Why using Interior Design rules in your bedroom can uplift your wellbeing at home.
As we notice a big movement in the world directed towards looking after our mental health, I strongly believe that you should start at the core, being your surroundings.
The first step in understanding the importance of home wellbeing is asking yourself how much thought you have given to the Interior Design of your bedroom. How often do you start a new week with the determination that you're going to have a healthier week, or you are going to cut out carbs?! If like me..that is every week! But why do we start with those drastic impacts on our lifestyle? Should we not consider our surrounding and environment before any of that? If you surround yourself with carbs, the chances are you are going to eat them! The same can be said about your home, if you don't encourage yourself to be in a home that makes you feel at ease then surely you will not be at your best?
Using certain Interior Design rules in your bedroom can really uplift your wellbeing at home. There are some vital pointers that I want to make in this blog post. To really highlight how effective certain aspects of design can help to elevate yourself and your lifestyle.
Interior Design in itself is a broad concept but also a core component in establishing the look and feel of your home. When designing your bedroom of course you want a space that reflects your personal style, but also generates a sense of calm that then leads on to promoting a healthy sleep pattern.
But where do I begin?
Start by creating a mood board. Not about how you want your room to look, but how you want your room to make you feel. Do you want to wake up feeling energised? Productive? Ready to start the day? Or do you want to wake up feeling relaxed and calm in a way that your room helps you to wake up slowly and steadily. That is really going to help you understand the style that you want your bedroom to reflect.
Your mood board is not just a board of products - it is a board of feelings.
Looking at those images that you have found, it could be the ocean, a mountain, a piece of art, something that evokes a sense of emotions. You can then begin to take colours out of that mood board and that is your base for starting your bedroom design. A colour has a connotation that ultimately makes each of us feel differently. If you want to wake up feeling energised you may opt for using colours that have a brighter tone, which are your oranges, your blues, your purples. If you are somebody that wants to wake up calm, the colour green makes us think of natural elements and being at one with nature. Green is the only colour that the eye doesn't have to fully adjust to seeing hence why it is such a calm colour to use.
The colour not only evokes a sense of feeling, but it also changes the climate feel, the temperature, and the energy within a room. One of my personal favourite colours to use in a bedroom is blue. I see the colour blue to be energising as it makes me feel like I'm in water and I was absolutely a mermaid in a previous life! When you think of the colour blue don't assume there is only one type of blue, for instance the primary blue that feels nostalgically childish. There are hundreds of different shades and tones of blue that can be designed to create a beautifully mature bedroom design. Blue is not just a colour that relates to coastal design it has so much more to give and by pairing it correctly it can be the perfect starting point to your bedroom design.
Consider how your colour will change in different lighting. How will this colour look in the morning and in the evening? Which direction does the sun rise on your house? When will your bedroom benefit from natural light?
I see so many people opting for a stark white bedroom because we are led to believe that the scandinavian way of life and design is pure and natural. White in my opinion is not a base colour, white is an accent colour to use when wanting to inject 'artificial light into a room'. Look out for one of my upcoming blog posts where I talk about how styling effectively can make a room feel brighter without the use of natural daylight.
Touching back on how lighting impacts your wellbeing in your bedroom, well firstly it isn't the style of light that impacts the feel, it is the type of bulb you put into your lamp or pendant. If you want lots of cool lighting that's going to be brighter, if you want warm lighting, that's going to make you feel more relaxed. So it's always important to make sure that you do consider the bulb as a key piece in your bedroom makeover. Just having a main central ceiling light is only ever going to give you one type of lighting output, in the morning and in the evening. Generally, we would have bedside lamps - check if you are utilising the cool or warm light bulb in them. You will be surprised what a difference it can make to the ambiance in your bedroom which can aid how it makes you feel.
In the morning, you may want to feel more awake and alive so your central ceiling light may have a slightly cooler bulb in it. But in the evenings you are more inclined to use your lamps which suit a warmer output. I know it sounds crazy but it does make a huge difference.
"Well they must of woken up on the wrong side of the bed", a saying I'm sure we have all said at one point. Well maybe they just woke up in a space that did not inspire them to start their day off in a positive direction, or they woke up to a space that made them feel overwhelmed and not a gentle wake up call.
Designing a stress free bedroom helps to give an aura of comfort and relaxation. If you went into a Spa and it was covered with ornaments, artwork and bold colours, you instantly know it's not going to make you feel relaxed. I understand that some want their bedroom to feel like it's part of their personality, but first, link it back to how you want to wake up and how you want to feel because that will change how you should design your space.
I've touched on a couple of them, but lighting, sound, smell and temperature is the core structure to consider when designing a bedroom that will aid your wellbeing. Something I believe very strongly about is the quality of your bedding. The bedding you chose is so important to how easy it will be for you to drift off to sleep and also how you will feel when you wake up..the only downside is you might not want to get out of bed! Picture that feeling you get when you stay in a hotel and you get into the bed and it feels luxurious. Tell yourself that you deserve that feeling every single day! You deserve that luxury, why is it not something that you have on your list as one of the top priorities to purchase when renovating your bedroom?
Eco paints
There are certain paints available on the market that are more sustainable, but also are healthier to us. Especially when we're designing a bedroom that we spend a solid eight hours sleeping in.
An example of this type of paint is earthborn. Known to me as the breathable paint brand that let walls breathe and don't give off the toxins that some other paints may produce.
Lastly, understanding a little more about the importance of designing your bedroom in a way that you can benefit your wellbeing, I hope has given you some inspiration on starting your bedroom redesign. If you have no idea where to start, we can help with that and take you on a journey to a better nights sleep in a bedroom that you will not only love but can hopefully aid to a better lifestyle!
Enquire here if you would like to take a step in starting your bedroom design journey with NSD Studio.
Blog post written by Nick Snow BIID, Founder of NSD Studio