Finding a little Inspiration for your Primary Bedroom
When diving into redesigning a room, it’s best to start with your main inspiration piece. This is your statement piece that will tie all your design elements together. You want to start here because the majority of your other design choices will be chosen through the lens of your inspiration piece.
WHAT TO LOOK FOR ?
It should reflect the style genre of the room. You’re typically not going to put a very heavy rough industrial piece of art in a highly traditional bedroom.
It needs to have 2-4 ROYGBIV (Colors of the Rainbow) colors, unless you’re going for a truly monochromatic design. They don’t all need to be intense or saturated colors, but you want options because this is where all your other bedroom colors will be drawn from.
Continuing on this thought, your inspiration piece would ideally have multiple shades of those different colors. This allows for some flexibility with what shade of color you can incorporate , instead of locking you into finding that one specific (hard to find) shade of periwinkle blue.
Also keep in mind that you want to have a mix of cool and warm colors. This piece is essentially a microcosm of your room. So if it’s all blue, you will have an all blue, very cool feeling room. Leave yourself the option to bring in some warmth even if it’s in small doses.
The inspiration piece needs to be predominantly placed within the room so directly upon entering, there’s an element that ties together all other elements and allows them to make sense with each other. In your bedroom, this piece will most often be across from the entrance and thereby located near the bed, since the bed is typically the focal point.
I wouldn’t say this is a must but I find you will appreciate the entire room more if the inspiration piece you choose has some personal significance. Something that brings happy memories and good feelings to your space.
Choose something that will have longevity so you’re not having to redo the entire room a month later. This depends on your lifestyle, but if you have children or animals that are tough on your bedding, you wouldn’t want your inspiration piece to be something on the bed. If your room is mainly off limits to others, then using a throw pillow or rug as your inspiration piece might make perfect sense.
GOOD OPTIONS FOR INSPIRATION PIECE
Artwork (canvas, photography, tapestry, poster, illustration)
Rugs
Drapes
Throw Pillow
I find that most often, it just makes sense to use a piece of art above the bed or a rug under the bed as a bedroom’s inspiration piece. They’re centrally located, large enough to bed seen, and stick around awhile. So let’s quickly review the best placement for these items specifically in your primary bedroom.
ARTWORK SIZE & PLACEMENT
photo source: juniperprintshop.com, “, jessfranksart.com, museumqualityart.com
If you’re doing artwork above your bed, here’s a few key measurements to remember:
King Bed = about 85” x 85” with a frame
Queen Bed = about 85” x 65” with a frame
You want your artwork above the bed to be 50-75% of the width of the bed it’s over. After some quick math, here is the size range of artwork you're looking for:
King Bed Artwork = 42.5” - 63.75” Wide
Queen Bed Artwork = 32.5 - 48.75” Wide
When hanging the artwork, a good rule of thumb is to hang it 4-8” above the top of the headboard. This lets the eye see them as interacting with each other, rather than being two unrelated pieces.
RUG SIZE & PLACEMENT
It does depend on the layout and traffic of the room, but generally speaking, different sizes of beds get certain sized rugs under them.
King Bed Rug = 8’x10’
Queen Bed Rug = 6’x9’
Be sure to have the rug placed partially under the bed but not so far that it goes under the night stands. And of course, you want to leave some floor showing all around the rug so that it anchors the room. We don’t want it to look like wall-to-wall carpeting.
Lastly, always use a rug pad under your rug. It will add softness but also protect your flooring.
Hopefully this gets the ideas coming. Can't wait to see what you create! 😍
