How To Make Your Bed

Last week I had the opportunity to pre-fim another segment on Keloland Living. Brittany and I jumped into all the nitty gritty details on how to make your bed feel inviting. She loved the bedding I brought so much for the segment that I left it behind.

Today we will cover all the bases and share my best tips on how to make your bed feel inviting and look like you splurged. Plus if you love any of the looks you see I have shoppable links at the end of this post.

Layers and Texture

There are about a million and two ways to make your beds. Layers and textures will add dimension and style to your Sleeping quarters. What makes a bed really comfortable, cozy, and inviting for you. Is it lots of fluffy pillows, soft blankets, less pillows (almost every male I know), silky sheets, quilt, or duvet? Here are a few of the obvious and not so obvious ways to add layers and texture to your bed.

Sheets Fitted sheets are an obvious must. I will admit to all my internet friends we don’t use a top sheet. I take that back….I use them for painting drop clothes 😂. If you haven’t had nice high thread count sheets, I highly recommend them. They will fit on the bed better, wash up nicer, and just last a lot longer. Places like Home Goods, TJ Max, and Tuesday Mornings have high quality (high thread count) at a fraction of the price.

Quilt I love the look of a quilt under the duvet. It breaks things up especially if your shams match your duvet/comforter. It also adds some physical layers to the bed to transition through seasons.

Duvet or comforter I am team duvet all the way! I started using down duvets in college and haven’t looked back since. There are some really affordable options between amazon, Home Goods, and Ikea. One tip I learned from Brooke at Nesting With Grace is to either size up on your insert or double up. For example you can use a king insert in a queen duvet or two king inserts in a king duvet. I have really noticed a difference doubling my King (one vertical and one horizontal). Otherwise the duvet is smaller than the cover and there are empty spaces on the sides.

Sleeping Pillows I separated this category, because these pillows are not usually visually appealing at our house. Our pillows are usually no longer full and fluffy, different textures (ie one memory and one down), miss matched covers, and stain from drool, sunless tanner, hair dye, face products you name it. Nothing about them is visually appealing. I literally tuck them under the quilt or duvet whenever I make the bed.

Pillow Shams Most Duvets come with shams that match in the appropriate size, if not sheet sets usually do. If you want to keep things simple, sometimes these can be used in place of SOME of the throw pillows. I still like the look of at least a lumbar or couple of throws in addition. Using Shams is a great way to save on the budget because they are included with your duvet.

Throw Pillows My favorite part of the bed, AKA every males arch enemy. Throw pillows….. They are such a great way to add style to your bed. SO much so we will spend some serious time on pillow talk! I may be a bit of a #pillowhoarder 🤷‍♀️ eh, some people drink….I like pillows.

Pillow Talk

Before I dive into the different styles of pillows I want to just hit on something it took me far too long to recognize.

Whenever possible get pillows with down or similar filling. They might be a few extra bucks , but they will last so much longer. You can even re-purpose them with pillow covers. Your space will instantly feel a little more high end.

Some of my favorite places to find pillows; HomeGoods, TJ Max, Tuesday Morning, Amazon, and Target. Not all of Targets pillows are down filled, but I have found in a lot of situations it is best to have three euro pillows. Target tends to be the only place I can find them on the fly and within my price point.

Euros I was oblivious to these for years. I had always used the standard 20″ or less throw pillows. These are square pillows that are larger than a typical throw pillow (24″ +). They are a great way to add height to a bed. If you have a big tall headboard that feels out of scale with your bed, throw some euros in. Generally for a twin you want two, for anything larger you want three. I think it is a more cohesive look if the euros match.

Throw and Lumber Pillows Everything looks better with a throw pillow. The bed is no exception. Using multiple sizes of pillows will dramatically change the look. Just like when you are styling a shelf you want different heights and sizes to add dimension. This same concept carries over by combining Euros, Standard throws, and lumbar pillows.

Intentional Color and Pattern Pallet

Color Pallet This is where the fun begins. I always like to start with my color pallet. It will really make shopping easier, because it helps you filter out what doesn’t work in the space.

One easy was is to find a piece you love for inspiration. In our room it was the art above the bed. Another option is just to pull colors together that compliment each other. For Brittany’s space I was excited at the chance of using some pink. To balance out the pink I used a beautiful navy.

Have fun with it!

Patterns These can be a bit intimidating. How do you really determine what patterns go with what?

There are a few different ways to categorize patterns. The print can be large scale like giant flowers or small scale like little polk a dots. There are organic patterns like leaves or geometric patterns like plaid. Then there is also texture like velvet, loose weaves, ruffles, and so on.

To really keep it simple have:

• one large scale pattern
• One small scale pattern
• One texture.

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