Bedroom Designs
Your bedroom is where you go for sleep and solace, so it should be peaceful and comforting. It's still a room, however, and should be as attractive and visually interesting as the rest of your home. Here's how to get a room you'll love.
Back to basics
Before anything else, make sure your bedroom contains all the essential elements: a bed, a nightstand, a desk or dressing table, a chair, and a closet. There's nothing more depressing than a bedroom where you have to dump your makeup on the nightstand or drape your shirts over the back of a chair. As the saying goes, a place for everything, and everything in its place.
Follow your heart...
Your bedroom is your space. Few people besides you will see it, so there's no need to play safe with your room's decor. Use your favorite colors. Decorate your room according to a theme. Do what you've always wanted to do with your room since you were a little kid, even if it means putting up Darth Vader wallpaper and hanging light sabers above your bed.
...but don't commit
You do need to leave yourself some leeway in case your decorative preferences change. For example, painting your room bright red will severely limit your options for the other elements in the room. It's a good idea to choose light, muted colors that won't look strange once you change the sheets. A bonus: light colors will make your room seem larger.
Color your world
Decorating your room around a single color will help you decide what to put in and what to leave out. Is that fire-engine-red footstool clashing with your pink wallpaper? Move it to the guest room. Does that orange bookcase look odd in your predominantly purple room? Kick it out to the hall.
Compartmentalize
If you do a lot of things in your bedroom besides sleep, you might want to divide your room into areas according to your activities, especially if your room is large. You could put your bed, one or two nightstands, and a chest of drawers in one corner, a desk and bookcases in another corner, and a dressing table and closets in a third corner (preferably the area nearest the bathroom).
This is an especially good idea if you share your bedroom with a significant other, or if you live in a studio apartment where there are no walls to separate the different areas of your living space. If your significant other likes to watch TV in the bedroom, but you find that it disturbs your sleep, put the bed in one corner of the room and the TV in another corner, with large cushions scattered on a rug for seating. That way you can stay in the same room without getting in each other's way.
You can use screens or curtains to separate the areas from each other, or you can rely on more subtle cues. Put a rug in the sleeping area that's a different color and texture from the flooring in the rest of the room. Use light wood furniture in some parts of the room and dark wood furniture in others. Set off the dressing area with bright lights.
Dividing your room into areas also allows you to create a different feeling in each area. For example, you could go for "sweet and cozy" in your sleeping area and "cool and sophisticated" in your dressing area. In fact, it's a simple and inexpensive way to turn a master bedroom into a master suite.
It's the little things
You can change the feel of your bedroom even without a major overhaul. If you're not up to repainting the walls, change the curtains. If you've never had fresh flowers in your room before, put a vase of your favorite blooms on your nightstand. Get new lampshades and watch your room take on a different glow.
Come clean
Your mom was right: you do need to clean your room. Sometimes that's all you need to do to make yourself feel better. Pick up the socks on the floor, put the CDs back in the CD rack, make the bed, and fall in love with your bedroom all over again.
Just your imagination
Look at your room with fresh eyes. Could you be missing any opportunities to make your room more inviting? Put a love seat under that window and heap it with little pillows. Hang a hammock in one corner of the room and pile it with stuffed animals. Cover one wall entirely in black-and-white photographs of you and your loved ones. It's your room. You can do whatever you want with it. Let your imagination be your guide.
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