Hunter Douglas Lightlines® aluminum blinds
With all the hustle and bustle composing our busy lives, it’s easy to forget that sleep is an essential means of balance and happiness. Without the correct allotment of sleep, your day, week, month can quickly accelerate to a confusing, tired, grouchy mess. No thank you! One way to ensure a night of restful and rejuvenating sleep is to style your master bedroom into a space that promotes – and doesn’t prevent – a good night’s sleep. Here are some things to help you make sure your bedroom décor is not sabotaging your sleep.
Create a single-use space
Many homeowners dedicate areas of their homes to act as a multi-function room, but the bedroom is the exception to this idea. We often hear about bits of bedrooms being turned into home offices for daytime use to “make better use of the space.” I’m here to dismiss this idea! The bedroom should be for sleeping and pre-sleep relaxation routines. When you introduce other responsibilities into the space, it can disrupt your brain’s ability to relax and let go of work. If possible, designate a new corner of the house for a small office space so that you can put your work to rest elsewhere, so your body may rest in the bedroom. If you have to use your room for multiple purposes, try to separate the areas as much as possible to create a clear work/sleep divide in your mind.
Minimize your clutter
To expand upon our first tip, you’ll want to strip your bedroom of clutter. Like having work tasks racing through your thoughts, you can drum up a lot of worry regarding mess during the time when you’re supposed to be recharging your batteries. When you step into your bedroom there should be a comforting, cozy ambiance. Before you go remodeling for a better night’s sleep, tuck your clothes into their designated space, shut your closet door, and reorganize the collection on top of your dresser.
This tip also rings true for for technological clutter too. If you use your smartphone as an alarm clock, only use it as an alarm clock when you’re in your bed. Like the older infomercials would call out in the wee hours of the night, “Set it, and forget it.” You don’t need to be tempted with three hours of Pinterest pinning or deleting spam emails when you should be asleep.
Choose a calming color palette
For years designers have been discussing and decorating with specific colors for different dispositions, and we all agree. Certain colors incite subconscious changes that alter our moods. In order to create a calmer, sleep-inducing space, paint and accessorize your master bedroom with calmer, softer colors that play into your sleepy subconscious. Warm colors create excitement, happiness, power, so you want to limit those in the bedroom. Soft neutrals, natural wood tones, white, and muted, cooler colors work well for creating a relaxing bedroom.
Keep It Clean
For those with even minimal asthma or dust allergies, dust that has built up in the mattress or carpeting can be very troublesome during sleep. Try to take one day a week to run a vacuum through the bedroom, and then take a dusting cloth to any surfaces that may be bearing additional sleep-disrupting particles. Investing in an area rug for cold winter mornings and a hypoallergenic (and spring-free) mattress will help to minimize the effects of dust and offer you quiet, clean, and restful sleep.
Set the mood
Of all the factors in getting a good night’s sleep, light and temperature are arguably the most important. A room that is too bright or too hot is a fast way to sabotage your sleep. Investing in warm-toned artificial lamps and room darkening window treatments are easy and efficient ways to manage temperature, mood, and light.
When you’re thinking room darkening window coverings, don’t get stuck thinking of thick, heavy curtains. Window treatments from Hunter Douglas come in a variety of opaque fabrics and styles that won’t compromise style for sleep like many light-blocking curtains seem to do. There’s even a new option called A Deux that allows you to combine sheer fabric shades with a room-darkeng roller shade.
Hunter Douglas Silhouette® window shadings
To stay a bit cooler in your now-darkened bedroom, make use of fans. Fans create calming white noise, air flow to keep the room from feeling stale, and will cool your room (and body) temperature, making restful sleep easier to obtain.
Don’t sacrifice your style
When decorating your master bedroom for stellar sleep, consider your personal style. If you’re choosing cool colors for sleep, but your favorite color is yellow, then incorporate small accessories – like a frame around a mirror, decorative pillows, or a jewelry box – in a non-harsh, pale yellow to keep the space serene. You definitely should have a clean, cool, and dark bedroom during sleep, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be bright, beautiful, and relaxed during the day.
