Furnishing an Open-Plan Home: How to Choose Your Bed

In an open plan home the bed stops being a bedroom fixture and becomes a piece of living room furniture that happens to be slept in. This article explains what changes as a result, beginning with the fact that the back of the frame is now a visible surface and needs to be properly finished. It covers why headboard height affects sightlines across the whole floor plan, how to define a sleeping zone using rugs, low furniture, separately switched lighting and paint rather than construction, and why integrated storage matters more when there is no fitted wardrobe. There is guidance on relating the bed materially to the sofa and dining furniture, plus the practical issues specific to open plan living: sound, cooking smells, early light and where the bed should sit in the circulation plan. Three workable positions are set out, along with the one arrangement to avoid: a bed sitting on the main circulation route....