Turn Your Bedroom Into A Sanctuary
Ever since I was a kid, my bedroom was my kingdom and my sanctuary. My bed becomes an island oasis in the sea of life’s complexities. My favourite thing to do in my home is to take refuge in my bed. I use this time to read, watch TV or meditate and just sit in silence. I’ve invested in soft linens, duvet and even an inclining bed to make my room the Ferrari of comfort. I’ve even hung out with my friends in my bedroom because everyone enjoys how cozy this room has become. In short, bedroom sanctuary is how I refer to my room.
My favourite thing to do in my home is to get cozy in my bed where I read, watch TV or sometimes just sit in silence. My super soft bedding and my inclining bed make it the Ferrari of all beds for reading or watching TV. I even hang out in my bed with friends and watch TV because it’s such a cozy room. ~JP. Good Space Design
As a home designer I am always surprised when clients think their bedroom is the least important room in their house. Not only do you spend a third of your life sleeping, but you begin and end your day in your bedroom (and yes open loft living is still counted as your bedroom). Wouldn’t you want this space where you go to sleep and wake up to nurture you and fuel you before you head out the door and into your busy life?
Creating a space that promotes calmness, physical intimacy, good sleep and overall rejuvenation is vital to your happiness, good health and good performance. It can even contribute to your everyday success.
How can you create a bedroom sanctuary? The following is a list to create a perfect sleep environment which coincidentally produces a perfect climate for all the other important bedroom activities.
11 Ways To Make Your Bedroom The Perfect Sanctuary:
1. Privacy
If at all possible have a door on your bedroom, ideally with a lock. The sense of your own private realm is very powerful. A door also helps with controlling sound and temperature, children and pets….
2. Mattress
The perfect bed has a mattress that is comfortable for you. It is personal and never wrong if it fits your body and gives you a good night sleep. How often to replace the mattress is always up to you. When it isn’t comfortable any more – change it. Take good care of it, if the manufacturer says rotate it then do that. Keep it covered with a good dust mite resistant mattress pad. Don’t complain about your mattress, get a new one.
3. Pillows
Pillows are important for good sleeping posture, and if you find you’re constantly scrunching it and folding it to get a better sleep then it is time to buy a new one. Consider whether you want a soft pillow, such as a down, or a firm one, such as cotton or latex. Synthetic and polyester are less expensive and will need replacing more frequently. Look at the fill power of a pillow to see how long it will last. A 600 fill is the sign of a high quality synthetic or down filled pillow. Memory foam is excellent for conforming to your individual shape, however can retain more heat. If you get hot easily, this may not be the right one for you. To learn more about pillows, read this handy guide to pick the right one for you.

Seymour Street Bedroom Pillows from Good Space Portfolio.
4. Sheets
Get two sets of sheets and pillowcases that feel good on your skin. Silk sheets are more than luxurious feel, they also have many beauty and health benefits for the skin. Naturally hypoallergenic, silk repels various environmental allergens. And, while cotton fibers absorb oils and creams from your face, silk repels moisture, allowing your skin to keep the natural oils on your skin. Silk also naturally regulates your body temperature, allowing you to feel more comfortable for a good night’s sleep.
5. Duvets
Duvets are better than comforters, mostly because the covers can be washed often. Select a duvet that is perfect for you. At Good Space we are frequently faced with couple sleeping problems, such as our clients Thrasher and Stillness, who share a king size bed. For them we chose two extra-long twin width duvets in simple duvet covers. Each of them has their own duvet and peace prevails. We covered the whole bed with a beautiful coverlet that conceals the two separate duvets. If you share your bed with a hottie or a chilly you can actually have your duvet in a half and half format. The duvet is lighter on one side for the hottie and heavier on the other for the chilly. Put this duvet in a beautiful soft cover and nobody knows except you!
6. Decorations
Decorations highly shape the look of bedroom design. Anyone who looks at our portfolio will see that we do put decorative pillows on beds. However, I believe they should be kept to a minimum and ideally have a purpose, like hiding the wrinkly sleeping pillows. Anything else should be there to make you happy, like a beautiful fabric or a colour that delights you. Ideally, it doesn’t take you long to make or unmake your bed.

Connaught Drive Bedroom. From the Good Space Design Portfolio.
7. Temperature
A cool dark room is optimum for good sleeping. Window treatments are a great way to do this, and lined drapes are the perfect window treatment for bedrooms. They are ideal for diminishing acoustics in a room and fantastic insulators and light controllers. If you get lots of sun during the day close them before you leave home. This helps keep the room cool during the day.
8. Colour
Colors are an important part of the interior lifestyle. Consider which colours make you feel the most serene. Colours that appear in nature can be warm like driftwood or cool like the winter sky. What is a shade that you relate to? That relaxes you? Choose a paint palette to express your desired outcome in your bedroom.
For instance, soothing neutrals, such as ivory, taupe, grey and white can be complemented with splashes of colour in bedding, carpeting and artwork. Peaceful pastels, such as soft blues, lavenders, pinks and greens can create a watery coastal retreat. Or if you want to express passion and energy, consider dark greens, reds, or corals. Be careful if choosing a dark palette, as navy and black can make a room feel extra small. Also, be creative as not every wall needs to be the same colour. One wall can be your accent while the others are a lighter colour.
9. Lighting
The best bedrooms have great light control. You can manage the natural light with window treatments and the rest you do with fixtures. Put a dimmer on every switch that controls a light fixture in your bedroom. Great bedside lamps are important whether you read in bed or not. Choose dimmable lamps or add a cord dimmer. Lamps on dimmers are great for creating ambiance. Include an accessible outlet or extension cord or power bar by each side of the bed. It makes life so much easier for clocks and charging devices. If your lamps don’t come dimmable, put your bedside lamps on a cord like the Dimma cord dimmer switch from Ikea.

Gordon Ave Bedroom featuring what we consider the perfect bedside lamp, the Holtkötter 6469 on either side of bed. From Good Space Design Portfolio.
10. Order
If you have piles of junk, dirty laundry or work stuff piled in your room then you are creating chaos in your sacred space that will cause a ripple effect in your wellbeing. Create a system or hire a professional organizer or a good interior designer to create order in your bedroom.
Lack of storage is the frequent lament we hear from our Good Space clients. Thankfully, storage systems are in abundance now and products like lift storage beds that used to be a pricy custom option are now offered at most furniture retailers. The growing awareness in the value of order combined with smaller living spaces has driven furniture manufacturers to respond to the demand. Check out the Malm from Ikea for just under $400.
11. The Elephant In The Room…
The debate about a TV in the bedroom is one we meet often in our work in residential interior design. I encourage people to limit their use of screen entertainment in their bedroom, including the TV, phone, iPad and electronic reading. I believe the bedroom is a place of intimacy and peacefulness and a TV can destroy the connection to your quieter self and whoever is with you in your bedroom. As for device reading in bed, the news is not good. There are an increasing number of studies concluding that reading on a tablet, smartphone or other device before bed is not only detrimental to your nights sleep but can affect your overall health. For more on this check out this article on reading before bed from the Huffington Post.
Have you heard about Nocturne Bed by Ted Boerner? In 2010 furniture designer Ted Boerner told the story of his Nocturne bed design at IDSWest. Read more…..
Your Sanctuary and Your Success
When designing a bedroom I want to create a space that nurtures the people who will use that room. Once the functional aspects are met, layering in the surface textures and art that enrich and fill the souls of my clients is deeply gratifying. Our goal is to make a bedroom your place of refuge, and one that promotes calmness, physical intimacy and good night’s sleep for overall rejuvenation. A place to begin and end your day with success.
Let us help you with your bedroom design. Contact us for a free estimate.