As someone who has recently gone through the horrors (oh, the horror!) that can be involved with finding a new place to live—in New York City, no less—I have come to fully understand the creativity that goes into selecting and designing a home. You learn to sacrifice (do I need a closet? Or a bathtub? What about a door?), and to manipulate space.

Through my weeks spent looking at tiny apartment after tiny apartment, each one with unique obstacles (let’s call them that, “obstacles”), I certainly learned to re-prioritize my space needs. Thankfully, my new addiction to the blog Apartment Therapy introduced me to a genre of room known as the Nook Bedroom.

In these tiny bedrooms, which very often fit nothing more than a bed, your mattress takes center stage (literally). Boxed in on three sides by walls, your bed and mattress automatically become the room’s design focus. Potentially striking, usually inventive, and always cozy, these bedrooms have me wishing—quite possibly for the first time ever—for a smaller room.

Lessons of Living Small

Strategic uses of color, rustic fabrics, Asian-inspired minimalism, and quirky prints all help infuse your bed (and by default, bedroom) with personality and charm.

What these spaces all have in common is their unabashed acceptance of the fact that they are small. Rather than shying away and covering it up (an impossible task), it’s as if they say, “Yeah, I could be a closet. What’s it to you?” and then throw a kickin’ bed in your face to prove just how awesome they are. The close walls—be they built-in bookcases, textured, or clean and simple—become the picture frame, and your bed the work of art.

So let’s say you happen to be graced with a bedroom oozing with gratuitous square footage and an obscene amount of floor space, you can still take a cue from these miniature rooms to ensure your sleeping area is just so completely, uniquely, you. Let your bed become your room’s focus, no matter the size. Then decorate accordingly with strategically placed accent pieces.

These small rooms also remind us, however, that you don’t need an over-sized, antique, four-poster bed to make a statement (although these are lovely, and I would just about die to have one). With a platform in place of a sleigh bed, your mattress is exposed. While it is itself a thing of beauty—at least we at Englander think so—you can’t let your mattress go naked!  Add a gorgeous duvet, some pillows that pop, or a vintage print to give your bed a voice.

(One that says, “Sleep here, I look great!”)

*All images from the blog www.apartmenttherapy.com. 
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