Let Your Bedroom Breathe: 5 Things to Consider Getting Rid Of
I had the most transforming (literally) moment not too long ago when I took a bench out of my bedroom. While I had styled it lovingly with a comforting and cozy vignette and it technically fit in the spot it was in, it made my room feel cramped. Or at least, I didn’t realize it felt cramped until I moved it to another room in my home and breathed in the fresh air of a roomier, more wonderful bedroom!
Eliminating one or more of these five things below from your bedroom might not literally change your life, but their absence may make your bedroom a little bit nicer of a place to be in. And since you start your mornings, end your day and spend 33 percent of your life (we’re going off of that life sleeping statistic) in your bedroom, shouldn’t we be doing all we can to make our bedrooms the most pleasant spaces we can muster? Try taking out one or all of these five things from your sleep space today:
That furniture you keep tripping on
Like my bench, you too might have a piece of furniture that technically fits in the space and maybe even looks nice. Maybe you had good intentions when you brought it in (extra storage in a foot-of-the-bed trunk, yeah!). But if it’s not being used as much as you’d like, or it’s making the bedroom feel a little cramped or you’re tripping over it when you wake up in the morning, it might be time to go. You don’t have to live in a bed-only, strictly minimal bedroom, but we vote for the least amount of furniture cluttering this room.
That chair you don’t actually sit in
The idea above goes double for that side or lounge chair you brought into your bedroom to occupy an empty corner. While it’s nice to look at, if you’re doing less sitting and reading in it than you originally planned and more often than not it’s camouflaged as a pile of clothes, you might consider moving it out and doing something else in that corner.
A television
We’re just fans, frankly, of little to no technology in the bedroom. Technology — screens in particular — can be distracting in the bad kind of way, keeping you from enriching your relationship with your partner or just enjoying a good old-fashioned book before bed.
The laundry basket
If you live in a small space, you might not have a better place to put your laundry basket, but if you can make room for it in a closet or bathroom, try it. Piles of laundry are always a reminder that there’s more housework to be done and that can get in the way of feeling totally relaxed when you wake up or try to fall asleep.
Those extra throw pillows
Or whatever it is about your bed that might be making it take a long time to make in the morning or undo and slip into your bed at night. Though we’re open-minded to all types of ways to dress a bed (and support any style anyone wants to try), if it’s taking you too long to fix up in the morning before work or if you have to climb over a pile of extra throw pillows before your head can hit the regular pillow, you might consider streamlining your bed’s look.
Re-edited from a post originally published 8.25.15-nt