Ding! The bed.
One you place the bed, the rest sort of follows. Go with the bed facing you when you walk in. If that is not possible, go with the shape of the room. If is longer one way, put the bed on the long wall, not the short one. Otherwise you end up with what I call the bowling alley-a bedroom that has a big long empty space that is useless. Unless you are an avid bowler, which I am not-much to my late grandparents' dismay.
If you have a window, yes! you can put a bed in front of it, as long as you aren't blocking any major fire escape route-or you have a bed like I used to with a cheap headboard that looks bad from the outside. Generally beds that look best in front of windows have slats or some kind of see-through headboard. This is a picture of my master bedroom- the room is kind of an odd shape and putting in front of the small window was really the only logical solution. It ended up allowing us to fit more furniture than we would have had we put it on the wall. Because of the slatted headboard, we were even able to put an air conditioner in the window and access it during the summer months. Which worked out great, because I could hide it with pillows during the day.
It did get tricky when the knob broke and then we had to use pliers to turn the knob, but that probably won't happen to you.
This next room is a very odd bedroom in a basement level of a condo. The key to making this work was to hang the curtains to the ceiling to make the window look taller and center the bed under the window, even though it was not in the center of the wall.
In some cases the bed can't be the focal point, especially in older, smaller homes. In those cases you want to put it on a long wall, and make sure you have enough clearance around it. In my baby's room, this layout made the most sense functionally, and was the best use of space.
If you can't make the bed the focal point, do make sure that whatever you see as you walk in looks nice, and isn't too cluttery.
Now let's talk bedding. I had major sticker shock when shopping for bedding for my new house. Even at the discount store a full set with comforters, pillowcases and sheets and all is not cheap. And, they all look sort of- manufactured.
So I came up with a cheaper solution, which has become my favorite inexpensive design solution for bedrooms: the white quilt. Not a duvet, which my husband had never heard of until we got married.
Not only are they not really French, they are a pain to stuff and keep from wrinkling.
You just keep your same old sheets and blanket or comforter underneath, and on top you place a nice neutral canvas. Throw a few throw pillows or shams, and you have yourself some nice looking clean bedding that goes with any paint color, and any budget. Keep your thousand year old pink smurf sheets from childhood, or your ratty old blanket underneath-no one will see.
For a more contemporary look you could go more bright white and smooth, for a more rustic look I like an off white with a bit more texture.
My advice is to get a size bigger than your bed in case you shrink it in the wash (like I did), have a deep mattress, or an ugly bedframe. This allows you to tuck it in and completely cover any ugly surface beneath.
You can accomplish this look with a quilt, a bedspreads, a comforters, or even a large blanket, like in this photo:
If your house is on the market, this is also a great way to depersonalize a room and create a calming hotel like atmosphere.
If you have one place in your house that should be calm and restful, the bedroom is it.
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