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Interiors by room
A bedroom is designed around the bed, but built around the sockets and lighting. Bedside switches, sockets at the right height, a wall light angled for reading, a separate circuit for the ceiling lights: all of this is decided before the finishing work, and it's the hardest thing to change later.
The next layer is about quiet and darkness. Sound insulation on the wall facing the corridor or staircase, heavy curtains or a motorised track, the right clearance beneath the door. The images show a third layer too: a bedroom is almost always connected to a walk-in wardrobe or built-in storage, and its layout is planned together with that storage, not afterwards.
























Where the bed goes is rarely decided by ease of movement alone. The headboard shouldn't end up under a draughty window, and whoever sleeps there shouldn't be lying opposite an open door: from the threshold, your eye shouldn't land straight on the bed. There are sockets on both sides of the bed, whoever happens to sleep on each side at the moment, because a bedroom layout is planned for habits and occupants that change over the years, not just for the current arrangement.
The ceiling lights in a bedroom are rarely switched on; more often you need soft light for the evening and directional light for reading without waking a partner. So a wall light or recessed light fitting by the headboard gets its own switch by the bed, not just by the door, and its angle is worked out so the book is lit while the ceiling above the other half of the bed stays in shadow. The ambient lighting almost always goes on a dimmer: a bedroom needs a gradual shift from bright morning light to a dim evening, without the sharp click of a switch.
Sound insulation on the wall facing the corridor, lift or neighbouring room goes in during the rough works: once the finishes are on, the only way to add it is to strip them off and start again. The bedroom door is chosen for how closely the door fits its frame: a gap around the edges lets in almost as much corridor noise as an open door. A socket for a humidifier or air purifier is planned in advance on the wall where such appliances usually stand, so there is no need to run an extension lead across the room.
In most of our projects the bedroom is designed together with the walk-in or built-in wardrobe, not afterwards: the depth of the wardrobe, the clearance in front of it and the position of the door all affect where the bed can go at all. A freestanding wardrobe in a bedroom is rare in our work; more often it's a built-in system that takes up less floor space for the same storage and doesn't add extra furniture to a room meant for sleeping.