A few years ago, I decided that becoming an adult requires complete financial and physical independence from one’s family. So I bought a tiny shoebox, figuring that it would make more financial sense than renting one. “It’s an investment!” everyone says, as I nodded dumbly and agreed to give up 50-75% of my monthly salary for the next five years.
The day where I finally inhabit said shoebox is fast approaching, and my current singular obsession revolves around making the place look like I hired an expensive decorator to prettify it. Only the expensive decorator is myself running on a very limited budget, with the added challenge of making the place look spacious while expressing who I am and somehow fitting everything I own.
You’d think that decorating a condo would be as simple as keeping the walls white and buying furniture at the local Ikea equivalent, but not if you have very particular tastes. On an average evening, you can find me analyzing paint swatches, studying furniture placement, and devouring every single piece of advice from my favorite design blogs. There are days when my boyfriend comes over for some wink wink nudge nudge, only to find me pinning away obsessively, with barely a grunt to acknowledge his presence. When I eat at a restaurant, I find myself paying more attention to the lighting fixtures than the menu, wondering if I can somehow accommodate the same details into my place. I know more about the different types of crown molding and where to get wall stencils than who’s running for senator and why I should vote for them.
After several weeks, I had my mind made up on the look, feel, and color scheme of every room in the place, except for one: the bedroom, the most intimate and personal of all spaces. A bedroom must be conducive to sleep, but more importantly, I think it must also carry the strongest reflection of its occupant’s personality. And that’s what makes the damn place so difficult to decorate: who am I, and what will my bedroom say about me? All my bedrooms thus far have gotten then sleep part right but failed to capture my personality, because I never put much thought into planning the space. This time, I was determined to get it right.
I think the trick to planning a bedroom lies in getting to know its space and its limitations. From there, decide what you want to use it for. My bedroom is small and square, with only enough room for a double bed and built-in closet. That’s fine by me; I want my room to be used exclusively for sleep and whatever else one might do on a bed. My desk (if there’s space for one) can be placed somewhere outside.
The next step involves choosing a color you love, and putting it on your wall, or on your bedsheets, or in carefully placed accents. Most people will be screaming at you to keep the walls white. “White walls looks nice!” they will say. “White walls will make your room look bigger!” they will say. But I have never been a fan of white walls. I want to be enveloped by a color that I love, even if that color is more pigmented than most people would paint their bedroom with.
Besides, my research shows that white walls will not always make a room look bigger. See the photo above? That’s the actual room with its default white paint, and it doesn’t look any more spacious and inviting to me.
If your room is small and does not receive enough natural light, pale colors will make it look gloomier because it highlights the shadows in the space. In addition, white walls are harder to decorate. Forget using bright colors as an accent; white will make them look brighter than they really are.
So what do you do with a small room with only one window? According to color expert Donald Kaufman, “A rich, deep colour can make a dim, somber space feel warm and luminous – even though it receives no natural light.” A dark color also makes the walls and ceiling recede, giving the room the illusion of depth and space. And so my instinct to paint the walls with rich jewel tones is vindicated.
I had my heart set on painting my walls in my favorite color, dark purple:
But then I fell in love with this gorgeous deep teal bedroom, and started reconsidering my walls.
When my boyfriend did a 3D model of the room with the paint, I was disappointed to see that the teal wasn’t working on my walls. Instead looking cozy and inviting, it created a foreboding and depressing atmosphere. And so comes the most important lesson in decorating a bedroom: what works in someone else’s room won’t always work for yours. Different architecture and light sources create different design needs. After studying the photo further, I realized the high windows and angled ceiling had a lot to do with why the paint looked so gorgeous. These elements created shadows that added depth to the color and made the walls sing. The same effect can’t be achieved on a square room with flat walls.
So I am back to my original paint choice, and I’ve never been more excited about it:
Incidentally, a study shows that people who inhabit purple bedrooms have the most sex. Draw your own conclusions about what that says about me.
