The idea of luxury means different things to everyone and so a luxurious bedroom will entirely differ based on your taste. However, looking at it with a broad brush, we're taking the idea that hotel bedrooms are places that – should you be staying in a good hotel – feel like pure luxury from the minute you walk in. Perhaps it's the hospital corners on the perfectly-made beds, the fact that they're free from the mental and physical clutter of our own or the superior bedding – whatever the cause, that feeling of relaxation you get when entering a hotel bedroom should be achievable at home too. We've broken down the key elements that can help make your own bedroom feel more luxurious and separate it from the mental load that follows us from room to room at home.
Bedding
There is no way a bedroom can feel luxurious if you don't invest in your bed. We spend hours of our lives in bed, so while the best mattress can be an investment, it's one that hugely pays off. Similarly, your bed frame should bring you joy when you see it, whether that comes from a sleek wooden design or a gingham-upholstered headboard in an elaborate shape. “We usually like to design a half tester or four poster bed for a principle bedroom,” say Mary Graham and Nicole Salvesen of interior design studio Salvesen Graham, “for added luxury as the cocooning nature of a bed treatment of this kind with the added fabric they bring to a space makes you feel incredibly comforted and comfortable.”
The rest of your furniture in your bedroom should be there to enhance the space and make it useful, but not overcrowd it. As interior designer Kerri Lipsitz confirms, “I feel it is very important that one needs to leave room to breathe in a space, it is often as much about what you do not do as what you do. This is what I believe to be the key to creating an aesthetic of discreet luxury.”
Of course, the sheets are key. Opt for the highest thread count you can afford to get that crisp hotel feeling. If that's not quite your style, linen bedding also has a luxury appeal to it and is soft and cool to sleep in. The look of your bedding is a personal choice but it's hard to deny that plain, muted colours or fresh white sheets always look the smartest. Leave the patterns for the kids' rooms and invest in good quality, simple sets of bedding.
Organisation
“It is essential that storage is perfectly organised in a bedroom so you can feel tranquil in this space at all times,” advise Mary and Nicole, continuing “we often opt for larger bedside chests of drawers for this reason and the symmetry of matching pieces either side of the bed also aids the feeling of calm to the eye.”
Most people – or at least many – are likely to have the ‘clothes chair’ in their bedroom; the chair that you put in there with all the good intention of using to read or relax but has actually become an unceremonious dumping ground for clothes that we can't quite be bothered to put away. You can't feel like you're sleeping in a swanky bedroom when you're faced with that pile so getting organised is a key step.
A big part of that may be a change in mindset to take the couple of minutes it requires at the end of a long day to fold your clothes neatly into the chest or drawers or hang them back in the wardrobe. Those two minutes will make a difference to your mood when you wake up the following morning faced with a beautiful, empty chair in which to plonk yourself with a cup of tea, rather than yesterday's knickers stuffed down the leg of your jeans.
In the same vein, consider kicking your laundry basket out onto the landing or hallway so you're not confronted with the thought of it each day and thus your bedroom becomes utilitarian. Cables too should be tidied away – it's basically about clearing the clutter from your bedroom so your mind can be at rest, as well as your body. The sexy solution? Have a tabletop charger built into your bedside table (should you be someone who charges their phone next to them overnight) so you simply place your phone down and it charges without the need for cables.
Scent
It may seem frivolous but if the idea of luxury in a bedroom is to make it feel like a distinct space from the rest of the house, then giving it a signature scent can do wonders. There are many ways to scent a room – candles are always a winner, especially for the soft glimmer of light they'll bring to the room. However, you can't burn a candle all day long. Consider instead a diffuser or, our top recommendation would be a scented wax tablet from Santa Maria Novella, coupled with their scent-soaked terracotta pomegranate.
Colour
There is no colour that dictates luxury and it's a very personal choice as to what you're drawn to but the one thing to consider is how you paint the room. Should you want a cocooning feeling, perhaps a darker colour works whereas a lighter tone will help it feel airy and open. Whatever you opt for, interior designer Kerri Lipsitz advises exercising restraint, saying “if you are working with beautiful architectural detail, I like to highlight this using a single paint colour from floor to ceiling, including all woodwork and internal doors. This restrained approach provides a calming background for furnishings, art and accessories which are carefully layered into each space, creating a style that is elevated whilst feeling comfortable and familiar.”
Lighting
It's all very well to sort all the aforementioned details only to enter the room, turn on the light and have it feel super clinical or drab due to a single bulb and the wrong light fitting casting a grim light on it all. Lighting is so important in every room of the house and something we always advise investing in, light switches and all, as you touch those multiple times a day. In a bedroom, you need many lighting options that work for reading before bed, reading in the morning with a team, getting dressed or putting on makeup and daily tasks.
We will always advise on little reading lights in the headboard or above the head of a bed so that each individual in bed can read easily without disturbing the other. Layered on top of this, you need low lighting so as to not overstimulate the senses and disturb your circadian rhythm before bed – lamps are of course the best choice – as well as good lighting for getting yourself together, which can be achieved with a main, overhead light. The reason it's an investment is that to truly make it luxurious, you'll want to run all the cables into the wall and have light switch panels that can control them all – just like in a hotel.
This story originally appeared on House & Garden UK
