The minimalist bedroom experience

We styled this room in the Riverton showroom with 5 pieces, and the fifth is a lamp. It is the room people photograph most, and the one they ask about least, because there is nothing in it to ask about. That is the point.

Start with the bed, and keep it low

A platform bed sits closer to the floor than a bed on legs, and that alone calms a room: the mattress reads as a surface rather than a block. The Haven platform bed in Fog is the one here. Its upholstered base takes the place of a frame, a headboard, and the skirt most beds need to hide what is under them.

Dress it in 2 tones, not 5. Here that is white cotton under a soft gray linen throw, folded once at the foot. A third color is where a minimalist bedroom starts to look like a hotel.

One surface each side

A bedside table has to hold a glass of water, a book, and a lamp, and nothing it holds should be visible from the door. The Nils bedside table has a drawer for the rest. We hung pendants on either side instead of standing lamps on the tables, which leaves the tops clear and puts the light where a book is. The Bolla table lamp is the exception: it is the lamp that stays on.

Storage you cannot see

The reason a minimalist room stays minimalist is a wardrobe that closes. The Clara wardrobe in Mist is a flat front with no handles, so it reads as wall. If there is room for 1 more piece, make it a chest of drawers for the things that are not clothes: the Malin takes a whole shelf of clutter out of sight.

What to leave out

• A rug that runs under the bed. Leave the floor bare, or keep the rug to a runner on the side you get out on.
• Art above the bed. One round mirror does more for the light, and it never goes out of style.
• A chair. If clothes end up on it, it has become storage, and bad storage at that.
• Anything on the windowsill.

Everything in this room is in the Bedroom collection, and the showroom in Riverton has it set up exactly like this if you want to lie down on it first.