How to make your big bed fit well in a small room without it looking congested

My ideal space is a home with spacious rooms. Such rooms offer breathing space for the furniture and are easier to decorate. There are, however, situations where living in a home with small rooms is inevitable. How do you fit in all your stuff tastefully?

 Imagine a situation where you have a queen size bed and a tiny bedroom. This can be quite a challenge since the bed is likely to take most space. To get the headache off you, let the bed take centre stage and seek ways to make your room appear spacious. How do you achieve that?

1. Light: To make the space look larger and more open, paint your walls and ceiling pale cheery shades that will reflect light in the room. Shades of white, cream or ivory are ideal as you will be able to introduce any accent shades you like. For those who opt for a more colourful shade, lilac, sky blue, soft yellow or pink would do. For those who prefer a patterned wall, go for vertical stripes as this will direct the eyes up instead of focusing on how tiny the room is.

2. Clutter: Remove any clutter in the room for the space to appear larger. Your bed must not necessarily be accompanied with bedside stands if there is no space. You can eliminate these. Any clothes should be locked up in the closet or a suitcase, clothes scattered around the room makes it feel cramped and could also be a source of stress. Get beautiful containers or shelves to keep items like jewellery and books. Keep your bedding neat, simple and clean.

3. Patterns: Stick to small scale patterns if you must. Since your bed is the focal of your room, the bed-cover should not have large patterns, which may end up overwhelming the room making it appear smaller. Your carpets and curtains too, should have subtle patterns.

4. Vertical space: Since the bed has taken up most of the floor space, you are only left to play around with the vertical space, which includes the walls. Opt for a tall dressing table instead of a low and wide one as this will make use of empty wall spaces, giving you the same amount of storage but using less of the floor space available in the room. Mount some shelves on the walls to display and store some of your items. A headboard with built-in shelves will be ideal as a bookshelf for those who love reading. You can also use this headboard to keep a lamp, alarm clock and other items. Place your bed against the longest wall in the room.

5. Bed-skirt: We talked about this recently. A bed-skirt will allow you to hide your extra stuff under the bed. Get some boxes or baskets, put your stuff in them, and shove them under the bed. You can also use the space for your shoes.

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