5 Must-Haves for a Stylish Small Bedroom

Bedrooms are a great space to get creative with your design and décor. This is because there are so many opportunities to play with colors, patterns, furniture, lighting, and proportions. But these often small spaces can be challenging. With today’s beds taking up a large area, homeowners can struggle to find the right size for items like dressers and bedside tables and strike the right balance in color and pattern. Five features that are always taken into account when creating a stylish bedroom, regardless of the size of the bedroom, are listed below. See if these are the right fit for your space.

1. Large Furniture

It may sound counterintuitive, but adding large furniture to a relatively small bedroom helps draw attention to the furniture rather than the size of the room, which visually makes the room appear larger.

Here, the wardrobe takes up a lot of space, but it brings so much style and a soothing tone that it doesn’t feel overwhelming. Custom-made corners and integrated wall lamps create an ingenious alternative to bedside tables. Light, neutral colors are recommended for large furniture, as they take up less visual weight than dark colors.

Since the bed is often the largest piece of furniture in a bedroom, some homeowners try to downplay it by adopting an ultra-minimalist frame or skipping the headboard. But focusing on the important parts will help make the whole space vibrant.

You can then use other elements on top of this to build complementary layers. Notice how the padded and patterned bed frame and headboard here grab your attention. Then your eyes will turn to similar shades in the grass cloth wallpaper and decorative paint. The table lamp is in harmony with the bedding. Magenta pillows are paired with upholstered benches. A large area of carpet brings all the colors together.

It’s a relatively small room, but a bit of a maximalist approach makes it look more spacious.

2. Dramatic Lighting

Similar to using larger pieces, employing dramatic fixtures will help create a focal point and make the room look more perfect. In a small bedroom, eye-catching light fixtures will catch the eye and make the room look more spacious.

Even without the black pendant, this is a beautifully designed bedroom. But it’s easy to see how the addition of dramatic fixtures can take a room to the next level and help distract people from a compact layout.

Here, an oversized, two-layer brass finish pendant elevates the elegance of an otherwise minimalist bedroom.

3. Colorful Bedding

Whether your bedroom is smaller, or a larger bedroom like one like this, bold bedding can also be an attractive focal point, keeping your eyes moving and giving the impression of more space.

As mentioned earlier, your bed is probably the largest part of your space. Since most of it is horizontal, it is a great place for visual statements. I like to stack a brightly colored blanket or duvet or duvet on top of crisp white or other neutral sheets. Use pillows of the same shade to elevate the visual hierarchy to the vertical plane and add complementary colors to give it some variety.

Once the composition is in place, you can play with those colors. This bedroom is only available in four colors – blue, grey, yellow and white – but the layering, repetition and harmony make it look more colorful.

So, when you’re choosing bold bedding colors, be sure to choose other pieces that go well with those colors, such as chairs, pendants, floral wallcoverings, and pillows. Similarly, the blue color on bedding, pillows, rugs, benches, and blankets catches your eye.

Brightly coloured bedding is especially suitable for small bedrooms. This bedroom is indeed compact, but note that keeping the vertical surface in a soft beige color allows the green pillows and bedspreads to draw your attention to the horizontal surface and make the room feel more spacious.

4. Floor-to-Ceiling Curtains

I’ve highlighted a couple of elements in the bedroom that I want to draw attention to, but I think curtains should be more of a silent but still important support function.

This is because I always recommend using floor-to-ceiling curtains, and since you’re dealing with large vertical panels, it’s usually best to opt for a plain neutral color for a look that isn’t cumbersome. Simple pleats and letting the bottom “kiss” the floor will give you a surprising style to your humble curtains.

Even if you don’t have floor-to-ceiling windows, I recommend installing full-height curtains. This will accentuate the height of the room and make it appear taller, rather than drawing attention to the short windows. Full height also blocks more light and reduces noise, creating a more pleasant sleeping environment. Curtains can also help insulate the room, thus maintaining a comfortable temperature.

To really sell a full-height look, consider a low-profile track known as a hospital track or KS track. This narrow hardware sits snugly to the ceiling, allowing your panels to touch the ceiling for full coverage – no annoying sunlight coming out of the gaps at the top.

5. Black Walls

All-white walls can make a space feel more open and airy, but sometimes they can have an unexpected effect and throw you off balance.

One of my favorite workarounds is to add a black wall behind the bed. This creates a deep look that can be visually pulled back to the size of the bed that sticks into the room. Black walls can help a room appear lighter and give the eye the impression that the space is deeper than it actually is.

If you don’t have natural light in your room, painting it in a bright color will actually make it look smaller. Black walls create depth, which translates into more openness. Note that the headboard wall of this compact bedroom seems to stretch like an endless tunnel. Sometimes it’s better to embrace a dark space than to fight it.