Retreat in Style

Structured Sleeping

As someone who often goes to bed before dark (a hazard of summer–in the winter I can convince myself it's later than it really is), I am uniquely expert in the qualities that make a good bedroom. This room from Cottage Living fulfills my requirements and adds a few nice touches. I love a metal bed, which adds a sense of structure to the room without the visual barrier of bed hangings.

Lush Layering

I absolutely require a layered bed, with sheets under cotton blankets under coverlets (or in winter, a duvet).

Graceful Accent

I also love a bedside table, rather than a chest, for its graceful accent to the mass of the bed. The pair of alabaster lamps on the bedside tables are a current obsession of mine. I found some really good-looking reproductions at Target for $25.

Hooked

But by far the best thing about this room is the row of hooks along the wall. When I stayed at the Watercolor Inn in Florida's Panhandle, the entry hall and dressing area of my room had hooks all along the top of the wainscoting, a wonderfully practical arrangement in a beachside hotel room where bathing suits and bathrobes tend to pile up. But in my own bedroom, which I share with a husband who does not suffer from neatness, they would make a lot of sense for the neither-clean-but-not-exactly-dirty jeans he strews around, as well as the rejected outfits that accumulate as I dress in the morning.
--Lydia Somerville, MyHomeIdeas.com

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