DESIGNING A LUXURIOUS BEDROOM RETREAT: HOW TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT FURNITURE
Perhaps the most important design trend in years is the transformation of your bedroom into a luxurious bedroom retreat. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, a bedroom retreat is a space where, beyond sleeping, you can relax, unwind and enjoy being on your own. While this might sound like a passing fad, there’s plenty of science to back up the link between your home environment and its impact on your mental health.
Dr Chloe Taylor of the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development says that continuing research has found “the ability of interior design elements to evoke a positive or negative emotional response in people. These findings open the door to design spaces that consciously manipulate decorative elements to encourage creativity, peace, and happiness." If you want to make your bedroom into somewhere truly special, here’s our guide to choosing one of the most essential aspects: the furniture.
Designing your bedroom retreat
First, stop looking at your bedroom as purely functional and add some of your personality to it. The likelihood is that you've already chosen the colours that suit the overall theme of your home décor, so unless you've developed a sudden hatred for them, the best thing to do is accentuate and complement them with meaningful items. Wall art and décor, such as pictures, mirrors, and clocks, can be a great place to start. However, it's worth using materials with a natural 'feel,' such as our Carlo Marble and Brass Wall Clock, floating shelves made from wood, such as the Acacia Wall Ledge, and the Gallery Walnut Picture Frame. Your bedroom walls are the largest surface area in your soon-to-be retreat, so it makes sense to begin the theme here.
Employing personal resonance
While using natural materials and those that conjure up a sense of tranquillity on your walls is an excellent way to engender that elusive sense of peace, it's only part of the equation. If you're using wooden picture frames, be sure to use them to house photographs and pictures with personal resonance. Photographs, art, and sketches that have some meaning to you can be an effective way to begin to create that feeling that you're in an interactive space on an emotional level.
Finding that ‘feel’
With the walls giving you a sense of personal space, the next step is to follow that feeling through into the rest of the furniture. One of the most used items is your bedside table or nightstand. Whether you use them to display photographs or meaningful knick-knacks or act as a resting space for the latest book you're reading, an impactive element can be your tableside lighting. While natural elements are essential to infuse your room with that spa-style serenity, those that are too wild can have an adverse effect. Research has found that symmetry can have a calming effect. When choosing your nightstand lighting, look for those that use more muted and less reflective materials and have an immediate visual appeal. Table lamps, such as the forgivably-named Iron Madness Table Lamp and the Space Table Lamp, employ the shapes suggested by Mother Nature but refined by established and up-and-coming designers to create pieces that carefully straddle the line between the organic and the refined.
Lying in luxury
If you want to replace your bed, the rule is relatively similar to create that feeling of luxury and welcome you get from a high-end hotel room. Natural elements are your baseline, but choosing beds that sport curves and symmetry can be an important way for you to feel in control of all the aspects of your designated retreat. Beds, such as the Indio Wood Platform King Bed, are evocative of the types of well-being spas you might find in Thailand or India. However, if you want something with rounded edges and plush cushioning, the Forte White King Bed offers that five-star feel. If deeper colours help to take you to your happy place, the Pullover Pleat Raven Sateen King Bed provides the perfect fusion of texture and tone.
Minimising media
Your bed is the largest piece of furniture in your bedroom; once you've decided on its aesthetic, you can employ other accents that allow the desired ambience to fill the whole room. One of the most overlooked pieces of bedroom furniture is the media chest. While current wisdom suggests that TVs and monitors in your bedroom can keep you awake and hamper proper sleep, there isn't a self-respecting hotel that wouldn't offer its guests the chance to relax in front of a film. If you have a TV in your bedroom, give it another purpose with the right media chest.
Using a media chest, such as Clyde Mahogany Small Media Console, or the Ruffle Sprayed Credenza, you can shut your screens away, tucking them behind surfaces that blend seamlessly with your decision to upgrade your bedroom into a personal and healing retreat. While they might tick all the aesthetic boxes, storage solutions such as these also offer superb storage, so should you find yourself surrounded by remotes, CDs, or DVDs, they've all got a home, allowing you to clear both your mind and the space around you.
A resilient retreat
Dressers can also be a functional part of any bedroom, but that doesn’t mean they can’t add to the overall atmosphere. With your theme and ‘feel’ set from the walls down, dressers such as the Lawson Low Glass Top Dresser are lower in profile, increasing the sensation of open space in your bedroom while allowing you to keep all your necessities tucked away. With the timeless appeal of wood, it ticks all the right boxes when you're looking to create peaceful surroundings. However, if you need higher-stacked dressers, products such as the Ruffle Sprayed Concrete Credenza combine height with enough neutrality that they'll only serve to make your bedroom retreat feel light and airy enough in which to enjoy some well-earned relaxation.
With your furniture in place, there’s plenty of room for other soothing details, such as candles, diffusers, textured rigs, and even faux plants. However, the first thing to do is establish your theme and setting through larger items of furniture that reflect your personality and needs. With these in place and acting as blank but sympathetic canvases, you're at liberty to infuse your bedroom with all those details that will transform it from a functional setting to somewhere restorative, relaxing, and reinvigorating.