Cozy and Stylish: How to Style Your Bed from Head to Footboard
A stylish bed is one of the best things about travel. There's something deeply rewarding about walking into a bedroom to see a beautifully styled bed. The perfect harmony of a warm duvet, artistically arranged pillows, and accent throw make you eager to dive between its fluffy layers. What most people don't realize is how easy this is to do for yourself - and your guests - at home. Make a gorgeous guest room or transform your master bedroom into a spa-like escape with just a little bit of bed styling. Choosing exactly the right layers for your climate and taste can create a beautiful and cozy bed style for every bedroom.
The Layers of Bed Styling
- Structural
- Bed frame
- Mattress
- Box Spring or Platform
- Wall Mounted
- Decorative Headboard
- Pillows
- Sleeping Pillows
- Decorative Sitting Pillows
- Neck or Lumbar Pillows
- Throw Pillows
- Linens and Bedding
- Fitted and Top Sheets
- Knit Blanket
- Duvet
- Throw Coverlet or Quilt
- Bed Scarf
- Bed Skirt
The Bedframe: What You're Starting With
Styling a bed always starts with the bedframe. If you have a nice piece of furniture, work with that to shape your bed style. If you have a simple bedframe, you can build the bed on top of it without letting it influence your design. A large wooden bedframe suggests a more traditional design for your linens. Bulkier frames can support fluffier bedding stacked higher, while light and spindly frames suggest a sleeker bed design and sharper edges.
You can also use the color of your bed frame to influence the design, or create a bed style that plays over a simple bedframe without worrying about the starting shade of wood or metal.
From there, stack your box springs and mattress to create the baseline of height and comfort for your stylish new bed design.
To Build a Headboard
Most people don't realize that you can build a headboard without the bedframe. In fact, most hotel headboards are mounted on the wall, not the frame of the bed. If you want to make a big splash with your bed styling, you can do the same. Craft or buy a beautiful headboard that becomes the backdrop for your bed design to mount on the wall behind the head of the bed.
As an alternative to headboards, you may instead plan for the art you will hang at the head of the bed, or place your bed toward a window for a morning view.
One of the coolest things you can do with a mounted headboard is add wired elements. Your own reading light or handy phone-charging outlet in the headboard is an elegant solution to both master suites and stylish guest bedroom design.
Pick Your Style Palette, Gather Your Linens
The most stunning part of bed design is the palette of colors and patterns. What is your theme or the mood you want to create? Use this to decide the palette for your bed design.
Depending on your approach, this is the time to buy matching bedding or choose a style you can build from pieces you already own. You can make a stunning bed even with homestyle quilts and sheets with the right artistic touch for cozy style. You might choose a blue style combined with embroidered silver waves. Or you may build an entire guest bedroom on a mosaic sea turtle theme. Or you might choose elegant solid colors like red and gold with a sunset of accent colors.
- Sheets that pop with color
- Matching the blanket, pillow, and sheet design
- The mosaic created by the pillow stack
- Layering sheet colors with blanket designs with throws
- With or without an accenting bed skirt
Layering Linens for Your Climate
- Sheets
- First throw
- Duvet/comforter/quilt
- Second throw
- Coverlet
- Bed scarf
The next step is layered linens. This part of bed styling is essential for sleeping comfort. How many layers do you need to sleep comfortably? In warm climates, you will want to plan for fewer layers of cooling bedding. In cold climates, plan for several layers of thick, insulating bedding with extra blankets and throws.
Build a beautiful color palette using the sheets and blankets to provide a layered effect when the bedding is turned down. Great colors can look lovely even when tousled after sleep.
Start with the sheets. Cool sheets are cotton percale. Warm sheets are satin or flannel. Choose crisp, vividly colored (or pristinely white/cream) sheets that will make a splash when you turn down the top corner. Use a matching fitted and flat sheet, or two flat sheets if you're good at tucking.
In cold climates, a knit blanket on top of the sheet layer is appreciated as an extra layer of insulation.
The Duvet is the primary blanket layer, typically an airy feather or synthetic comforter with a washable decorative cover. However, you can substitute a duvet for a nice quilt or comforter depending on climate and style.
The second throw is typically folded down to the foot of the bed. It can be pulled up on a cold night or wrapped up in to lounge around the room.
Coverlets are sometimes thrown over the duvet or comforter as a final layer of decoration.
A bed scarf is a special strip of sturdy, decorative fabric along the foot of the bed. This is a protection from suitcases and shoes when guests first arrive.
Styling the Pillow Pile
Now for the detail that really makes a bed feel like a luxurious escape: the pillow pile. How many pillows will you stack? Hotels stack so many to ensure there's a pillow of the right fluffiness for each type of sleeper. Squishy pillows for stomach sleepers, fluffy pillows for side sleepers, shaped pillows for back sleepers. Then there's the stack of sleeper pillows, big embroidery-covered pillows to prop yourself up on for conversation and television, and little throw-pillows on top.
Decide how you will build your pillow stack. Choose your layers of pillowcase colors or fabric patterns to create attractive layers. Interestingly, the largest pillows are often in the middle, propped up by the lower sleeping pillows and accented by the smaller throw pillows.
The Final Touches
Finally, look at the bed as a whole and decide how you want to arrange the final touches. Decide whether you want the covers pulled up over low pillows or folded down to reveal a bursting stack of decorative pillows. Decide if you want small throw pillows as a final touch or to keep your surface smooth with a decorative bedspread or even a bed scarf for the luggage and shoes of a weary guest.
Make the bed the way you planned and examine your handiwork. You can always re-stack the pillows or try your turn-down in a slightly different style. When you have the colors, the patterns, and the make just right, you'll have created a bed that anyone would be delighted to dive into.
Whether you're styling your master suite or your guest room, Urban Ambiance can help you build the perfect bedroom experience starting with beautiful lighting. Contact us today for more home design ideas and insights.
