25 Simple Tricks To Make Your Bedroom Feel Extra Cozy (2024)

Interior designer Wendy Nolan, of 509 Design LLC in Spokane, WA, encourages the use of "warm neutrals"—light to mid-tone greys, beiges, and browns, as well as earthy slate-y blues. These colors provide a peaceful (but not dull) background that can be easily warmed up or cooled down with accessories throughout the seasons.

Wood, linen, rattan, wicker, stone, wool, geodes: all of these add coziness to a room. (Try these 100 simple strategies to sleep better every night.) Use them liberally and, when possible, avoid large elements made with reflective metals and plastics, as they will make a room seem hard and manufactured. (Small metallic or plastic accents, such as furniture feet or knobs, are generally fine.)

The first step you take every morning is not something to take lightly! Tampa Bay-based designer Sara Chiarilli of Artful Conceptions suggests a high-pile wool area rug next to the bed. It both makes for a nice place to put your feet down and an opportunity to get creative with color and design: Choose anything from an antique Persian rug to a modern minimalist piece. (Become a morning person with these 7 tricks.)

Overhead lighting is unnecessarily bright for a room where sleep is paramount. Either put your light fixture on a dimmer or get rid of it altogether, perhaps replacing it with a lightless wooden fan. Instead of an overhead light, use a variety of smaller lamps set at varying heights to provide a texture of light. Use low-wattage bulbs and sturdy lampshades to diffuse the light throughout the room for maximum coziness.

These increasingly-popular lamps are an affordable cozy element that may harbor secret benefits: proponents swear they have air-filtering qualities and may be able to help you breathe better at night (just check out these3 things you should know before you buy a salt lamp). Regardless of any potential health benefits, they give a muted, pink-toned glow that adds a nice bit of light texture to a room. We like this Levoit Elora Hand Carved Natural Himalayan Crystal Salt Lamp, which comes with a dimmer switch.

Burning candles in a bedroom can be a risky proposition: There's a lot of fabric around and it's easy to fall asleep while the candles are still burning. But they're an essential element of the increasingly popular Danish concept of hygge—a not-quite-translatable word that means not just coziness, but the warmth of human connection that comes from a cozy scene. You can add a bit of safety to your candle burning by using hurricane lanterns, geometric glass lanterns, or even glass terrarium boxes to light some pillar or votive candles while adding a pretty, modern touch to your room's décor.

If you're leery of burning candles where you sleep, or you don't want to shell out hundreds of dollars for enough candles to get you through the winter in full cozy style, consider artificial candles. The technology has come far enough that they're actually quite lovely, and with no flame risk, you can place them everywhere. The ones made with real wax have a particularly beautiful glow. This set of 5 pillar candles comes with an auto timer, so you can set them to turn on each night at the same time.

Not just for teenage girls' bedrooms anymore, fairy lights (also known as Christmas tree lights) can add soft light and twinkly ambience to a room—even a mature one! Modern versions—like these sophisticated copper wire fairy lights—can be swooped along the ceiling, hung behind a curtain panel, or even bunched up in a repurposed jar as an artsy DIY lamp.

Art selections are intensely personal and taste-driven, but Julie Daniel, from Los Angeles-based L'Abri Interiors, recommends avoiding high-energy colors such as reds, oranges, and deep yellows. Instead, choose pieces with blue, green, or gray tones that will help create a serene vibe in your bedroom, she says. (Check out the 6 biggest mistakes couples make in the bedroom.)

Put family heirlooms—particularly those of the linen variety—on display. Mat and hang some of grandma's lace doilies, for example, or cut a usable portion out of a tattered old quilt and frame it for the wall. This adds a personal touch while contributing to the multi-fabric texture of the room. (Find out how to Feng Shui your bedroom.)

Designer Liz Toombs of Polka Dots and Rosebuds Interiors in Lexington, KY, encourages clients to "bring the outside in by using flowers or plants with your other décor. It's so nice to have the feeling of life inside your home during these cold months." Choose easy-to-handle plants for a bedroom: cacti, succulents, and air plants all add a burst of greenery with minimal effort, and their pots can make for a nice design element. If you're brave, Toombs suggests an orchid: They're easier than you think, and they add a delicate, colorful element to your room.

Who says you have to keep holiday and seasonal decorations confined to just a few months? You don't want to go overboard, but a Christmas wreath or bouquets of fresh garden flowers in the summertime adds warmth and a quietly festive feeling to a bedroom.

If your bedroom has space, make yourself a comfy reading spot with a small table and a luxurious chaise or cozy oversized chair. (Curl up with one of these steamy books to help set the mood in your bedroom.)

Fabric is a beautiful and soft way to create texture, color, and coziness in a room. Drape a cozy blanket artfully over the back of a chair. Add mix-and-match throw pillows to the chair in your reading nook. Fold an antique quilt or a contemporary woven blanket at the foot of the bed (we love this vibrant Pendleton blanketand prettytartan throw).

Glowing lights and intermittent hums from electronics do not provide a restful sleep environment, and omnipresent television sets make it too tempting to watch TV before bed, which, according to the National Sleep Foundation, can manipulate our circadian rhythms, making it difficult to sleep soundly. If you simply must have a TV for the occasional movie-in-bed night, consider draping it with a pretty blanket or piece of fabric when it's not on. It'll keep dust out and your mind off it. As for your laptop? Tempting as it may be, leave it in the living room. (Here are 6 things you should never do in your bedroom.)

Reading, on the other hand, is a great pre-sleep activity, and a good one for general relaxation, as well. Put your reading nook to good use by adding a small bookshelf to the room, stocked with both novels and coffee table books, which make for great relaxing flipping. Magazines, as they're flimsy paper, tend to pile up and feel like clutter—remove them once you're finished reading. Books can stay. (Here are the 4 biggest clutter culprits in your home.)

Creating a cozy reading spot is lovely, but bringing in too many elements (side tables galore, multiple sets of bookshelves) will begin to make the room feel busy and cluttered.

That towering heap of unmatched socks and shirts that need buttons sewn on? Out with it! Of all the places in the house where it's crucial to cut clutter, the bedroom is the most important. If the first thing you see every morning is a heap of clothing (which is to say, a pile of tasks that needs doing), it sets you up for a tough day. Either fold your clothes and put them away immediately or leave the unfolded clean ones elsewhere in the house. (Find out what the perfect bedroom for a great night's sleep looks like.)

A bedroom isn’t cozy if the bed isn’t comfy! Buy a good mattress and keep it in good shape by rotating/flipping it (if the manufacturer recommends it) and keeping it covered with a waterproof mattress cover. Most manufacturers recommend replacing mattresses every 5-10 years or as soon as you find yourself waking up with aches and pains that can’t be explained by other factors.