Nobody Puts Baby In The Corner

Hello hello! Thank you so much for tuning in today. This is episode 46 and I have to say, it has been a long time coming. If you’re new here - I can tell you that I’ve devoted entire episodes to almost every room in a house, which you should definitely check out, and I will link those in the show notes. Every room in the house, except for this one. Today, the wait is over because we are talking all things bedroom. When you are finished with this episode you will be able to create a true retreat space that helps you feel rested, recharged, revitalized, and rearing to go. 

The average human being spends 1/3 of their life asleep, and that isn’t even counting lazy Sunday afternoons reading in bed, so just think of all the time you are spending in your bedroom.  There is no reason this space should feel like anything other than a sanctuary. You’re going to be there for a while, you might as well enjoy it.

When it comes to bedroom design theory, there are really two distinct schools of thought- those of us who treat the bedroom as a sacred space, dedicated to sleep and restoration only; and those of us who treat the bedroom like the ultimate multi-purpose room. I’m not here to tell you that either of these methodologies are right or wrong, in fact both approaches can work and I am going to give you all the tricks to make either approach shine.

In terms of which school of thought I fall into,  I will say this,  not all of us have the privilege of having an entire room dedicated just for sleeping. I spent most of my twenties, and even my childhood with my bedroom as the only space that was truly mine. Every other space was shared with a roommate or sibling. Some of us don’t even have that luxury - shared bedrooms amongst siblings is an iconic American gauntlet. Any family sitcom I watched in the 90’s featured siblings sharing a room - and they would have witty banter over who got to have a friend sleep over for the night. Getting your own bedroom was like a graduation into young adulthood. 

I had my own bedroom growing up, but when I went away to college I shared a single room with three other design students. We had two sets of bunk beds, four desks, and a closet for everyone. There was a flexible partition not much taller than me that gave the optical illusion of two rooms, but trust it was one medium room. I don’t think any of us had lived in such dense quarters before, and it was a struggle to balance schedules and personalities. We all slept, studied, ate, socialized, talked on the phone, and got ready for the day in same room. It was a lot of pressure to put on not just the people, but the function of the room itself. But what felt like the hardest change was the total lack of privacy. Privacy is an essential component of wellbeing, on both conscious and subconscious levels. Privacy gives us permission to relax, to daydream, and to process our experiences. Even though for many of us, true privacy can be can momentary, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t set our spaces up for when it does occur.

So all that to say, I tend to be more in the camp of the bedroom is for sleeping, relaxing, and decompressing. I like my room to be a quiet space. So let’s start with that style of bedroom, the minimalist bedroom. And when I say minimalist I don’t meant stylistically, I mean functionally. The main purpose of having a bedroom is for us to have a place to sleep. So one might ask, what creates conditions for good sleep? Sleep can be a tricky subject for many of us who deal with all kinds of issues that prevent good sleep, but one thing we can control is how our environments impact our sleep quality. The main two factors that help or hinder sleep in a room are sound and light. When it comes to acoustics, creating a quiet space is ideal. The ability to minimize noise in your bedroom can depend on a few things, like whether you live in the city or the country, if your neighbors are noisy, if the people you live with are noisy, how well your walls and windows are insulated, if it’s the month of June and fireworks are being lit every 45 minutes after sunset. One of the best investments you can make is in a white noise machine. There are dedicated white noise machines that will help to drown out sound, or you can use something like a fan, or a sound app on your phone. But making sure this is a part of your nightly routine, if the sound in your bedroom is not already serene, will improve your quality of sleep significantly. 

Then there’s the topic of light.  According to a study from 2018 in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, light pollution can cause trouble in falling asleep, staying asleep, and results in people turning to sleep medications, which work less effectively with the presence of light pollution. This includes light from a night light, electronic devices, televisions, and any light coming from a window. I’m a big proponent of not having a TV in the bedroom for this reason, as comforting as it can be to fall sleep watching Netflix or stay in bed watching movies when you’re sick, this can greatly affect our quality of sleep. Another important thing to keep in mind when planning your bedroom is to include blackout window treatments. Blackout shades or curtains are tightly woven fabrics that are designed to block light coming in from the street, even something like a full moon. You can opt to have a single layer of blackout curtains, or a blackout roller shade. You could also layer on sheer or standard curtains on a separate curtain track to provide privacy during the day while still letting in light. This strategy allows you to have a wider range of fabric selections as curtains, with the blackout device behind usually being a solid color like white, cream, or gray.

So with all this talk about sleep quality, the bedroom afterall is a room for the bed. So, where does the bed go?

There are some pretty cut and dry rules of thumb that honestly stem from Feng Shui principles - I am not formally trained in Feng Shui, I should say that. Feng Shui is a very particular philosophy and method of home design, that has to be studied and it’s the kind of thing a person can get certified in outside of other formal interior design training. But, from what I do know of Feng Shui, a lot of the layout methods that stem from that practice are just good common sense. To start, think about your bed in relationship to all of the openings in the room. This is all the doors and windows, including closet doors. Your bed should be placed up against a wall, with a sight line to the door into the room. Feng Shui has a lot of theory around why this is, but I think having an eye on the door helps us feel like we are safe, even if it’s subconsciously.  Generally speaking, I don’t think beds should be against a window - I have seen this rule broken successfully with odd shaped rooms, but it should really be a last resort layout. 

You’ve got your back to a wall and your eyes on the entrance.  Additionally, you want to keep space on both of the long sides of the bed, it doesn’t have to be perfectly centered in the room, but there should be enough space for you to walk on either side, about three feet is ideal. Definitely no less than 18 inches on either side. The bigger the bed, the more space around the sides you’ll need to keep the whole room proportional. You can reduce that three feet on each side rule down to 18” for smaller mattress, but a King should stay at three feet on each side. Otherwise the the room is going to start to look like a bouncy castle and your bed is the floor. The measurement for the space around the bed, by process of elimination, will help you determine the size of a mattress you can fit in your bedroom. Subtract six feet from the width of your room and see what dimension you are left with. A California King mattress tends to be 72 inches wide, so the minimum room width to house the grand daddy of all materials is 144 inches or 12 feet.  

I can’t tell you how many times I see people push there beds into the corner of a room. I was guilty of this myself as a child. I would actually hide in the space between the long side of the bed and the wall when it was time to eat dinner and I wanted to keep playing. Sorry mom! But seriously, unless you’re living in a super small apartment, putting your bed in a corner should be avoided. It throws off the symmetry of the room and makes the bed feel like an after thought. I remember at some point when I pushed my childhood bed into a corner that I thought it was absolutely brilliant because all of a sudden I had all this floor space to play with toys. So for kids, it’s little bit of a different story, but I think that’s part of why this configuration doesn’t work for full grown humans - it looks childish. The idea with a grown-up bedroom is to actually celebrate the bed - the whole room is called the bedroom,  and you’re going to push the bed into a corner? I don’t think so.

Now if you end up arranging the room so that your bed is in a corner and extends diagonally into the room, that’s a whole other story. While it does limit the space available for night stands on either side, it can be a great strategy to balance out an odd shaped room and add a dynamic element into the space.

What I have found over the years, is that even though I would say I tend to prefer asymmetry in design, bedrooms really lend themselves to being symmetrical.  A bed placed centrally on a wall (opposite the door) with matching nightstands on either side is a recipe for success every time. The two nightstands are really key, and it can be easy to talk yourself out of having two matching nightstands - you live alone and you only need one, you let your partner pick our one and you pick out the other. Don’t fall for these excuses - your room will look twice as pulled together when you flank your bed with matching nightstands. It will feel almost like a hotel, or at least like something you want to take a picture of for social medial. And I am probably the last person who will tell you that anything in your house should match, I abhor furniture “room sets” of all kinds, bedroom especially. But the night stands act as almost like book ends to frame your bed and help draw attention to the bed itself. Remember, the goal is to celebrate the bed. We want this room to look irresistible, like the bed is calling your name. Adding another layer will help this even more - and having the functionality of bedside lights is a home run. Whether you select table lamps or wall mounted sconces, the idea is to select a matching pair that will look beautiful when they are off and provide even, symmetrical light when they are on.

So that is the basic framework for any bedroom. From here, anything you layer on is up to you. If you are of the minimalist mind set, furniture-wise the only other major element you’ll want to consider is your bed frame and headboard. There are a lot of different headboard styles to chose from, so let’s go through the basics. Starting with a panel bed frame, this is a pretty standard, traditional looking headboard and foot board. The headboard is slightly higher than the foot board, and while it’s most commonly made of wood, you will see this style of bed frame in lots of materials - upholstered, rattan, metal, you name it. These beds rely on box springs to support the mattress and add height.

The most common variation on the panel bed is the open frame bed, which maintains the headboard and footboard, but both have an open design - so this includes spindles, wrought iron, and slats.

A sleigh bed frame takes the standard panel bed but grows the height of the footboard to match the headboard. This is a dramatic statement, that you can only commit to if you aren’t a fan of watching TV from your bed (which I’ll touch on later), because those sight lines are  completely blocked. 

If you want the drama of the sleigh frame with a little more openness, consider the canopy bed. This is a high four post bed with horizontal supporting members at the top. Canopy beds have made a huge come back in the pat 10 years, previously being associate with breezy white sheer curtains, canopies are now available in all sorts of profiles and materials. The great thing about canopy beds is that they center the focus of the room on the bed, frame the space, draw the eye upward (which as long as your ceilings are 10 feet and over, is a good thing), and they still keep the room feeling fairly open. 

A Divan bed on the other hand is kind of like an all-in-one solution. Rather than relying on a box spring, these beds have a solid base below them, which often includes storage. A headboard is optional but the seamless base design, which is usually upholstered, doesn’t require or allow for a footboard. These bed frames often require specific mattress that are extra thick, and can be a great solution for smaller foot prints when they include storage.

If you like the low-to the ground, super modern look, you may want to consider a platform bed. These were super popular during the Mid-Century modern time period, and have a lot of similarities to the Divan, with the main different being the base itself. The mattress sits directly on a low, typically wood, platform. There is usually an inset base or four legs that makes the bed appear to float. This is another option that doesn’t require a box spring, and this is really the most minimal of the bed frame styles. 

Of course one of the more common options is to use a standard utilitarian metal bed frame with a box spring, and opt for a standalone headboard. These headboards often end up being more decorative and help to create a focal point in the room. Where as the other bed styles we just went though, especially when upholstered, can server doubly duty if you want to lean against the headboard when reading in bed. Which, if you a bedroom minimalist, you would never do, because bedroom minimalists say the bedroom is just for sleep.

A cool detail you’ll see on headboard in the Shelter style which is when the headboard actually wraps around the slightly, providing almost like a wingback look - super cozy.

So one I thing I wanted to address is box springs and how to hide them. We’ve all seen dust ruffles and this is such a causal aesthetic, many beds today provide side rails that inherently cover the box spring, or forgo the box spring altogether. But if you buy a standard metal bed frame this will not be the case. The best alternative to the traditional dust ruffle is a stretched bed wrap. These are slightly more expensive than your typical dust ruffle, but they provide a tailored clean cover for both you box spring and the metal frame below. You could also cover the box spring in a fitted sheet to help it visually blend in with the rest of the bedding.

Depending on the type of headboard you chose, you may want to include a focal wall along the wall that the headboard is against. This could be as simple as a painted color or wallpaper. It could also be a gallery wall of family photos, artwork, a textured finish like plaster, or a material like cork or wood veneer. It’s critical to make sure that the accent wall in your room is the wall that your headboard is against, rather than a wall that you are facing when in bed. The idea is to provide some interest and design in the room, but to contain that stimulation so that when you are lying in bed, your eye isn’t dancing along the wallpaper pattern or being overwhelm with the dark gray you chose for paint.

Another potential element to consider, if you have the room, is some kind of seating. Including a place to sit in your bedroom that is not the bed, helps keep the bed reversed for sleeping only. If you need a place to sit down to put on your shoes or read a book or take a phone call, this can be a great reason to include additional seating in your bedroom, you just have to try and avoid letting it become the not-clean-but-not-dirty laundry holding purgatory. If you don’t have a foot board, having a narrow long bench at the foot of your bed can provide this seating and will help your entire bed ensemble look all the more finished. Another option is to dedicate a corner to a lounge chair and maybe even an ottoman if there’s room for it, and definitely give yourself a small side table for night time drinks. Big fan of night time drinks over here.

If we venture into the bedroom as a multipurpose space, thinking about all the different hats a bedroom could wear and leaving the bedroom minimalist theory behind, what other activities does a bedroom need to support? If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that having a desk in the bedroom can come in quite handy, especially if you have multiple people working from home without dedicated offices. Try and keep your desk footprint limited, the goal is to still have activities in the bedroom be more like a quiet car on a train - great for writing, email, and brainstorming. If you can keep more active tasks like video calls in another space, that helps preserve the the tranquility of the bedroom, although I know we don’t all have the luxury. If you have to take calls in your bedroom just make sure you aren’t looking at your bed while you’re doing it. It’s all about creating the mental buffer between relaxing and work. 

Lastly, unless you live in a mansion, which you might, or will one day, your bedroom likely holds all of your clothes and serves as a space for you to get dressed and ready for your day or for an event out. Storage becomes the next critical component. It is custom to include closets in bedrooms but this is not always the case, especially if you’re an apartment dweller. If you need clothing storage, and armoire or wardrobe can help you out big time, and of course having a dresser for folded clothing is pretty standard. You might even have a coveted vanity area - all of these are great, what’s important is - to the best of your ability - to create a “zone” with these pieces that is as separate and far away from the actual bed as possible. Meaning - unless there is absolutely no other place to put it, your dresser should not square off your bed. All of these elements should be off to the side of the room, creating a closet and getting ready niche for you. 

One thing that I absolutely love, is letting clothing and accessories be celebrated and displayed when you aren’t wearing them. You can consider selecting anywhere from one to ten key pieces that you love and rather than tucking them away, hang them on valet hooks on the wall or open shelves for accessories and shoes and let the clothing that makes you happiest be a part of your decor.

I’ve mentioned a few things that I would not recommend placing on the wall opposite the bed. So then the question arrises - what should be on the wall opposite the bed? I will say this - be intentional about what it is you see when you first open your eyes in the morning. I think a totally appropriate option - is nothing at all. That’s right, you can leave the wall opposite your bed blank, it’s the zen thing to do. If you have a piece of art, or certain pictures that you know you what to see last thing before you go to sleep and first thing when you wake up, you can hang those on that wall. You can paint it a color you love whether it’s a neutral or a brighter color. But design is just as much about its’ moments of relief as it is about its’ moments of interest. Don’t be afraid to give yourself that pause. 

Well, that’s all I have for you today. If you’re here you’ve reach the end of the episode, so I’d like to say - don’t forget to subscribe to this podcast, give us a rating and review in Apple Podcasts, and share this episode with a friend. Until we talk again, stay grounded.