike kitchens and bathrooms, there aren’t lots of expensive headaches with plumbing, tiling and cabinet installation - refreshing your bedroom decor is straightforward, and can be as expensive or as budget-friendly as you like, if finances are an issue. Your bedroom is all about how you feel, so there’s really no right or wrong way to go about redecorating. It’s all about you and what you want from the space. So what are the secret ingredients to creating a truly lovely bedroom you can be proud of?
Define Your Personal Interior Style
The best bedrooms have one ingredient in common - they are highly personal to their owner! So spend some time thinking about what you need from the room and what you want it to look like. Begin by thinking about all the ways in which you use the room which are personal to you and your needs - some people may want space to unroll a mat and do a home yoga routine, others may welcome a quiet corner with a window seat or an armchair to read a book, and still others may find having a dressing table stocked with all their favourite lotions and potions to be an essential. Our bedrooms tend to be quite a multi-functional space as well as being used for sleep, so map out what you think you might be using the room for. Then it's time to define what appeals to you in terms of interior style. Look through some interiors magazines or curate a Pinterest board of bedroom decor that appeals to you. Look through it for the common elements. What are the colours, textures, and styles that form a pattern? From this you can work up a list of must-have elements to plan your decor around.
Use The Power Of Colour
Setting a colour palette is a great idea to bring a sense of unity and intentional design to your space. From your research, you should be able to see what appeals to you. Some people like to keep it simple and restful using neutral tones like cream, beige and grey. Others will prefer to make a statement with a bolder shade. You can bring colour theory into it in order to understand the effects that different shades in our interiors can have on our moods, and what complementary colours to pair together. Shades like lilac, pale blue and green are generally considered grounding and calm. If you want more of an opulent boudoir vibe, you could go for navy, a rich red or even shocking magenta. For an extremely cosy, comforting mood, you could opt for earth tones or topaz. Once you have a main shade in mind, use a colour wheel to pick out two or three supporting colours to weave in using accessories and soft furnishings.
Think Through Your Furniture Needs
With the colour scheme sorted, next you can move on to your requirements for furniture. This can vary enormously from room to room and person to person. Of course, a bed is pretty much a given - but do you want a French style corbeille bed, or a minimalist futon? A cast iron frame or something in natural wood? Even if budget is a consideration, you can find discounted New Classic Furniture beds to give your room an elegant look without breaking the bank. The bed is really the star of the show and should be the first piece you pick, ideally. Create a floor plan using an interior design app or a simple pencil and graph paper and plot out where all your furniture needs to go. There’s nothing worse than too much furniture crammed into a small space, so make sure the scale of the pieces fits the space available. If you have a large, grand space then you can choose large, grand furniture to match, but a smaller or more cramped space might require some compromise and creative thinking. There are some interior design tricks you can use, such as mounting your curtain pole high above the top of the window to visually elongate and make the ceilings look taller.
Make Certain Of Storage
The number one cause of messy, cluttered homes? Lack of storage! Out of every space in the house, our bedrooms are the ones that most need to be kept tidy. Stuff everywhere in the bedroom will make the space feel cluttered and chaotic - this creates low-level stress subconsciously, and may even stop you getting the best night’s sleep. So factor storage solutions into your thinking for a calm, spacious feel. You can consider things such as adding a storage ottoman to the foot of the bed, which gives an ideal place to store spare bed linen and perhaps towels, chunky winter sweaters or even handbags and shoes. A roomy bedside table is a great place to keep skincare, books, lotions, reading glasses and other items within easy reach but hidden out of sight - choose a table with drawers for the neatest option. If space is at a premium, then you can find headboards with built in shelves or sliding panels to keep things hidden away, or look at buying under-bed storage boxes that can swallow up out of season clothing and other items.
Get The Best Finish For Your Bed
We spend a third of our lives in bed, and sleep is a major factor in our mental and physical health. When we don’t sleep right, we lose focus, are more irritable and forgetful and much more likely to skip exercise or reach for sugary treats for a temporary energy boost. It’s vital to address poor sleeping habits, and it all starts in the bedroom. You should try to purchase the best quality mattress you can, in a style and firmness that suits your needs. You can get everything from air pockets to memory foam, so take your time selecting one that supports your body the best. It’s also worth spending as much as you can afford on bed linens in cool, breathable natural cotton to help regulate your temperature through the night and stop micro-wakeups. Some people like to use silk or satin pillowcases. This reduces friction on the skin and hair during the night, reducing creasing and helping to stop wrinkles forming and the dreaded bed hair! Make sure you’re also using the correct tog rated duvet for the season and temperature as well. To dress your bed up, add some texture and pattern with colourful cushions and throws to dress the area. Your bed will be so appealing, you won’t mind an early night or two.
Dress Your Windows
The way that we choose to dress our windows can also have a huge impact on sleep quality as well. The bedroom needs to be properly dark to allow us to rest well - even a slight bit of light can lead to disturbance, as the brain responds by sending ‘wake-up’ signals to our bodies. This can be an especial problem during the summer months, when the nights and the mornings are much lighter. Blackout blinds can be a brilliant idea and they come in every pattern and colour you can imagine, so choosing one to match your decor is easy. Other people like to install wooden plantation shutters, which are more expensive but have a very timeless look and are adjustable - this is especially good if privacy is an issue. Or you could opt for heavy, lined curtains which give a very luxurious appearance. If making the room completely dark isn’t an option, consider using a silk sleep mask to block out those rays. Or you can opt for a combination of window coverings - soft, sheer drapes that filter the light paired with a more practical rollerblind for when darkness is needed. Getting this step right means you’ll have a much more restful night’s sleep.
Let There Be Light
Thinking about the light sources in your decor is also very important. Try to ‘layer’ your lighting, by including a combination of ambient and task lighting. This means a brighter overhead light or pendant fixture, paired with a few lamps for softness, warmth and a lower light when you want a more intimate feel. You may also want to include adjustable, brighter lights for reading in bed, or at a make-up table. Lighting can do a lot to really alter the mood in a room and make it more restful and relaxing. On top of that, light fittings and lamps are a great way to make a statement and add a bit of personality to a more restrained scheme. You can find some brilliant quirky lamps on offer, or consider adding a dimmer switch so your main light can be easily adjusted depending on your activity.
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