A modern bedroom is something that can be used in many ways – from a comfortable and relaxing place to sleep, to a teenager’s den, to a space where many people also have set up a home office to work from home.
There are many ways to make the most of the space in a bedroom from storage like fitted wardrobes and underbed storage facilities, to screens which help to section off part of the room if it has another use.
The way that we use a bedroom and decorate it is something that has changed a lot over the centuries. The bedroom wasn’t even something that most people had in the 1500s. It was only something that you would find in the homes of the very wealthy, and not something that the working classes would even dream of having.
These bedrooms were very different to modern day bedrooms. It is not likely that you would invite friends around and then gather in the bedroom, but this is exactly what the wealthier classes did back then! The bedroom was a social space and was used for many gatherings, so this is where opulent bedrooms started to become popular – a chance for the wealthy to show off what they had! This is why bedrooms from the 1800s would often be decorated in very expensive wallpaper, have ornate beds and other beautiful furnishings.
As the bedroom became more of a private space the focus moved more towards the areas like hallways and sitting rooms when it came to décor, but the Industrial revolution saw more people make money, more homes being built and mass produced goods for the first time which made bedroom items cheaper to buy and therefore more accessible to people.
Through the 20th Century there were huge social shifts and changes, and housing became much better for all people, not just the wealthy. This meant that for the first time many people who were working class could have a bedroom of their own, and this then played into the DIY boom of post war Britain, where people had homes that they wanted to be proud of and spent time and money painting and decorating them themselves.
