Rock your Design!

It is quite extraordinary to think that we devote so little attention to the planning of a room where we are likely to spend half our day if not half our life! Of all the rooms in a house the bedroom is perhaps the most important - a private space in which we can recoup and recharge our batteries, ready to face the onslaught of another day.

We think nothing of spending endless hours on the carefull planning of a kitchen. It may not occur to us that the bedroom requires every bit as much attention. But the positioning of a dressing table and the establishment of the correct depth for a wardrobe are equally as critical for our comfort and convenience as deciding on the height of worktops and a location for the refrigerator.

Listing the activities that will be taking place in the bedroom is the starting point. Apart from the obvious one of sleeping, we may, for instance, wish to be able to read, exercise, take breakfast, write letters, or play or work on a computer. Chronicling these at the start of your design project will help concentrate the mind - because it is not until these have been established that you can plan for the space, lighting, furnishing and storage facilities each requires.

Furnishings

The bed is the main item of furniture in the room and should always be considered first. It is best sited where there is sufficient room to manoeuvre around it, where there is good natural light and from where there is a pleasant view. Other considerations are the electrical points and, not to be forgotten, in which position will the bed look best when viewed upon entering the room?

Careful thought should also go into the choice of bead head. Wood and metal are currently favoured materials, but are comfortable only if plenty of pillows are also supplied. A padded type, provided it is covered with a resilient or patterned fabric, may be a more suitable selection. A decorators tip is to attach the bed head to the wall instead of to the bed itself: this will result in a more stable bed head and will mean easier bed-making.

The most important considerations when it comes to the choice of bed cover are how it will look when in place, and how it will fare when folded. Quilting a fine fabric will do much to give it body and will help preserve its new appearance for longer, and having a suitable receptacle at the end of the bed on to which to fold back the spread will also encourage good care.

Lighting

In many ways the rules applying to lighting the living room can be applied to the bedroom too, but perhaps in a more subtle fashion. It is important to create a calm restful atmosphere and to avoid glare. Light diffused by the addition of silk shades will give just the right soft glow.

As well as achieving a relaxing mood, it is also vital to ensure that the task lighting is doing its job. Buying a sufficiently tall bedside table is a good starting point and, so long as the light source is at a sufficient height, it does not matter whether this is a free-standing table lamp, a wall fitting or a headboard-mounted lamp. Many consider the angle-arm wall fitting to be the perfect answer. This frees the bedside table space and can be adjusted for reading in bed or swung back against the wall for bed-making. For double occupancy, separate lights to each side of the bed will allow one person to sleep undisturbed while the other reads in bed. These lights, for the sake of convenience, should be two-way switched between bedside and entrance door so that they can be illuminated on entering the room and extinguished from the bedside.

Bedroom requires an overall lighting because its a room where you going to sleep so you wanna make sure that you have control of your lighting. You want your lighting to be warm, you want it to all be on dimmers and its best if you have an element that you can also control right from the bed so that you dont have to get up to close your lights as you're getting to go to bed.