We’ve already taken a look at some tips for styling your bed in Part 1, including the use of quality bedding, layers and patterns. There’s plenty more tips to come!

Colour Coordination

Choose a colour scheme that complements the overall decor of the bedroom for a cohesive look. Whether you prefer calming neutrals, vibrant hues, or subtle pastels, coordinating your bedding colours will create a stylish and inviting look.

Mixing Textures

Mixing different textures adds visual interest to your bed. Combine smooth cotton sheets with a textured duvet cover. Try adding a throw blanket at the foot of the bed for warmth and style. Choose a blanket in a complementary colour or texture to tie the look of your bed together. Or add a faux fur throw for a luxurious touch.

Valance

If your bed frame is exposed, consider adding a bed skirt or valance to conceal the base of the bed and create a more polished look.

Use these tips to help create a comfortable, visually appealing environment in the bedroom

Styling your bed is a wonderful way to enhance the overall look and feel of your bedroom. Let’s take a look at some easy ways to give your bed and bedroom the Wow! factor through styling.

Quality Bedding

Invest in the highest quality bedding you can afford, including sheets, pillowcases, a duvet cover or comforter, and a bedspread or quilt. Choose materials that are soft, comfortable, and durable, such as cotton, linen, or bamboo.

Nothing is as unappealing as manchester that is noticeably dull and tired, or with fabric that is pilling or worn. You don’t have to break the bank, but good quality bedding will look better for a lot longer than the cheap stuff.

Layering

Layering different elements of manchester adds depth and texture to the bed. Start with a fitted sheet as the base, followed by a flat sheet or duvet cover. Add a comforter or quilt for warmth, and top it off with decorative pillows and a throw blanket.

Patterns

Incorporate patterns into your manchester for added style. Mix and match patterns such as stripes, florals, or geometric designs for a dynamic look. Make sure you keep the scale of the patterns in mind to ensure they complement each other, rather than clashing hideously!

By keeping these tips for styling your bed in mind, you can create a stylish and personal bedroom retreat that reflects your own personal style and enhances your overall decor.

Recent “Colour of the Year” choices have been bold and vibrant, and that trend is spilling over into bedroom design. It involves the use of vibrant colours, unique textures, and striking design elements to create a visually stimulating and adventurous atmosphere.

Bold bedroom colours are starting to rise in popularity, such as caramel, mossy green, orange and burgundy. Incorporate bold shades on bedding or walls for a broad expanse of colour, or take a neutral background and bold it up with accents like pillows, throws, or knick-knacks.

You can also use patterns to give your bedroom space a bolder feel. Try an eye-catching wallpaper, a mixture of patterns in your manchester and cushions, or a rug to add bold patterns. Stripes, for example, never really go out of style. There are many predicting a huge increase in the popularity of stripes due to the Paris 2024 Olympics, given that the Breton stripe is such an iconic French design element in both fashion and interiors.

Bold and eclectic furniture pieces that stand out in your bedroom can also fit the bill. This could include a statement bedframe, an ornate dresser, or a colourful accent chair.

Remember that bold bedroom trends should reflect your personal style and preferences, so feel free to mix and match elements to create a space that makes you feel comfortable and inspired. Additionally, trends and your own personal taste can evolve over time, so sometimes using elements that can be switched out easily is a good way to keep your bedroom decor fresh and exciting.

Many mental health gurus are big on the benefits of interacting with nature. While not everybody has access to nature right outside their front door, a very popular trend in bedroom interiors recently has been bringing nature to you instead.

Biophilic design, as it’s known, is all about reconnecting with nature, and finding ways to bring the outdoors into your home. This is particularly important in your bedroom, which should be a haven of peace and tranquility.

While there have been some cottage chic and floral trends recently, biophilic design is focussed primarily on green foliage elements. This supports the recent trend to green as a colour trend in general.

There’s no doubt that over the last couple of years more of us have needed to find ways to better utilise the spaces in our home.

This can be something of a challenge in the bedroom. If you need to have a desk in your bedroom, then you don’t want to have a background of your bed behind you if you’re online.

Even better, if it’s high enough, use the space underneath for storage. If you cover it with the right kind of sheet, along with cushions, it could even look like a sofa, hide the storage space underneath, and at night when you fold it down, all you have to do is tuck in the edges!

Finding ways to multiple the number of uses for your bedroom is only limited by your imagination.

Given the stressful state of life for most of us over the last couple of years, the importance of having a place where you can go to feel both calm and relaxed has become a huge focus of bedroom trends.

This is particularly the case when working from home. Often the bedroom is now the only place where you can truly get away from it all.

So the focus for bedrooms has moved towards comfort and tranquillity. No more wall-mounted television screens – replace them with a squishy armchair or reading nook to curl up in private and disconnect from the world.

Plush pillows you want to drown in forever and soft, luxurious manchester on your bed are a simple way to up the comfort level. Ambient lighting, either through lamps or putting a warm, low wattage bulb in your main light makes a big difference.

One particular trend gaining popularity is “Japandi”. Its purpose is to create a tranquil space, stylish but with a calm aesthetic. Colours are neutral or muted, the look is lived-in.

The bottom line is when you walk into your bedroom, you should feel like the weight on your shoulders just slipped away, leaving you relaxed, calm and ready to rest.

Snuggling into a huge, soft towel is one of life’s pleasures. But it’s not the only reason for using a towel – you might also want it to dry quickly when you wash it, be compact for travelling and more. Given the wide range of towels made from different fibres on the market, which one should you choose?

Cotton

First on the list is cotton. It’s one of the most common fibres used for towels, thanks to its great absorbency abilities. High-quality Turkish and Egyptian cottons are used to produce the most absorbent, softest towels. Basically cotton makes the best all-around towel for everyday use.

Bamboo

Towels made from bamboo are a more recent addition to the market, but have quickly become very popular. This is because they’re naturally soft. They’re particularly popular for baby towels. Bamboo is also a popular choice because it’s antimicrobial, which is handy if your bathroom is poorly ventilated.

Microfibre

If you’re wanting something small but efficient, microfibre is a great choice. They’re highly absorbent, dry fast and don’t take up a lot of space. As a result, they’re popular with travellers and sports enthusiasts. The perfect gym towel!

Synthetic fibres

Polyester, nylon and rayon are also used in the production of towels, usually mixed with cotton. The cotton helps make these towels feel softer and fluffier. The mix of fibres means these towels are more hard-wearing, so they last longer, but they’re not usually as absorbent as 100 percent cotton varieties.

Linen

An uncommon choice, given they lack the fluffy appeal of most towels, but linen can still be a good choice. You might be surprised to find that linen towels are actually more absorbent than cotton ones. Possibly not a great choice for a full body towel, given their lack of softness, but linen can be a good choice for hand towels.

Now you know the benefits of each type of towel fibre, you should know exactly what to choose next time you go towel shopping. Soft and fluffy always wins the day for me!

I’m really bad about replacing pillows. I take off the pillow cases, wash them, put them back on again… and pay very little attention to what condition the pillows are in.

Which is definitely a mistake, as it’s important to replace your pillows before they’re too far gone. Otherwise you run the risk of them not doing their job properly, which could end up costing you in terms of your health or physical wellbeing.

Which raises the obvious question – how do you know when your pillow is past its use by date?

One common clue is if your pillow looks like it’s had tea spilled over it, then it’s seriously beyond the term of its natural life. That stain is a build up of all the yukky stuff like drool and sweat over time. Gross!

A simple way to test if your pillow is in good condition still is to fold it in half and place something light such s a shoe or book on top. If the pillow springs back into shape, it’s good to go. If it stays in the folded position, it’s bye bye pillow.

Depending on the material the pillow is made from, checking the pillow for lumps and bumps might be better than the folding test. For example, a memory foam pillow will start to crumble or will stop maintaining its shape when it’s beyond help.

Getting in the habit of checking your pillows regularly to make sure they’re still in good condition is a habit you should get into – your body and health will thank you for it!

If you’re styling your bed, there’s a huge range of throws to choose from, including all kinds of colours and textures. But what if you have a particular piece of material that you’d like to have out on display as a throw that looks a little bit small when you put it on the bed.

Don’t panic! There are lots of great ways you can use a small throw on your bed. One idea is to position the throw close to the edge of the bed. That way it will hang down closer to the floor, making it appear larger than it is.

If you like a more symmetrical or structured look, then another option is to layer the small throw on top of a larger one. Start with a large throw that’s a solid colour or a textured neutral. Then, arrange your smaller, decorative throw on top. This works best if the throws have common shades. Different textures generally work better than similar ones.

Additionally, if your throw has decorative elements such as a fringe, ribbons or detailing, find a larger throw which complements those elements, rather than competing with them.

If you want to go full on simple, then lay out your throw on the top of the bed, almost as though it were a picture or tapestry. This is also a great way to liven up plain linen, or quietly take away the impact of older bedding. Turning your bed into a picture frame can be very calm and soothing.

Finally, there’s no rule that says your throw has to be on the bed at all! If you love your small throw but just can’t get it to work on your bed, try draping it over your headboard. It can make a boring frame a lot more interesting to look at, and will reward your throw with the attention it deserves.

When you think about how many hours a day you spend asleep in bed, it’s easy to see why it’s important to keep your pillow clean. The last thing you need to do is breathe in dust mites and other nasties all night long.

While pillow protectors are easy to remove and wash, the fact is that your pillow also needs to be washed regularly.

Read the Label!

The label on your pillow is a big help in determining what you need to do to keep it clean. Plenty of polyester and latex pillows can go through a gentle machine wash, which makes caring for them much easier.

Hand Wash

Plenty of pillows that can’t go through the washing machine can be hand washed, but again, check the label before assuming that’s the case.

Use lukewarm water and small amount of mild detergent. Completely submerge the pillow, and gentle agitate and squeeze until it’s clean. Then use cool water without detergent to rinse, gently squeezing out excess water.

Drying Your Pillows

Again – check the label! Some pillows will happily go through the dryer on a low heat setting. If you do use a dryer, it’s a good idea to stop the dryer periodically and fluff up the pillows so they get back into shape.

If you’re drying pillows on a washing line, don’t peg two corners – the pillow’s contents will most likely become misshapen and it won’t dry evenly. Instead, allow the pillow to air-dry on a flat surface, either in a shady spot outside, or a dry room inside. You can even use a towel or sheet to act as a hammock for the pillow on the washing line.

Now you know how to wash your pillows, go for it! Your health will be glad you did.