I’ve always been a fan of Japanese design. Everything is so simple, yet it is beautiful. Which is what makes this living space by Japanese design firm 8 Design so surprising. 8 Design transformed a traditional apartment, complete with Japanese style sliding doors, into a rustic industrial chic living space. Creating a rustic style by showcasing exposed concrete walls, ceilings and beams. Check out the before and after pictures.
More Japanese Style Home Living Ideas:
There is a lot that be done to make a small space feel larger, brighter, and cozy. Everything from the walls to the lighting and storage solutions play a role. Here are small bedroom ideas that will make the most of your space.
The Important Areas
The color of your walls will play a big role in how spacious your bedroom feels. For a small bedroom, go with light paint ideas like white seen in picture (1), cream, or pastels. This will make the bedroom feel bright and spacious. While darker colors will make the room feel cozy and smaller which also works if you want that (Bedroom Color Ideas: Paint Schemes and Palette Mood Board).
Try and keep bold colors out of the bedroom – like bold colored pillows. Bold colors will dominate the look of the space, and attract the eye. You want everything to blend in as much as possible – this way the eye keeps moving around the space just like the bedroom in picture (2).
Making Smart Use of Lighting
To make a space room more spacious with lighting, you want to use as much ceiling lights as possible (recessed lights are best). The opposite is true when you want to create a cozy and romantic space – use lights such as table and floor lamps that are closer to the ground.
A lot of people like having a bedside lamp. One way to free up table space is to have a bedside lamp fitted to the wall by the bed, just how they do in hotels.
Decorating and Hacking a Small Bedroom Space
Here are some basic ideas on how to decorate a small bedroom:
Curtains
The way you hang your curtains can impact how the bedroom feels. By mounting the curtains high up, say near the ceiling, you’ll make the space feel taller. Try and use a long curtain rod. This way you can fully open up the curtains letting in as much natural light as possible.
When it comes to the curtains, avoid contrasting them with the color of the walls. If you have white walls, try and get off white, cream, light tan curtains – a color that blends well with the wall just like the curtains in the bedroom in picture (3). Also avoid using heavy patterns on the curtains as this will dominate the look of the room. In a small space you want pieces to blend together.
Mirrors
See if you can get a mirror or a group of small mirrors up on the wall. A mirror is always a good way of making a room feel larger than it is – as they add depth and reflect light (4).
Beds
A lot of beds take up extra floor space than they really need – with their headboards and footboards sticking out. Look for designs that are really compact. One good idea would be a platform bed. The good thing about platform beds is that they don’t need to have a box spring, which allows for storage under the bed. And because platform beds are low down, this makes the bedroom feel larger.
Organization and Small Bedroom Storage Ideas
For a small bedroom, you’re going to need to be creative and resourceful when it comes to storage space:
For a step by step plan on how to declutter your bedroom, have a look at my post here: Stress Free Living: How To Declutter Your Bedroom
Related Posts:
From an all out teal bedroom to a more toned down color palette. Here are teal bedroom ideas and design tips to style your bedroom just the way you want it.
The 3 Wall Paint Options
In all of my color specific posts, I talk about the 3 options you have when you want to decorate a room with a color. Here they are:
To really style a bedroom in teal or any color, you’ll want to take out all other colors in the room. Having a red pillow, or purple art piece can really take away from the color scheme you are going for. You want teal to dominate the look of the room – and this could mean taking out pieces.
You can always add in a color to the mix. But it needs to be purposeful and focused. Some good combinations include: grey and teal, teal and yellow, teal and black, brown, purple (like the bedroom in picture (4)), red, or orange. Once again if you pick teal along with another color, say yellow, then you’ll have to get rid of the other colors decorating the room to create a strong color palette.
The Focal Points
Once you have decided on the color of your walls, let’s move onto the main focal point of the room. In a bedroom this will be the bed area since it takes up the most space, and is the area the eyes are drawn to. The best way to add teal here is through the bedding and the pillows – just like the bed in picture (5).
Other ways of adding teal to the bed area include having a teal colored upholstered headboard (6), using teal bedside lamps (7), or having a teal area rug under the bed. Mix the teal colored pieces with neutral colored ones if you want a more toned down look. For example, if you get an upholstered teal headboard, then you could go for neutral colored bedding.
Decorating the Walls – Curtains
Curtains also take up a large part of the visual space in a bedroom. If you went with neutral colored walls, then teal colored curtains will help add color to them just like in picture (9). Even if you went with teal walls, you can always have teal curtains. If you have a small bedroom, try and find curtains that blend with the paint color as this will make the space feel larger. For larger bedrooms you can go with a more contrasting and dark curtain color.
Other Teal Bedroom Decor Pieces and Accessories
Some other teal colored decor pieces that can be added into a bedroom include: a teal painted mirror frame and abstract teal art designs.
Having a mood lamp is a good way of adding some teal to your bedroom. You can find ones that change colors, or you can set it to a color of your choice. Put one up against a white wall and it will bathe it with color. Check out the Yantouch Jellyfish mood lamp below.
The Yantouch Jellyfish mood lamp is available here from Amazon
More Bedroom Design Mood Board Posts:
A minimalist design style is a good choice for a bedroom, since the space needs to be relaxing. When it comes to minimalist bedroom design ideas, one design style to get inspiration from would be Scandinavian. They use a lot of whites and greys and decorate the spaces with textures, plants and wooden items. Even if you go with a minimalist bedroom design, you can still style the room how you want – rustic, shabby chic, bohemian, etc. There are just two main things to keep in mind when creating that minimalist bedroom – 1) get rid of clutter 2) color management.
Designing with Color
The bedrooms in the mood board above mostly use neutral tones. Such as grey just like the bedroom in picture (1), tan, or white (2). These would be popular color palettes for a minimalist bedroom. This doesn’t mean you can’t use a color like red or teal to decorate the room. But if you do, you need to focus the color scheme down, and make sure everything in the room sticks to it.
Say you want to go with a purple or grey bedroom color scheme. You’ll need to take out pieces in the bedroom that go against the color scheme. A red pillow is distracting and ruins a purple color scheme. Bold colors that stand out in the room take away from the minimalist and zen feel of the space. You want things to blend in as much as possible, and nothing to dominate.
Visual Clutter
What is visual clutter? Visual clutter are pieces in the room that distract you and take away from the overall design scheme of the room. You want to create a clean design, and have the eye continuously moving around the room.
Avoid using bold patterned items like floral curtains and bedding. When it comes to the curtains you want them to blend in with the room. So look for a color that blends well with the wall color.
This is what makes built in cabinets and closets great. Not only do they make efficient use of the bedroom space, but they will be designed to blend in with the design of the room. Taking up less ‘visual space’.
Since the bed is the biggest piece of furniture in the bedroom and takes up the most amount of space, it plays an important part in the styling of the room. Here you want to go with a minimalist bed design. A platform bed is the way to go – just like the one in picture (3). Most platform beds don’t take up any extra space other than the mattress that sits on it. They don’t have decorative and curved headboards or footboards – making them ideal for a minimalist bedroom.
Bedding also plays a big role in the styling of the bedroom. Invest in good looking, and well designed bedding. Simple textured fabrics do well in adding style to the room. Check out the beds in pictures (4) and (5). See how the colors blend together, and there is a textured design.
Getting Rid of Physical Clutter
You have to get rid of clutter if you want to create a truly minimalist bedroom. Some people like to take their time, day by day slowly get rid of the mess and items in a cluttered bedroom. Other people like to do it all at once – grabbing large garage bags and chucking everything out and organizing all at once. Another way to go about it is to pick a room, storage closet, or a separate space in the house where you can chuck all the unnecessary items into. This quickly lets you create a clean and clutter free bedroom – and you can deal with sorting out the clutter pieces later.
Figure out where the clutter problem areas are in your bedroom. Then figure out ways to curb the clutter. Bedside tables can be places where a lot of clutter can build up. One easy solution is to get clutter bowls and trays. By simply grouping items into these trays or bowls, you quickly clean up a space.
For a step by step guide, have a look at my post here: Stress Free Living: How To Declutter Your Bedroom
Storage Ideas
Try and store everything away. Books, clothing, dirty laundry – keep it all out of sight. Have storage boxes under the bed, but only if they can’t be seen. Having a hook on the back of the door isn’t such a great idea since it can be seen. But a hook on the inside of the closet door works.
If you have open closets, you might want to find ways of closing these off since they add to the visual clutter of a space. Closet curtains or doors will work.
Lighting Design
Modern homes use recessed ceiling lights because they are hidden away in the ceiling – seen in the bedroom in picture (6). This creates a clean and elegant look. Ideal if you want to create a minimalist bedroom style.
Another lighting tip is to hang your bedside lamp on the wall, and have the light switch integrated into the wall. What this does is leave more bedside table space and gets rid of the wires.
Decor Pieces
When it comes to decor pieces in a minimalist styled bedroom, you want to go with as few as possible. 2-3 meaningful and well thought out pieces will do the trick. In many cases, a lot of the items you have around the bedroom, from the bed and bedding to storage pieces, will act as decor pieces if you invest in good design.
Look for textured items. I talked about textured bedding above. Other textured items include wicker storage baskets, plants (7), a wooden stool. Go with abstract art pieces that are either monochrome or black and white (8). 1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/10
More Bedroom Mood Board Posts:
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Home Tree Atlas is all about ideas. Here you will find a growing collection of interior design and decor mood board guides I have put together. You don't need to be an interior designer to turn your home into a great looking, and relaxing space.
Get Inspired - Jacob
(Pictures of me volunteering in the Philippines, building homes)
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