Make it a room you can’t wait to retreat to every day of the week
In honour of the most restful space in the home, these master bedroom ideas will present you with a host of ways that you can transform it from basic to boudoir.
Master bedroom decor deserves to be decadent so that you can start and end every day in the lap of luxury. So, find a bedroom colour scheme, a layout and a collection of furniture and furnishings that make it a room to which you can’t wait to retreat every day of the week.
Master bedroom decorating ideas often pivot around a colour palette. Colour is something that tends to drive much of the decision-making in any room’s scheme, and the bedroom is no different. If the rest of your home is already renovated, look to those rooms to inspire your bedroom’s palette.
While there’s no reason that you can’t pick a shade that’s completely different to the rest of the tones in your home, it’s generally believed that a harmonious palette of similar colours works best. This is so that there’s a clear flow between your rooms, which in turn, encourages a sense of calm and order.
Most interior designers will also suggest choosing hues that are tranquil for bedrooms – blue bedrooms, grey bedrooms, whites and soft pink bedrooms – because they’ll do their bit in easing you into a gentle sleep. This is why colours such as sunny yellow and zingy orange or patterned wallpapers are frowned upon, because their busyness is counter to the ambience that suits a bedroom’s spirit, especially in the master bedroom.
Something that’s often seen however, is to use wallpaper to create an accent wall behind the headboard. This way, you can still bring in a dose of awakening colour and dazzling pattern which is uplifting when you walk into the room or jump out of bed in the morning. But, placed firmly behind you, it’s out of sight when you’re under the covers.
The other point to note when deducing your master bedroom’s colour scheme, is to not get too hung up on choosing warm tones over cool ones.
It’s easy to assume a warmer hue is better suited to a bedroom where you want to feel cocooned, but the same effect can be achieved even when the walls are covered in a cool-toned colour. Blue-tinted whites, grey-based blues and pinks, and colder greys can all be warmed up beautifully through soft textiles.
Arguably, a cool-coloured master bedroom feels even cosier because your eye is instinctively drawn to all of those comforting elements, making them stand out all the more. Think mohair and cashmere blankets layered at the base of the bed and some form of upholstered furniture, be it a bedroom armchair, bench or even a small sofa in a tactile fabric.
You might consider as an alternative to paint and wallpaper, creating a feature wall using upholstered panels in linen or even very short pile velvet for the ultimate in plushness. Another master bedroom design trick is to take the headboard to great heights.
Not only will this give serious stage presence for your luxury bed – which should be the anchor in the room – but it brings a heavy dose of fabric to your walls in terms of height and volume. Couple this with fully-lined curtains that fall to the floor and even a blackout blind in a complementary textile to really enrobe your bedroom in all things tactile.
But what about ideas for small master bedrooms? All of the general decorating advice applies for master bedrooms of any size, but there are some nuances to note depending on the square meterage available.
The first is to consider wall lights as a bedside lamp alternative. It means that your bedside table is less cluttered, which in turn lends your room a much lighter look and feel.
If you choose a bedside cabinet that’s the same height as the bed itself, by keeping the surface clear, you’ll create one smooth, level line from bed to bedside, which also helps your room to feel more spacious.
On the topic of bedsides, there are a few options in a small master bedroom. Choose a bedside table that’s the same colour as the wall behind it, and watch it melt into the background. This is beneficial because the fewer pieces of furniture in the room, the larger it will feel.
With this in mind though, if you have enough space either side of the bed, pick out small chests of drawers to use as bedsides as this gives you extra storage space and might mean you can do without one large set of drawers that could overwhelm the room.
Equally, you could go one step further and bid farewell to a bedside table altogether, opting instead for floating shelves or nothing whatsoever other than your wall light or low-hung bedside pendant.
Another key piece of design advice for a smaller master bedroom is to think strategically about your furniture choices so that you have plenty of necessary storage but also one or two pieces that feel more luxurious. For example, a slender chaise longue or upholstered bench at the bottom of the bed creates extra seating in the bedroom, which is much-appreciated touch.
Or, make your headboard oversized, stretching it wider than the dimensions of the bed frame so that it gives the illusion of a much larger bed. And as a third idea, allocate space between fitted wardrobes that serves as a dressing table with an upholstered stool that slots neatly underneath so that neither table or chair is encroaching on valuable floor space.
At the other end of the scale is a large master bedroom, where you’ll be looking for ways to fill it to ensure your space feels well-used with no empty voids nor any overcrowding. It’s a balancing act.
Furniture choices in a bigger master bedroom matter just as much as in a small one, but here, you can afford to dress your space more impressively.
Upgrade your bedroom seating with a sink-into sofa as the pinnacle of luxury. The option of lounging somewhere other than the living room and without getting into bed is a touch extravagant, which is what makes it so enjoyable. Maybe you even have room to take it into a capacious L-shaped corner sofa complete with coffee table so that you really do feel inclined to treat the master bedroom as a private sitting room.
In a large bedroom, you might also want to put a small console table with a mirror above and a filled vase of flowers to one side, just as you would in a hallway. It’s a decorative feature that won’t go unnoticed.
Lots of interior designers will choose to place sizeable pieces of art over aspects such as these, because it really pulls them out as areas of interest in the room.
Typically, it’s the bed that holds the limelight in a bedroom, but art can help you to shift that focus onto other parts of the room. As soon as you see items such as console tables and sofas in a bedroom, you really appreciate the true size of the space and the decadence of your furniture choices.
Whether it’s a city apartment or a sprawling country retreat, it’s common to have an ensuite and master bedroom combination. But how to approach decorating that so that it’s in-keeping with the theme of your luxury bedroom?
The clue is in the word ‘luxury’. A master bedroom is the part of the home reserved strictly for you, and so the ensuite should be viewed with the same mentality. It’s the bathroom that qualifies most for opulent materials and finishes worthy of spa status.
Dramatic veined marble on walls and floors, glossy granite tiling or hardwood flooring is a master bedroom ensuite idea that will provide sophisticated and unapologetically glamorous foundations.
From here, incorporate the items at the top of your bathroom’s wish list, be it a traditional rolltop bath, a generously sized walk-in shower complete with double shower head, and a his and her vanity unit with two sinks so there’s never a need to share – one of the greatest master bedroom ensuite luxuries of all.
