Design Public

(This is the 3rd installment in our Guide to Modern Bedding series. )

Here, we discuss bedding styles and how to choose a look you’ll love.

Much of decorating is subjective, and bedding is no exception. Unlike your choice of furniture, your choice of bedding can change the look and feel of your bedroom in one fell swoop. Even the right pillow can serve as a design element that redefines a space.

So what does your bedroom need? A top to bottom bedding makeover or accessories to pull together the look you already have going?

Well, we suggest you go in one of three directions:

1. Visual Impact: Make a bold statement

Want to make a statement? Modern bedding that makes a statement is bold, colorful, and often features repeating graphical patterns.

Check out brands like dwell, area (select styles), Unison, True Modern (kids bedding) and Amenity. These designers have mastered modern prints, bold designs, and beautiful colors. The result? This bedding makes a visual impact in a room, which means you can pick a bedding style and easily design your bedroom around it (a great design trick).

Match a new rug to a Dwell sheet.

Paint a wall in a color from that new Amenity duvet cover.

“Visual Impact” bedding anchors an entire bedroom in terms of color, composition, and fabrication. Typically — but not always — this style of bedding delivers striking design at strikingly reasonable prices, giving you an accessible way to refresh the bedroom (and who knows what else).

You may choose an entire set, from bottom sheet to top sham and call it a day – or, mix and match some of the pieces and create your own masterpiece. Not ready to go all or nothing? We suggest easing into the new bedroom with a new duvet cover and pillowcases.

2. Modern Serenity: Make a subtle statement

Not everyone wants to “punch up” a room or make a statement with bedding. The second major design category for modern bedding includes items that, to the contrary, will make a bedroom more serene and simple. Classic even. This style centers on calm, subdued colors that harmonize together for a sophisticated, serene bedroom or that set the stage for more bold accessories. Brands like Area, Unison, Matteo, and Inhabit really excel at this style.

Tans. Blues. Grays. The simplified aesthetic of modern design is the perfect forum to create a serene bedroom. All extraneous details are eliminated, leaving behind only high quality fabrics and fine finishing. For the most part, this style also contains “luxury bedding” items — those products that exhibit the quality factors that we discuss in our lesson on bedding quality. Again, the Modern Bed paradigm holds true: quality items that stand on their own.

Like it? We do too. We recommend this style to people who want to create more of a serene atmosphere in their bedroom, or those who are looking for more of an organic, natural aesthetic.

3. Infinite options: Top of Bed

The easiest way to change the look of your bedding without spending a fortune or making a huge commitment is to focus on the Top of Bed. Top of Bed items are pillows and throws that when placed on your bed help to define a style. (We have some great examples in our throw pillows and throw blankets sections).

Another Top of Bed option is the duvet cover. Duvet covers are easy to wash and slip on over your existing comforter letting you switch up your bedding without having to invest in a new comforter.

This category is a great place to start if you are a beginner, one Top of Bed piece can inspire the design and set the tone for the rest of your room.

We hope we got the wheels turning by introducing these three different ways to decorate with bedding. Remember, this is your bedroom, so make it personal!

Next lesson: What’s in a name? What are the best bedding lines out there?