Much more than a sultry boudoir hue, black can achieve softness, it can be dynamic and contemporary as much as it can be bold and Baroque. Dive in at the deep end with these black bedroom ideas and discover how to decorate with this colour and its seriously hidden depths.
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BEDROOM
Black Bedroom Ideas
Take your bedroom on a walk into the dark side
By Linda Holmes, Interiors Director
Black Bedroom Furniture
Dark bedroom ideas begin with furniture – one of the building blocks to room design. To make the biggest splash, take the elected colour to the furniture icon of the room and go for a black bed. Imagine an upholstered bed frame with a tufted headboard in black velvet or a crisp and minimal silhouette covered in a smart, understated black linen.
Or, take fabric out of the equation and choose a black metal bed frame, whether that’s matte black steel or a glossy, lacquered finish if glamorous is the result you’re trying to achieve.
Black bedside tables work well too, cutting a compact yet confident pop of black. Take their silhouette low to the floor for subtlety or choose a design with brass or gold inlay if you’d prefer them to stand out.
Any form of bedroom storage or seating is an opportunity to play with the colour black. You can have as many black elements in the same space as you wish, spreading it onto every item of furniture to produce a dramatic, daring interior.
Black bedroom furniture can sit back in the scheme surprisingly well unless there’s a contrast, be it in colour or texture, that will make it leap off the page.
Image credit: Image Credit: Caballero
Image credit: Image Credit: Carlyle Designs
Black Bedroom Accessories
Black bedroom accessories are another domain that goes to show the many black avenues to consider taking. Black granite and black marble are popular in ornaments and sculptures that suit a bedroom’s window ledge or any decorative surface such as a dresser or console table.
Similarly, black horn and blackened bronze accessories such as doorstops, bookends or paperweights (should there be a petite bedroom desk) provide yet another two black bedroom materials.
Other black room decor includes wooden frames painted in black for photos and pieces of art, black resin bedside clocks, black-dyed glass vases for bedroom blooms, black leather trinket, jewellery and cufflink boxes, and iron-edged mirrors.
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Black Bedroom Walls
Conversations in colour can’t not touch on paintwork. Dark bedroom walls will nail the look and are no longer approached with total trepidation. Gone are the days when the prospect of a black bedroom wall would be met with a gasp.
Thanks to the world’s love affair with tones of grey, the sight of a charcoal feature wall with the headboard backed against it is now quite commonplace, especially if it’s paired with crisp white. That being said, black does take more guts, and the intensity of the pigment will be fully felt.
Don’t forget that it’s not a black hole you’ll be living in – furniture and accessories will fill your black chasm to distract so that the colour becomes a backdrop, a canvas, a shadow for the rest of the scheme.
For the adventurous decorator, go full bleed so that black seeps onto the ceiling and produces a feeling of infinity, akin to looking up at the night’s sky.
Black Bedding
Take the plunge and go one further than a black bedstead by enrobing it in black bedding too.
The two combined makes a colour palette statement loud and clear, but it doesn’t have to be as sensual as it first sounds. Go back to picturing the same minimal black bed frame in point one, and now imagine it with laidback linen covers and a wool throw draped at the bottom. This makes a very different impression to undeniably decadent black silk covers with a black fur bedspread.
So think carefully about the material of the bed covers, how they combine with the bed itself, and whether the throw or cushions will dramatise the level of black or help to mellow it. And remember, you can afford to knock black down a few levels, settling on charcoal grey bed linen instead.
Image credit: Image Credit: Greg Natale
Image credit: Image Credit: Greg Natale
Black Bedside Lamps
Be ironic with your black bedroom and reference darkness in an area all about light – lamps.
Top off a bedside table with a black lamp base and shade to double the effect, or to dial it down just opt for one section of the lamp, like a patent black base with a patterned shade.
Bronze lamps with a black finish are very popular, introducing a svelte shape into the room and a cool-to-the-touch metal, or feature a solid black stone like the aforementioned granite and marble for the ultimate luxe lamp.
Extra points awarded for using matching black light sockets too on any overhead lighting or wall sconces.
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Black Bedroom Rugs
To complete the dark bedroom look, steer clear of the jet black carpet unless you’re prepared for plenty of vacuuming or to make peace with the fact it will show up every bit of fluff. Instead, go smaller scale with a black rugs. The same reality applies as with the carpet however – an all-black rug is a high maintenance piece.
An alternative is to mix in other colours and to pick pattern. Geometrics, floral, abstract, monochrome and multi-coloured all contribute to a black bedroom, breaking things up so the atmosphere never becomes too sombre or heavy.
Equally, a solid colour rug with a sateen finish and lustrous pile gives the effect of it being two-toned and bounces the light beautifully. In terms of position, the best place is anchoring the bed.
Everybody knows the showpiece of the room is the bed, so frame it even further so that you’re making the room’s primary function and central shade the pure point of focus all at the same time.
