Five things to do if you don’t like your bedroom

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Many of us are fortunate enough to be able to take a bit of time off over Christmas and New Year, and spend some time relaxing at home. Which is all good, but the down side of it is that perhaps you begin to notice things that need doing around the home that you’ve so far managed to overlook. And you may also realise that there are rooms in your home that – for whatever reason – you may not actually like very much.

The good news is that it is relatively easy to make changes to any room in your home without spending a small fortune in the process. In this article we take a look at five potential reasons you may not like your bedroom, and what you can do to improve each one of those issues.

Your bedroom is too cluttered

This is always the best place to start. You can’t do anything new or innovative with your bedroom if it is full of clutter. You will be amazed at the difference a good declutter will make to your bedroom, even if you don’t do another thing to it.

So make this your first mission. The more thorough your declutter is, the more of a blank canvas you will be left with to totally transform the look and feel of your bedroom.

Work to the golden rule of decluttering that unless something is either useful or beautiful you should just get rid of it. If you keep this at the forefront of your mind, you’ll find that as your declutter progresses you will start becoming even more ruthless. 

If it makes you feel better you can create a “pending” area for those items that you are not completely sure whether you want to get rid of. Just put them in a bag or box in another room and ignore them for a couple of weeks or so. If there’s anything you really miss during that time, bring it back into the bedroom. Otherwise get rid of it permanently.

The key thing is to ensure that anything you put back in drawers or behind your wardrobe doors deserves its place.

Your bedroom does not feel welcoming

Sometimes your bedroom just doesn’t feel right. You walk in and rather than immediately being enveloped by a sense of peace and relaxation, you just feel uncomfortable and irritated. If this is the case, you need to work out why.

In our recent article Is your spare bedroom ready for Christmas? we explored various ways to ensure that your spare bedroom is welcoming for guests, and also explained the most common factors that cause guests to not feel comfortable in a spare room. But you should apply the same care and consideration to your own bedroom too.

So try and identify what it is that is getting to you, and also think about what you would like to be in the room if you were a guest. You need to come up with the right combination of your bedroom having all the furnishings and facilities you need, and also reflecting your personality. 

So take a good look at some of these potential features of your bedroom and see if adding or changing any of them could make the vital difference:

• Furniture : Is there too much, or perhaps not enough? It’s easy for the bedroom to become a dumping ground for odd bits of furniture that may not actually meet the needs of the room. Get rid of any bits of furniture that you either don’t like or are not useful. And if you need more items of furniture you can choose items that you really love and that complement what is already in your room.
• Gadgets : Some people love lots of gadgets and gizmos in their bedroom, others not so much. There are no rights and wrongs here, but just make sure that your bedroom has everything you would like it to have. For example, your idea of bliss might be a TV with a decent sound bar, a smart speaker, and also perhaps a mini fridge for drinks and snacks. If that’s what you want, just do it. Others may prefer a completely non-technical environment. The key thing is to decide what is your ideal environment, then make it happen.
• A seating area : Would your bedroom feel more welcoming if there was a chair and small side table in there, if you have space? This would enable you to sit and read or think, or watch TV if you have one, in a separate area from your bed. It might make your room feel more like a place to relax and unwind rather than just go to bed.

Whatever you need to change to make your bedroom feel welcoming to you, start making that change happen.

Your bedroom is dark and dingy

A dark bedroom can become quite depressing, and bring you down as soon as you wake up in the morning. But fortunately it’s relatively simple to bring some light and brightness into your bedroom.

Here are three things to try:

• Paler colours: Painting your bedroom paler colours can really help to lift the ambience. There is nothing wrong with dark dramatic colours, but if you are finding them a bit too much for your bedroom, go paler. And pale doesn’t have to mean neutrals – white, cream, beige etc. You could go for a pale colour that still has a bit more personality, such as pale blue, green, pink or lemon. Or try a combination of two colours. The choice is completely yours but will bring new life to your bedroom.
• Mood lighting : Many bedrooms have a limited choice of lighting. It’s often a case of either on – perhaps with bright ceiling lighting – or off. If you are dependent on ceiling lighting, why not see if you can get a dimmer switch installed, so that you always have a choice of how bright you want that lighting to be And also look into the possibility of wall lights as a softer alternative. Then also explore different styles of bedside lights; perhaps choosing some that could double as muted room lighting as well as for bedtime reading.
• Mirrors : Mirrors are wonderful at reflecting light around a room. Cleverly placed mirrors can also give a room more depth and ambience, and make it look much more spacious than it really is. So try adding one or more large wall mirrors to your bedroom, or if you are short of wall space consider mirrored sliding wardrobe doors which will really make a difference.

Your bedroom is bland

One thing that can be hard to put your finger on is that your bedroom is just bland. There may be nothing wrong with it as such, it just doesn’t spark joy. 

There can be all kinds of reasons for this. Perhaps your room is too full of brown furniture, or white fitted wardrobe doors. Or the carpet or curtains have seen better days. Try to take an objective look at it, imagining you are seeing it for the very first time. And look at it from the perspective that anything can be changed.

Once you know what’s bugging you, here are three tips that might help:

• Add colour : If it’s the colour of your furniture or your wardrobe doors that’s the issue, this is easily fixed. Furniture and wardrobe doors can both easily be either painted or replaced. For example you could replace white wardrobe doors with a richer, brighter colour to make a bold statement in your room. Then either mix or match with the wall colours to achieve the kind of effect that you want.
• Update your soft furnishings : Whether it’s rugs, curtains, blinds, bedding, cushions or any other soft furnishings, just replacing a couple of items can really make a big difference. Perhaps start by choosing one so-called hero item that you really love – such as a spectacular rug – and gradually change out the rest of your soft furnishings to complement or contrast with that.
• Curate your own gallery : Start livening up your bedroom by introducing quirky items that mean something to you. This will bring a bit of personality to your bedroom and make it the place you want to be. Whether it’s some bold art, a photo gallery wall, fresh flowers, open shelving featuring treasured possessions or a collection of your favourite books, surround yourself with things that are meaningful to you and any blandness will soon be gone for good.

You also use your bedroom for work

If you work from home and your bedroom is also your office, it is understandable that this could cause issues. Ideally your bedroom should be a lovely place where you can rest and relax, but if there is a constant reminder of work there, this is going to be difficult.

So the first thing to do is have a really good think about the layout of your home and see if there is anywhere else at all where you could work. Look at every room and work out the options. Or is there somewhere locally where you could relocate to for a couple of hours or so per day?

Even if you come up with some kind of compromise which means that you don’t have to use the bedroom all the time, that could be an improvement on the current situation.

But if there is no other option at all, and you have to use your bedroom for work, at least do all that you can to keep the work zone separate from your sleeping area. It would also really help if you could find a way to shut all the work equipment, papers etc away at the end of every working day. For example, could you allocate part of a wardrobe to use as your work cupboard, then at the end of the day make a ritual of closing the wardrobe doors and putting work to bed for the night.

You need to find a way forward on this one that works for you, but try to prioritise your personal use of the bedroom over its function as a home office.

We hope that this article has given you some useful tips about what to do if you don’t like your bedroom. Why not also take a browse through our gallery of bedroom pictures for further inspiration, and make 2024 the year you fall back in love with your bedroom.

Remember to check back here soon for more home and lifestyle tips from DIY Homefit.