How to Style Beds for a Classic Home

Classic bedroom styling is frequently confused with traditional furniture, when it is really about proportion, symmetry and restraint. This guide works through the four decisions that matter: a headboard with enough height to hold a wall in a room with period ceilings, bedding layered in the correct order with natural fabrics, balanced cabinets and lamps either side of the bed, and a palette drawn from the architecture rather than applied over it. It covers buttoned, panelled and winged headboard styles, the pillow arrangement that stops a bed looking staged, heritage colours that behave well in soft British light, and the woodwork treatment that ties a room together. There is also practical guidance on rug sizing, full length lined curtains, freestanding storage and the single large artwork that settles the wall above a bed. A separate section adapts the same principles to smaller bedrooms in terraced houses and cottages, where headboard height and pattern need scaling back....