I’ve always had a massive love affair with my bed. Especially since I’ve had kids it is without a doubt my favourite place in the world. Maybe it’s the fact that once you’ve experienced sleep deprivation to the extreme, you appreciate your bed and the value of a good night’s sleep a lot more than when you can take it for granted.
Saying that, it’s not just my bed, in fact, my bedroom as a whole has become a lot more important to me over the last few years than it ever was. As a busy Mum who works full time, my bedroom has become something of a sanctuary to me, my haven of sanity if you will, where I can retreat to when I need five minutes of peace and quiet, or just close my eyes for a couple of minutes and take a breather. And of course, to retire to for a – hopefully – good night’s sleep.
When I was younger and sans kids, my bedroom was mainly a practical room, housing my wardrobe, chest of drawers and bed, and whilst I’ve always liked nice décor, functionality prevailed. This has really changed, and over the years I have put a lot more emphasis on nice interiors, practical but also stylish furniture, nice bedding, luxurious cushions and bedspreads, as well as sumptuous curtains to finish off the room, all to create a cosy, calm and comfortable space.
The pictures above and below show the type of feel and style that I like – a mixture of boutique hotel and real, lived in homes that aren’t just for show, where I can retreat to, but where the kids can also jump and bounce on the bed or come to snuggle with us. I like tranquil and neutral colours, and tonal mixtures of off-whites, creams, greys and lavish metallics, and a splash of colour here and there.
I’ve been lucky enough to have received some lovely new bed linen from John Lewis for Christmas, which fits in well with our current colour scheme. You can’t beat the feeling of crisp, new and fresh bed linen when you climb into bed at night! My Mum also gave me a gorgeous dusky, charcoaly blue throw (read: I loved it so much, I begged her to give it to me, and bless her, she did! you can find similar here), which will complement this well.
Even before Christmas and those lovely bedroom presents, I had been looking to upgrade our curtains and invest in proper black-out ones, both for privacy and to create the right sleep environment. We currently have a black-out blind, but it still lets in light through the gaps and is getting a bit tired looking anyway, so I’ve been searching for a stylish set of curtains that will do the proper job while also complementing our bedroom décor and finishing off the look. It’s especially important to me to get some proper black-out curtains, as Alex is still sleeping with us in our bedroom until we either move or create the room in our house for his own nursery. And as he’s that bit older now, he is more aware or light changes and prone to waking, so once the nights turn shorter again, I’ll need a decent set of black-out curtains to prevent him from waking at ungodly hours.
Luckily, blackout curtains are every inch as elegant as their regular counterparts and they come in all sorts of shades, patterns and textures. The Yorkshire Linen Company offers a huge amount of choice at great value for money, which is fab when you want to refresh the look of your room frequently with new colour injections and different styles of curtains and accessories. I’ve got my eye on their textured range, I just need to decide on whether to go for a lighter or darker shade of grey (choices, choices!).
Earlier in the summer we bought some new, all white, bedroom furniture, which is handy as most colour schemes go with this and I can change the accessories as the mood takes me. Once I’ve updated the bedding and soft furnishings, all that is left to do is to get a new bed frame with a soft, opulent head board *our current bed frame is a minimalist wooden one, which is nice, but quite dangerous as the kids keep banging their heads on it when they bounce on our bed*, and mission bedroom sanctuary will be all but complete.