It’s all to easy to let the clutter of everyday life invade your bedroom, but this impairs your ability to relax in the one room in the house that should be designed for that purpose. It’s time to decorate your bedroom for its true purpose.

Start out by thinking about your personal style. What would you like to have in your bedroom? What would make it relaxing, romantic or both? If you’re married, what would appeal to your spouse?

Let’s start with the bed. As the largest piece of furniture in most rooms, as well as the most used, it is something of a focal point. Do you like the bedding? What about the bedframe itself?

Sometimes you will quickly realize that it is time to replace all your bedroom furniture when you decide to redecorate your bedroom. Maybe the old furniture just isn’t your style anymore. With today’s online shopping available, finding new furniture doesn’t have to mean running all around town anymore. You can shop from the comfort of your own home and often get better prices.

Back to the bed. What would you like it to look like? Huge, 4 poster beds are quite popular right now, but would it look right in your home? If your room is big enough, it might look perfect. In a smaller room it will just make it look crowded.

Once you have chosen your bed, pick the rest of your furniture to match, but not overcrowd your bedroom. The dressers need to have adequate space for the clothing you will store in them. Most bedroom sets have plenty of matching pieces to choose from, so that you can find a style you like, yet still have a choice of a couple different sizes for your dresser.

Now it’s time to pick the accents. Your bedding is one kind of accent for your room. What colors do you like? Do you love throw pillows or are they a nuisance? Of course, soft sheets and good pillows are a must, both for relaxation and romance.

Lighting matters too. You don’t need to light your bedroom up as brightly as the rest of the house all of the time… in fact, there are many times when dimmer lighting is perfect for the mood in the bedroom. Consider installing a dimmer switch on the main light or have dimmer lights as a part of your decor.

Another option for mood lighting is candles. They can add a lovely touch to the decor, and when it’s time for romance they’re just about classic. Scented candles can add a lot too.

One item I strongly recommend leaving out of the bedroom that has found its way into too many is the television. Putting a television in your bedroom limits your ability to relax, and it takes away from romance. Yes, you can enjoy relaxing in front of the television in the evening, but why not do that in the living room, and leave the bedroom for other forms of relaxation?

When decorating your kid’s room, keep in mind his and her temperament and use colors that blend with individual likings. There are many designer bedroom suites that adhere to some real trendy colors, where you don’t really need to run to stores and rework on adjusting heights, it’s all ready for use. You can then focus on bits that personalize the space with your kid’s choice. You know things like wall paint, paper and draperies, rugs and other pieces like it—the details.

On a general note, these are some of the areas you may like to pay attention to. Another way is to buy a few elements of essential furniture like beds and study tables with chairs and work on others, to cut off costs. Listed here are some attention paying factors you could use when planning a kid’s bedroom,

Walls & Colors

Like mentioned earlier, you can get more inventive with color and schemes. Murals are a great way to do a dull wall and add life. Wallpapers come in different creative patterns for kids. If painting, try to use water-based colors. It can be cleaned more easily. You can also use colorful tiling on the walls, provided it goes with the other colors. In case you are starting from scratch, it would be better to do the wall colors and then get furniture that matches.

Lights

Light is important and in a child’s life it gets even bigger. Use bright lights over the study, and to highlight certain accents or favorite corners. Floor lights may be great, as also dimmable lights. You can find many creative shapes and designs that can compliment your kid’s room. Make your child participate in the process and it will be a fulfilling experience for you both.

Flooring/Rugs

Floor tiles come in fancy colors, but it is advised to pay attention to details. You don’t want slippery tiles in kid’s room. Wooden flooring may be great, or regular non-slippery and good quality tiles can be fine too, and you can cover them up with rugs for novelty. You can find many friendly rug patterns specially designed for kids.

Furniture

You get so much of kid furniture these days that you can wonder if it will be of any use two years down the line. The essential probably are the regular ones—bed or twin beds/bunk beds, a spacious cupboard, and bookshelf, a study table with comfortable chair. An added safety point, try to buy furniture with rounded edges in a kid’s room.

Windows

Possibilities know no bound when it comes to draping the windows. Use creativity to add to the glamour and theme. Stained glass, tented windows with white lace, shadowed windows where you block light to shadow shapes, or nicely draped windows that go with a theme.

All but one

Planning pays. If you decide on exactly the things you want, and the budget on hand, you can use the planning to create the effect you want without burning the pocket. Allow your child to participate; he/she may have the most practical thing on mind for his study, display or play. It works best when you know your kid’s mind. And feels like a teamwork too. You can let her/him know the budget and work together. Quality must be of high priority when buying sheets, pillow covers and cushions. Include play and store cubes to avoid clutter, use bright colors in the playroom, try and round up on non-breakable material for kids like to play a lot.

Lastly, unleash your creative juices when doing kid interiors. Kids are imaginative, so allow you the freedom to think like a child again. You will be happy with the work when you see your kid smile, and innovation as we know, is priceless.

With that said, here are some Feng Shui tips to consider for your bedroom…

Don’t overdo the bright colors in your bedroom. Bright colors are alive and moving, so the more bright colors that are used, the harder it will be to stay asleep. This also applies to plants and especially water.  Plants and water manifest yang energy, and cause the same issues in the bedroom as bright colors.    The colors associated with plants and water are green, black, and blue.  Bright colors to avoid are reds, strong oranges or bright yellows.  Florescent colors are out of the question!

Pictures of moving water can also cause problems.  If you’ve got a picture of a waterfall, river, or ocean in your bedroom, it’s a wise idea to move it.  Unfortunately, aquariums in the bedroom can also cause sleeping issues and should be moved.  Although you should avoid red in the bedroom, a little touch of red can spice up your sex life!   (Red is fire, so lit candles count as red.)

Dark colors (shades of brown) should be used in the décor of the bedroom, but not on the walls.  Painting the bedroom walls a dark color might help you sleep, but won’t help you feel rejuvenated in the morning.  Darker colored décor should be used to the point of tilting the room’s ambiance yin, without making you feel like you’re party to a funeral.  You don’t have to just use browns, pick darker colors and designs that are relaxing for you.

If you’re room is already very dark (wood paneled, for example) and you can’t make changes to it, you might want to consider changing any “yellow light” producing light bulbs to brighter, whiter bulbs.  Opening the blinds during the day will also dramatically improve the rooms feeling.  If it’s dark at night, balance it with brightness during the day.  (Clearing any room occasionally by opening all the blinds is extremely beneficial.)

In painting the bedroom, using pastel colors is your best bet.  The best colors to use depend on the compass direction of the room’s location.  To determine the compass direction of your home, draw your house’s outline on a piece of paper, and split the home into 9 equal sections (3 down, 3 across).  Use a compass to find which direction is north, and label each box according to that compass direction (North can be in a corner).  Here are the color combinations:

-  NE, Center, or SW: Rooms located here should be painted pastel earthy colors, including light shade of yellow.
-  NW or W: Rooms located here benefit from metal, so use a shade of white.
-  SE or E: The SE and East benefit from the color green, but you may want to only use these colors if the room will be used as a study. Then a shade of green would be perfect.  Otherwise, use pastel earthy colors including shades of yellow.  White is not helpful here, as it destroys the productive properties of the SE and East.  These directions are associated with wealth.
-  S: The South benefits from red. If you want to use red here, use it sparingly as too much will cause restlessness in bed.  Use shades of white for the walls.
-  N: The north benefits from blue and black (water). Since you can’t use water, try white instead, as white (metal) will help with the benefits of water without using water.

I know this might be a letdown, as some of you reading this were hoping to hear painting a room florescent orange would make you an international movie star overnight!  But Feng Shui is about balance and harmony, so using light, pastel colors is your best bet when painting the walls.

There are some other critical Feng Shui tips that you should be aware of, including determining which compass directions will bring you the most luck – and which ones you should avoid at all costs.  Visit www.FengShuiByTroy.com to learn more.