Our bedroom is basically a shoebox with delusions of grandeur. I’m talking maybe 10 by 12 feet if I’m being generous, and that’s including the bit where you can’t actually stand because the slanted ceiling tries to knock you unconscious. When we first moved in, I thought I’d just pick one look and stick with it – you know, keep it simple. But honestly? Staring at the same beige walls and navy bedding every morning for months on end started making me feel properly depressed.
I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love our little house. But this bedroom… it’s like someone took a normal-sized room and put it through one of those shrinking machines from Honey I Shrunk the Kids. There’s barely space to walk around our queen bed without doing some weird sideways shuffle, and I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve whacked my hip on the corner of our ancient dresser. The previous owners clearly had different priorities than making the master bedroom actually livable.
About three years ago, when Amara was still tiny and I was spending way too much time scrolling through home design accounts during endless night feeds, I started getting obsessed with seasonal decorating. All these gorgeous bedrooms with different looks for autumn and spring, cozy winter vibes, fresh summer feels. Problem was, every single example I saw was in these massive rooms with built-in storage and budgets that probably exceeded our yearly mortgage payments.
But you know what? Being forced to work with absolutely no space has actually made me better at this whole seasonal thing. When you can’t just chuck seventeen throw pillows on the bed and call it festive, you have to get creative about what actually makes a difference.
Bedding became my gateway drug. I was so sick of looking at that same navy duvet cover every day – it felt like living in a Travelodge that never got redecorated. So I started with just one extra set, this gorgeous terracotta cotton one I found reduced at John Lewis. Cost me eighty quid, which felt like a fortune at the time, but the first morning I woke up to warm orange instead of boring blue? Life changing. Dramatic, maybe, but true.
Now I’ve got three sets on rotation. Spring and summer get these lovely white sheets with tiny sage green dots – found them at a discount place for thirty-five pounds and they’ve washed brilliantly. Autumn is still that terracotta set, which makes the whole room feel warmer even when the heating’s being stingy. Winter brings out the deep forest green flannel that makes everything feel like we’re camping in a really posh cabin somewhere.
Storage, though. Nobody warns you about the storage situation when you decide to have multiple sets of bedding. Our built-in wardrobe is already stuffed to bursting with clothes, baby gear, and all the random stuff that doesn’t have anywhere else to live. I tried those vacuum storage bags first – what a disaster. Everything came out looking like it had been attacked by a steamroller, and the flannel never recovered its fluffiness. Waste of money and effort.
These days I use proper cotton storage bags that slide under the bed. They’re not as space-efficient as the vacuum ones, but at least my sheets don’t look like they’ve been through some kind of textile trauma when I get them out.
The real magic happens with what I call my “quick change” bits. There’s this small wooden tray on my nightstand – maybe eight inches square, nothing fancy – and I swap out what’s on it every season. Spring gets a little succulent and a candle that actually smells like fresh linen, not some synthetic nonsense. Summer is usually just a tiny vase with whatever’s managed to survive in our shared garden – sometimes it’s just one stem, but it makes the whole space feel alive.
Autumn is where I probably get a bit carried away. Real pumpkin, not one of those fake ones that screams “I shop at Hobbycraft.” Vanilla candle that smells like actual vanilla, not “vanilla storm breeze” or whatever ridiculous names they come up with these days. Sometimes I’ll add some conkers that Amara and I collected from the park, because why not embrace the season properly?
Winter is definitely my most extra time. The tray gets pinecones, a deep red pillar candle, and if I’m feeling particularly festive, a tiny string of battery fairy lights wrapped around a small branch. Liam thinks I’ve lost the plot with the lights thing, and he’s probably right, but it makes me happy when the evenings are dark by four o’clock and everything feels a bit grim.
The walls nearly broke me, not gonna lie. We’re renting, so no paint changes allowed, and the existing color is this beige that somehow manages to be both boring and slightly soul-crushing. I got seduced by removable wallpaper last year – spent sixty pounds on these botanical prints that looked gorgeous online. Took me an entire weekend to get them up properly, and they looked cheap and obvious in real life. Definitely one of my more expensive mistakes.
Instead, I’ve got three different sets of art prints now. Nothing fancy – mostly stuff I downloaded from Etsy for a few quid each and got printed at the local shop. Spring brings botanical illustrations in simple black frames. Summer gets abstract prints in soft blues and whites that make the room feel breezier. Autumn and winter share moody landscape photographs in dark frames that create this cozy, intimate feeling.
Command strips are your friend here – the proper picture hanging ones, not the rubbish basic ones that give up after a week. I’ve got four strategic spots where art can go, and switching them out takes maybe ten minutes but completely transforms how the space feels.
Had a proper disaster with lighting changes last year. Bought those colored smart bulbs thinking I’d create seasonal moods – spring greens, autumn oranges, the works. Absolutely terrible idea. The room looked like a nightclub, and you can’t read properly under colored light anyway. Who thought that was a good plan?
Now I just switch lampshades on our bedside lamps instead. Light linen ones for spring and summer that let in maximum brightness, darker ones for autumn and winter that create these lovely intimate pools of light. Much more sensible, and it actually works.
Let me tell you about my greatest seasonal decor failure though. Last winter I decided our room needed “texture” – clearly I’d been spending too much time on Pinterest. Bought this chunky knit throw in cream wool that looked absolutely gorgeous in photos and felt like a cloud in the shop. Fifty pounds, which felt justified at the time.
Within a week it was covered in cat hair – apparently anything fluffy is automatically his personal bed. Developed pulls from catching on furniture corners every time we moved around the room. Impossible to wash properly because wool. Fifty pounds straight down the drain, and a lesson learned about prioritizing practicality over Instagram-worthiness.
Window treatments were another learning curve I could have done without. Started changing heavy curtains seasonally – light cotton for summer, velvet for winter. The effort was ridiculous, and the different weights kept loosening the curtain rod so I was constantly having to retighten screws. Now I keep neutral linen curtains year-round and just change the tiebacks. Rope for summer, leather for autumn, simple fabric ties for the other seasons. So much easier.
These days my seasonal routine takes maybe an hour every few months, usually when I’m procrastinating about something more important. Swap the bedding, change the art, switch what’s on the nightstand tray, maybe add or remove our one throw pillow – there’s literally no room for more than one. Nothing revolutionary, but it keeps the space feeling fresh without requiring a second mortgage.
The best part is I actually look forward to these changes now. It’s become this little ritual that marks the seasons passing, even though our view is mostly other people’s houses and the occasional pigeon having a territorial dispute on next door’s roof. In a space this small, every change feels significant, and maybe that’s not such a bad thing after all.
