Design Hotels

Getting into a smooth clean comfortable bed is one of the joys of staying in a top class hotel. Why not recreate that experience every night at home.

1. Choose a quality mattress

Hotels would not survive for long if their beds had the reputation for giving guests backache. A firm mattress is best. If you prefer a softer mattress add a mattress pad which molds itself to your body for comfort.

2. Keep Your Mattress in Good Condition

If you have a good mattress but it hasn’t been flipped or cleaned in a while then now is a good time to do that. To clean the mattress sprinkle it liberally with baking soda (you may need more than one pot) leave for a few hours and then vacuum up the baking soda. Spray the bed with fabric freshener to freshen it up too.

Flip your mattress every few months so that it wears evenly. Mattresses are designed to last about 10 years – but not if you leave them on one side all the time.

To protect your mattress and keep it clean get a mattress cover – they are quite cheap to buy and can be laundered in the washing machine (far easier than cleaning your mattress).

3. Smooth Clean Sheets

Most hotels don’t go in for fancy bedding ensembles but they always have quality sheets. These are the kind made of super fine cotton with a high thread count which feels smooth to the touch. Only quality sheets can survive the high temperatures of commercial laundries and come out looking good wash after wash.

Make sure your sheets are fresh, crisp and smooth – launder as soon as they lose their crisp fresh feel and make sure you iron them nice and smooth. (more…)

The guest bedroom is an interesting situation, because it is a room that you will not use. Nobody will use it really, until such time as a family member or friend comes to stay. Then it will be their temporary home, within your home, until they leave again.

One of the most important things to keep in mind when you set out to decorate a guest bedroom is that you are not creating a second bedroom for yourself. You have a room, this is a space that has to be accommodating for just about anyone. As such, you are relatively limited in your decorative choices.

Basically you don’t want to be too bold. Anything which could be offensive, or make the room uncomfortable for a guest should be avoided. Try to use neutral tones when selecting colors. Anything which is too bright could be annoying, making your guest feel antsy and agitated. On the other hand dark colors can make the atmosphere morose and depressing, leaving them with a negative impression of their stay in your home.

There are a few essential furnishings that any good guest bedroom should have. The bed is of course the main necessity. Many people choose to use a futon which folds out into a bed, in order to double the functionality of the space. You should also include some sort of a night stand, or bedside table next to whatever bedding arrangement you have set up.

As far as accessories, an alarm clock is useful for just about everybody. Some people need the extra push to get them up in the morning, but even if they don’t, they might still like to know what time it is. Adding a second
wall clock or mantel timepiece couldn’t hurt either. In a way clocks are the perfect innocuous decorative piece, they won’t offend almost anyone, and they make the space more functional. (more…)

Many of us don’t always get the opportunity to stay in a five star hotel. We may have seen photos or watched programs that give you a sense of what they are like, others may know exactly what we are talking about, beautiful luxurious rooms that say “Oasis, Paradise and Vacation!” What if you could create your own five star hotel right inside your own bedroom? Five star hotels are not your typical hotel. They have a way of capturing a mood using lighting, rich fabrics and high end furniture. Here’s how to get you started.

Let’s start with the color of your room. Paint color is extremely important. You’ll want to stick with warm, cool, relaxing colors. Stay away from bright bold colors like, cherry red, neon greens and canary yellows, they are too stimulating. You want your bedroom to be a sanctuary. Creating a soothing environment involves lots of earth tone colors, like, light blues, sage greens, pale gold’s and so on. These colors are sophisticated and chic when you stick to a more monochromatic look. This means when you pick a primary color you have different variations of that color. Take sea foam green, you’ll want another shade like iced blue and soft teal. You don’t want equal amounts of each color in the space, this can look very juvenile and frankly, it can look tacky. Your accent color should always be small hints of color that don’t dominate or take away from the primary color.

Window treatments are what add warmth to your bedroom. Choose heavy panels that are very similar to the color of your walls if you want a cozier surrounding. Choose lighter sheers that create a billowy effect, almost like clouds. If you have blue-green walls with accents of gold, any one of these colors will work as your window treatment as long as the colors are very close to the same shade. The key is to remember that similar shading throughout the room will bring cohesiveness and sophistication to your bedroom.

Bedding is the show stopper. Having luxurious, full, thick and fluffy bedding is essential. Think high thread count. Think down pillows. Think comfort at its finest! Don’t skimp on your bedding. You want your bedroom to feel like an expensive hotel not the Motel 6! Remember that the color has to make sense in the room. Blue haze on the walls with accents of pale gold’s means blue haze or gold with a variation of the blue/gold on the bedding. When you walk into your bedroom you want your bed to be the focal point without over powering the room. (more…)