Here Is What Makes A Great Bedroom

Are you one of the millions of apartment-dwellers who thinks the living room is the star of the show? Stop neglecting your bedroom by addressing these key elements of a well-designed bedroom:

Bedding

The bed is your room's centerpiece, so make sure that baby sparkles!

Before you dress your bed, you need to figure out where to put it. Often designers will position the bed against the wall opposite the entry door, so that it is the first things you may feast your eyes upon when entering the room.

Often the key to designing a bed is correct layering. Don't feel as if you need to run out and purchase a bedroom set; sheets and comforters need not look as if they were purchased together, only that they compliment each other with color, pattern, or theme. Layer a quilt or blanket at the end of the bed, not only as a visually pleasing end cap, but also as a functional element within reach for those chilly nights when you need that extra layer of warmth.

Last but not least, headboards are a wonderful thing. They frame your place of rest, and if your bed is placed against the wall opposite the door, your headboard will control a significant amount of space on the first wall that you see. Don't have the money yet for a headboard? Check out these alternatives.

Symmetry

Though there is no absolute rule for design, it has been scientifically proven that human beings enjoy symmetry. A pair of matching nightstands not only provides the function of having a place to set your nightly glass of H2O, but creates a sense of calming order. If your nightstands aren't from a set, try to choose two pieces of similar visual weight. Extra credit: add matching/complimentary lamps on top!

Lighting

In an ideal world, every apartment would have tons of windows, and all those windows would face South. However, we must obey the laws of physics, so knowing how to maximize light that you have (particularly for North-facing rooms) is a must.

The most obvious way to maximize the light entering your room is to have as few objects blocking your windows as possible. Heavy curtains and furniture reduce the light available to you; if you must have thick curtains, think about adding a second curtain rod upon which to hang lighter-weighted curtains that may remain permanently shut, leaving the heavy layer of curtains to only be used when necessary. 

Now, go forth and count your sheep in style!

Your Pantry Organization Is Killing You

Its just doing it slowly. Here are 5 organization rules every pantry should follow:

Keep Drippy Things on Bottom Shelves

It happens to the best of us: things get knocked over. Contain a future mess by identifying the prime culprits for a particularly sticky, staining disaster (frequently-used olive oil, I'm looking at you) and removing them from the top shelf, where their mess-making potential is maximized.

Most Frequently-Used Items At The Front

Frequent trips to the back of the pantry open you up to more possibilities of knocking things over, and are just an unnecessary additional hassle. Keep your favorite items close at hand by moving them to the front of the line.

Separate Cleaning Supplies

OK, this one actually could kill you. Large pantries such as the ones featured in Redwood Apartments frequently become a catch-all for items that either don't quite fit in their intended space elsewhere, or don't have a place at all. Brooms and mops may find their way into this space, closely followed by cleaning supplies that are certainly not safe for human consumption. While there is no large issue with these items occupying the same space, keep them as separate as possible by giving the cleaning supplies their own corner.

Headboard Alternatives

As we've mentioned in a previous post, headboards are the frame around the focal point of your bedroom. However, they're not necessarily cheap. Here are some headboard alternatives that will round out your look without breaking the bank:

Curtains As A Headboard

This suggestion is most useful if your bed is actually placed under a window, but works without one nonetheless. It can seem counterintuitive to place you bed against a window for fear of blocking the light, however if you are a headboard-less dweller, many beds will sit below a window at standard height. Let your curtains pull double duty, and get an even more dramatic effect behind your bed, as curtains can extend all the way to the ceiling.

 

Large Pillows

Pillows come in all shapes and sizes. Why not get a few big, flatter ones to prop up against the wall behind your bed? Depending on how mobile you are when you sleep, you may not even have to take them down before you get into bed. And you can't get much softer than this idea.

Tabletop

Many things look like a headboard. There was a time when rolled an old table top behind my bed for storage, and decided that I liked the look. For apartments less gifted with storage space, this could be a convenient location to keep that fold-out table you only use for Thanksgiving. Don't like the finish of the table? Wrap a coordinating bed sheet around it to pull it into your design!

 

As an additional note, don't forget the impact of placing items such as pictures and mirrors above your headboard. The general rule of thumb is that the object or grouping of objects above the bed look best when they take up 2/3s of the available space. Correct proportions make all the difference!