A Neutral Bedroom For A Young Couple – Part 1

S and Y are a young couple who have recently moved into their first own home. They shifted in a hurry with some temporary furniture they picked up and wanted to do up their home a room at a time, starting with their bedroom. They were looking for a light, neutral bedroom, well organised and with loads of storage for all their necessities.

The Plan:

As you can see, the room is quite small and there isn’t much we could do with the layout. Even now, their bed and wardrobes are placed just as shown in our plan, and this is the best possible way to arrange them.

The single longest wall is at the entrance. It’s the only wall that fits in a bed and side tables comfortably. Also, since it’s behind the entrance wall, it gives privacy by protecting the bed from direct view of anyone standing outside the door. The second longest wall, right in front of the entrance, gets the wardrobes. On the right are large sliding doors that give the room a whole lot of light and openness. They lead into a small balcony. The bathroom door is opposite the bed, and the little bit of wall next to it is just right to fit in a slender TV unit.

Let’s do a whole round of this room and see what we’re planning.

The Wardrobe Wall:

For now, S and Y have got these small, temporary wardrobes in their room. These aren’t nearly sufficient for all the storage that they want. They want larger, full height wardrobes here and plan to shift these smaller wardrobes to their guest bedroom.

We plan to give them just that. Large wardrobes that go all the way to the ceiling with a loft on top for extra storage.

The Bed Wall:

They have a queen sized bed and side table for now, which also serves as a dresser with that mirror on the wall. Again, the plan is to shift these to the guest room once their room is ready. S was also looking for a larger dressing mirror along with storage for all her make up and toiletries.

So we will continue to double up the side table as a dressing table. Instead of giving the mirror only on one side though, we’ll take it to both sides of the bed, sort of like in this pic.

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We’re planning to take the mirror right up to the ceiling though. It’s a great way to make the room look larger and more spacious. But instead of putting the mirror directly on the wall, we’re giving a slim storage, just 6 inches deep, behind the mirror. This will easily take care of storing all of S’s make up and accessories.

The Balcony Wall:

The glass doors take up almost that entire wall, which is great for getting a whole lot of air and natural light in. We’ll need  to give a pelmet there to hide the AC ducting. We’ll also put the curtain channels under the pelmet to give a neat, sleek finish.

The Bathroom Wall:

There is a slight offset in the wall where we’re planning to put the TV. We need to even that out to fit in a TV there properly.

S liked this simple TV unit on Pinterest.

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Instead of taking that wooden panel right up to the ceiling, we’ll take it across the offset to even it out.

A Neutral Bedroom:

One thing S was very sure of was that she wanted a light, neutral bedroom.. mostly white. We thought we’d add a light wood grain to it to give it some warmth. The colour palette would be something like this.

I don’t have this image source. If anyone does, please help me tag it!

Since the wardrobes are the largest piece of furniture going into that small room, I suggested keeping them mostly white. That way they would just sort of merge into the walls and not stand out separately. I suggested a design like this, but with the colours swapped the other way round. The band in the centre would be a light wood grain while the rest of the wardrobe would be all white.

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This has another plus too. The handles will be fixed on to the central, wood grain panel. The wood grain will not dirty as much as the white which will stain around the handles much faster.

The Mood Board:

And so we came around to making our mood board for the neutral bedroom. We decided on lots of white, with hints of a pretty, light wood grain to add the warmth.

We designed the furniture in simple straight lines for two reasons. One, S preferred it that way. Secondly, it’s no fuss in a small room and the clean lines make the space look less cluttered and crowded.

A Neutral Bedroom:

Based on the drawings and the mood board, we got ourselves these 3D views. That would be the bed and side tables with the full length mirror going all the way up to the ceiling.

And the wardrobes and TV unit which are mostly white. The panel behind the TV evens out the offset in the wall behind it to give us a decent sized TV unit.

We’ve started work on the project and, as it usually does, some of the design has changed over time.

Initially when S asked for a white, neutral bedroom, I thought she meant a modern, minimalist or a Scandinavian look. Over time, discussions and material choices I realised she wanted a somewhat traditional look, only in lighter colours.

So for one, we cancelled the wooden backdrop behind the bed. We’ll go in for a wallpaper instead, with a more traditional pattern on it.

Also, there isn’t much place for greens in here, and I kind of think a space is incomplete without them. When all else fails, look towards Him. We’ve got a hook up on the ceiling in the TV corner and hope to hang a pretty planter with some greens in it from there.

We’re working fast to get this bedroom done and ready.. and I will get you the reveal as soon as it is!

Until then,

(This completed bedroom is now on the blog. You can see it here)