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Create a Bedroom Sanctuary with the Perfect Furniture Choices
Create a peaceful bedroom sanctuary with thoughtful furniture, smart lighting, and space-maximising design.
Image Above: Simon Devitt
In no other room in your house is it more important to establish the ‘right mood’ than in your bedroom. As sleeping will take up most of your time, it’s important to create a room that feels relaxing to you and that will promote a restful ambience.
Clearly, choosing the right bed is the most important step in ensuring a deep and restorative sleep but the other elements in your bedroom are just as important, from the lighting scheme through to the décor and other furniture items.
While it may sound daunting, creating a sanctuary bedroom — like this master suite at Bunker House by Dalman Architects — doesn’t have to be difficult or expensive. Whether you’re starting from scratch with a new build or looking to give your existing bedroom a much-needed makeover, taking the right approach at the beginning of the design process is sure to bring an improvement to your overall wellbeing.
As with any other room, paying attention to proper proportion in your bedroom space will bring about the best results. Form and function are key when it comes to achieving a harmonious result. Establishing the correct layout for furniture pieces, coupled with unimpeded circulation in and around your bedroom, will serve to bring about a space in which you feel instantly at peace.
To this end, your sanctuary would ideally appear spacious — even a small room can exude spaciousness if properly designed — be devoid of unnecessary distractions and be the very definition of serenity.
In this home by Kirsten Ford, the wall-to-wall velvet upholstered headboard adds a rich layer of colour and luxury, while the low-profile cylindrical bedside tables provide ample storage space, as well as helping soften the vertical and horizontal lines. Image: Simon Wilson
Take inventory of every piece of furniture — bed, drawers, vanity dresser, chair(s) and bedside tables — that will be, or that you’d like to have, in the bedroom and make a plan for how they will stand in proportion to each other. Accurate measurements will allow you to maintain a good flow and will determine the size of each individual element — shown to good effect in this home by interior designer Kirsten Ford.
Despite the size of the room in question, don’t forget to remain selective about the amount of, and size of, the furniture you’re planning on buying — remember, the goal is to create a serene, sanctuary bedroom.
To that end, you will want to maximise the amount of floor space, so consider pieces that can do double duty or that may be tall, rather than wide. Pieces that are on legs and that show the floor underneath will help to create a sense of spaciousness. Also, while traditional materials and finishes can be desirable, take a look at less obvious options that may allow you to keep pieces low profile or slimline.
Task, ambient and accent lighting all serve distinct functions in this master bedroom, while an outdoor setting serves to maximise the room’s floorplan without impeding upon the interior space. Image: Sam Hartnett
Equally important to creating a bedroom sanctuary, will be your choice of lighting. If space allows, look to utilise a variety of lighting options that draw upon the three main elements — task, ambient and accent — such as in this bedroom by AW Architects.
Most of us love to unwind by reading in bed, so task lighting is a must — a bedside lamp, wall sconce or small pendant will do the trick. If you’re going to be incorporating one or more pieces of art into your bedroom’s design scheme, accent lighting will allow you to show them off to their full effect. Ambient lighting, in the form of a statement pendant — a chandelier or similar — will not only provide sufficient illumination but will also cement your design scheme.
Whatever your budget, whatever the size of the room, there are tried and tested design tricks that will allow you to create a bedroom sanctuary that will be as restorative to your soul as it is to your wellbeing.
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