DESIGN STAGE with Kelli Webber

Staging your house & need a little help?

Just Ask Kelli   

Q: "I bought new bedding for the beds but I'm not sure how they should be made?"

{Kelli} A: I recently posted pictures of all the beds I have styled recently on my various projects and received emails asking how I make a bed look so good (why thank you, btw), so if you want to style a bed like me you'll need 2 things:

1. Clean bedding – because a bed can’t look gorgeous if it’s dirty, that’s science.  

2. A Steamer (here is the one I use which I bought with a 20% off coupon at Bed, Bath & Beyond and is the best $40 bucks I ever spent)  - because nothing looks good wrinkled.

While I have my favorite way to make a bed (I’ll reveal this later on), not all bed making is created equal. So first and foremost to consider; “Who is sleeping in the bed?” 

Hopefully it’s not the 3 little bears! In my world, and for this blog post, there are two rooms that take priority for a great looking bed; 

1. The Master Bedroom is the sweet spot for gorgeous bedding, after all, that is where the “King/Queen(s) of the castle” do sleep! 

1. The Guest Room, where you will comfortably entertain your overnight guests with your amazing new bed making ability. *disclaimer* it’s not my fault if they don’t want to leave. 

The second thing to consider is the style and design or décor in the room. The bed is surely the focal point and centerpiece to a bedroom so it should complement the rest of the room. Depending on the style of the room, there are a few options for how to make the bed accordingly. 

LUXURIOUSLY LAYERED

THIS IS MY FAVE! This is my go-to style of making a bed ESPECIALLY in a Master Bedroom. Simply use a pretty accent blanket or coverlet over your top sheet. Fold your top sheet over the blanket/coverlet right where the bedding pillows end. *TIP: lay your flat sheet on your bed right side DOWN so the right side shows when you do the fold over*.  Take your fluffy duvet or comforter and fold into thirds and lay over the bottom end of the bed! 

The bed shown above is the Master Bedroom in a staging I did in Weston, MA and this home happened to be in a 55+ community. I styled the room with a traditional gold metal bed frame (king size, btw) but made it look more modern flanked with mirrored nightstands and a canvas print overhead. Starting with a crisp white bedding set allowed me to add the luxurious layers in a coral color while topping it off with a few sophisticated, yet neutral, decorative pillows. 

I love the mid-century vibe in this Guest Room. Insert my Luxuriously Layered method and its perfection!  A white (and velvet feel) sheet set laid the foundation for a cool mohair blanket. The duvet was chosen to coordinate with 2 pillow shams, contributing to the layers, but offering a very monochromatic look. 

Another Guest Room here but with all the “feels” of a gorgeous Master Bedroom. The layers here are white and slate blue. The gray upholstered headboard and pattern in the decorative lumbar pillow complete the luxury in the layers.

This is a Master Bedroom in a condo I staged in Cambridge MA. Since the design itself was more modern, I kept all my layers in white, just adding some black and white decorative pillows to tie into the rest of the rooms décor.

SIMPLY SLEEK

This is an easy look to pull off requiring much less thought in the layering department. Simply lay a comforter or duvet over the spanse of the bed and place your pillows at the head. That’s it! 

You do need to be certain the comforter fits well and don't rely on bedding sizes, queen, king etc., not every Queen size comforter is the same size. Factor in that the mattresses themselves also come in varying heights, this is the tricky part of bed-making. 

How do you make sure it fits well? 

Start where you want your comforter to hang on the sides. In most cases, it’s just below the bed-skirt line, while in other cases you may want it to hang to the floor. Measure from this point up to about an inch over the top of the mattress. Take this number and multiply it by 2 (because beds have 2 sides). Now add the width of the bed to that number and you got the measurement for your perfect size Comforter width! Most bedding items will include measurements of their pieces in the description (because they know about the bedding dark side but they just don’t want to tell you).  You may need to buy a size larger depending on what you are going for, especially if you have a tall (deep) mattress.

Here is a Guest Room styled with my Simply Sleek method. The modern design of the room called for this style of bed making. The sides of this platform bed are finished with a nice wooden rail that I wanted to be able to see beyond the comforter. A fur throw softens the cool herringbone pattern of the duvet and the absence of decorative pillows keeps the look super Simply Sleek!

Here is a Master Bedroom in a modern apartment I staged in Boston, MA. I used my Simply Sleek method here combined with my white bedding love. The white duvet here does have a white on white pattern to it to add some texture, but adding a few decorative throw pillows is key to making the all white bedding look work.

One last example for Simply Sleek here, this is a Master Bedroom, waterfront nonetheless in P-Town. You can cheat with this look IF AND ONLY IF you have a bed with pretty side rails. Just skip all the measuring I mentioned earlier and tuck all the bedding in! This look only works with a less fluffy or flat comforter. See how nice it looks? And no one will ever know you cheated. Ssshhhhh.

This is a Guest Room bed I made with my Simply Sleek method but Punched Up with a few decorative pillows. Notice how the colors in the decorative pillows really bring the whole space together!

This Master Bedroom gets the Luxurious Layers treatment but goes all pattern, with a mix of stripes and prints in all the same color way.

The simply Sleek method is a winner in this Master Bedroom but Punched Up with an all over pattern duvet and pillows balanced out only by the solid sheet set and a few neutral decorative pillows

Mixing it up here to show you how I applied the Simply Sleek method to this Guest Room, Punching it Up with many vibrant decorative pillows. This not only made it look fab, but helped define the space as part office too.

And the ultimate *TIP* to make your bed SUPER EASY and come out looking perfect every time is………

Make your bed first,

Steam your bedding second!

No more sweating it out using an ironing board and having to deal with the expanse of bedding with numerous pieces. Just make your bed, then steam it while made! It will look great, perfect even. And for those of us who live in the real world, this is just enough work for what it’s worth, after all, we will be sleeping in our own beds!

So now you can be a skilled bed-maker too!

Send me pics of your newly gorgeous bed! kelli@nestaging.com