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Decor & Renovating Interior Design // Bedrooms // Bedroom Design Tips
For those who understand principles of design it is somewhat amazing to see the number of “tips” web sites that confuse decorating tips with design tips. What’s the difference? Use subdued colors is a decorating tip, while consider installing a fireplace is a design tip.
Designing a room is spelling out the function of the room – how you want to use it. Decorating a room is the specific appearance or form the room will take. This is a basic principle of modern architecture. The form of a structure – its physical makeup – should follow its function – how it will be used. Let’s consider an example to illustrate the difference.
Some people use their master bedrooms for sleeping and dressing while others see the room as an entertainment area and even a work center. The former will leave the room once dressed, perhaps come back to change clothes at the end of the work day, and only return when it’s time to retire for the night. The latter might work on their laptops early in the evening in the bedroom and also watch movies from the net while relaxing.
You can already see the extreme variation in decorating possibilities for the two types of homeowner. The person with a multi-use bedroom will be looking at entertainment center ideas as well as perhaps desks or work tables. And yes, if you love to relax and your bedroom is on an outside wall, adding a pre-fabricated fireplace is not beyond the realm of possibility. There is nothing like relaxing in front of a roaring fire.
If you start looking for decorative window treatments without considering the primary function of a bedroom – sleep – you may end up with treatments that don’t block out light in the early morning hours when the sun is up but you still want to sleep!
Here’s another design principle that impacts your decorating decisions. Homes make statements about the people who live within them. A good interior designer will tell you the color scheme should reflect your personality and be consistent throughout the home, beginning right at the curb. This doesn’t mean decorating every room in the same color, only in shades consistent with the mood you want to set. If you find a sale on dark blue paint for your bedroom when the rest of your home is decorated in brown tones, you’ve made the wrong choice.
If you’re the bold and daring type, use bold and daring colors throughout, even in the bedroom. A decorating idea that fits this design principle is to paint your ceiling in a deep, rich color, darker than the walls and woodworks. If this sounds ridiculous to you, go to the library and check out the better home decorating magazines and you are sure to find an example of this very thing. The effect is dramatic.
Flooring treatments provide yet another example of the form follows function principle. While you may love hardwood floors, do you really want to walk across an ice cold floor on your way to the bathroom in the dead of winter? Specifying how you use your bedroom might lead you to include area or scatter rugs as part of your decorating plan. The best bedroom design tip you can get is to begin by spelling out how you want to use your bedroom.
