How to Create a Peaceful Bedroom Retreat
Behind the Scheme
Behind the Scheme
Welcome to Behind the Scheme, where I take you inside the mood, method, and magic behind my design process and show you a beautiful room concept that follows holistic design practices. Think of this series as a peek behind the curtain — where every choice has a story, and every space is crafted to feel like home.
After the long winter we just had, I am craving joy, colour, and spaces that feel like sunshine. I’ve been playing around with Pinterest collages while I relax in the evenings (and binge UK’s Interior Design Masters), and I came up with this colour palette while experimenting with this fantastic botanical wallpaper. I thought the palette worked so well that I decided to adapt it for a peaceful bedroom retreat — one that makes me want to wake up with the sunshine, drink my cup of tea in the garden, and attend a vintage market to look for trinkets.
Coming soon: a full “Shop the Scheme” section with links to key pieces and lookalikes—so you can bring this peaceful bedroom, and other schemes, to life in your own home.
01 | Creating a peaceful bedroom starts with setting the tone
The original collage I created on Pinterest felt like a breath of fresh air.
I knew that I wanted to alter the living room collage to suit a bedroom, which got me thinking about how I wanted to feel in the finished room. I realized that I was craving something that, on paper, sounds a little contradictory: I wanted the room to feel joyful and soothing, for it to encourage me to feel both energized and peaceful.
Our instincts, feelings, and emotions are so personal, which is why understanding how you want a room to feel — and leaning into potential juxtapositions — helps to create a space that is custom-tailored to suit your needs. On paper, the words we use to describe the experience we want might not sound like they work together, but by getting curious and leaning into creativity, I believe it’s completely possible to choose contradictory intentions and bring them together harmoniously. The final scheme completely fits both sides of the emotional experience; a peaceful bedroom that also feels vibrant and inspiring.
02 | An unexpected colour palette
I love the language of the colour green. By simply playing with tone and hue, you can alter this colour to suit any season, any preference, and any emotion.
It’s so important to define your understanding of colour, because we all have different reactions and opinions about it. I tend to lean towards warmer colour palettes in a room, but I found myself very drawn to this light blue, which reminded me of Wedgewood dishes. For a lot of people, a soft blue is calming and adaptable, but I tend to find blue cold and uninspiring. So I was surprised when I felt pulled towards a light blue roll-arm loveseat to complement my green wallpaper and green painted ceiling and trim.
I loved all of the elements individually — the fabrics, paint colour, green wall sconces, and furniture — but the palette didn’t click until I came across the coral lumbar cushion. Suddenly, a cool-toned scheme that was leaning quite traditional had a zing of excitement. The coral brightened the cool palette, adding a necessary warm tone to bring the colours together, and it helped to tie the scheme into the spring seasonality I was looking to cultivate. To me, this colour is the perfect match — it reminds me of the soft petals of an Icelandic poppy, an appropriate choice as this is an early bloomer in my garden.
03 | Creating a sensory retreat
Out of all the rooms in a home, it’s essential to get the sensory experience of your bedroom just right. It’s a space where four of our five senses take centre stage, and this step in the design process can be really fun and enjoyable.
There seems to be a universal love for the luxury of hotel bed and bath linens because they feature textures that make us feel pampered and special. I’m a firm believer that you can achieve this feeling at home if you do some self-discovery about what fabrics you actually want to surround yourself with. For me, luxury is a linen sheet and duvet set. I love the casual rumples, the way linen softens with every wash, and how it feels cooling in the summer and cozy in the winter. So obviously, I chose a white flax linen sheet set and duvet cover (this one’s from Canadian brand Silk & Snow).
As the colour palette of the room is quite vibrant, I wanted to make sure the soft furnishings in the room felt cozy and enveloping. A floor-to-ceiling wallpaper application paired with a coordinating painted ceiling often achieves this feeling, but I also wanted to make sure I wasn’t forgetting about the other opportunities for softness. In this scheme, I chose a green striped fabric to be made into beautiful pinch-pleat curtains, with a subtle floral fabric as a layered Roman shade. To continue the cozy, a velvet-upholstered bed adds the colour I’m craving while contributing to the sensory experience. The layered fabrics also help to deaden the sound in the room, further achieving our goal of creating a peaceful bedroom.
Smell is a little tough to showcase on a sample board, but I imagine tucking a high-quality air filter in a corner to keep the room feeling and smelling clean, and perhaps lighting beeswax candles in the evening for a warm, subtle sweetness.
04 | Bringing the outside in
I couldn’t create a spring-inspired, peaceful bedroom scheme without including botanicals. Number one, because that would go against my love and fascination with flora and fauna; and number two, because there is so much beauty and excitement in seeing the world come alive again at this time of year.
I’ve talked about biophilia before on my blog because it is an important aspect of my holistic design process. We all know how powerful and healing nature can be, which is why it’s helpful to take cues from nature in every space in your home. Biophilia isn’t just about having flowers or plants in your room – it’s also about the materials, shapes, and energy you bring into the space.
Adding floor-to-ceiling wallpaper in a botanical print is an easy and obvious way to bring the outside in, but I also made sure to choose 100% linen fabrics and a 100% wool rug to maintain a connection to whole, natural materials while trying to be sustainable. To keep the space grounded, I chose dark wood furniture to help balance the bright colour palette, and the curving shapes of the headboard, nightstands, and scalloped details all pay tribute to the organic shapes in nature. Nothing is perfectly straight in nature, and leaning into the perfect imperfections is a beautiful way to breathe life into any space.
05 | Finishing off with the joyful details
My overall goal or guiding idea for this scheme might have been to create a peaceful bedroom retreat, but I did want to make sure that joy was also central to the design.
Spring is full of joy – the longer days, the way it feels to finally open a window after a long winter, how grass seems to turn green overnight, and hearing birds chirping and chatting all day long. As the natural world is literally waking up from a deep sleep, I know a lot of us also feel like we are coming back to life, too.
When I think about joy, my mind naturally progresses to play, which is another important aspect of design. The floor-to-ceiling wallpaper choice paired with a green ceiling, green trim, and doors feels playful, especially next to the blue headboard and contrasting coral accessories. The lighting I’ve chosen for the space – also in green and coral – helps keep the traditional botanical wallpaper from feeling too serious, and the oil painting I chose for above the dresser brings in a bit of tension. While the subject matter fits the scheme, the colours and tones in the art are just slightly off, which adds a bit of whimsy and natural imperfection. If the colour palette of the art and paintings were exactly matching the room, they wouldn’t be allowed to sing their own song and would blend in with the other elements of the space.
Joy and play are about trying new things, experimenting, following your gut, and being a little silly with your styling – all words and sentiments that tie beautifully into the spring season.
Bringing it all together
I hope this explanation of my design choices for this peaceful bedroom retreat has helped you understand how I incorporate self-discovery into every step of my design process. From the overall feeling to the colour palette, to considering biophilia and the sensory experience of a room, each decision is made with intention and care.
If you were to look at this sample board all on its own, you might just see a pleasant bedroom design. But it’s going deeper that takes a room from something that looks beautiful to something deeply instinctual and nourishing.
With all of the design and decorating options out in the world today, creating a beautiful and cohesive scheme is the simple part. The greater challenge lies in creating honest, meaningful spaces that tell your story.
If you’re curious about how to tune in to your inner knowing so you can create a home full of soul, I’m giving away my entire design process for free (yes, free!) through my newsletter. My guidebook, Secrets to a Soulful Home, takes you through exercises, prompts, and templates to help you design a space that’s rooted in your truth.
I hope it helps you discover your truest and most beautiful self.
Need support transforming your home into your personal sanctuary?
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