The Science of Sleep Space

They say the bedroom is the key to the soul. It's where life happens, like the living room only with more personality. More intimacy. People never bother to put slipcovers on their beds because, really, who are they trying to impress? The bedroom is something that belongs to you and only you, or you and your partner respectively. It's a birds eye view into who you are, simplified. But in the design world, the bedroom is a battlefield. It's a rabbit hole stuffed with posturepedic mattress pads and personalized sleep numbers. When it comes to decor, there are pillowcases and decorative pillows and shams and blankets, not to mention the lowest common denominator of the comforter. But really, what is all this shit and more importantly, is it really necessary?

I've lived my whole life with two X chromosomes, and I still couldn't tell you what a duvet cover is without Googling it. Granted, I'm not exactly high society in breeding. I also couldn't tell you which side of the plate the salad fork goes on and what the appeal is in having a Pomeranian except as a doorstop. But bedroom anatomy has always fascinated me. It's a strange and interesting way to mask who you are, in both a decorative and personal sense.

I've grown up in a place where bedrooms were both taboo and gathering grounds all in one. Whenever venturing across the street to visit my friends in elementary school, we would romp around the house endlessly, hiding in the pantry and exploring every nook and cranny in that tiny bungalow. Yet, even on the most spontaneous of visits, that bedroom door was always closed and locked tightly. I wasn't even allowed the grace of a peek, and for that matter nor do I think their own kids had ever seen inside that iron maiden of a room. To suburbanites, the bedroom is for sleeping. Anything else is simply out of the question and possibly harmful to their reputation as outstanding citizens.

Conversely, in my house the bedroom was the heart of the house. I would always spend Saturday mornings hopping from my bed to my mothers, cozying up and watching cartoons while eating Apple Jacks straight out of the box. Our bedrooms represented us. Mine was always teetering just on the edge of messy, with posters tacked to any available wall-space and books strewn across the floor like a Bradbury battlefield. My mother's, on the other hand, was always a complete mess, and we usually had to share the bed with stacks of papers and boxes. She slept on one side and her college-ruled counterpart slept on the other, yet despite the crowd of cardboard and pulp, her room always felt just right. Cozy and welcoming, always warm, even on frigid mornings, and this in itself gave me comfort.

There's a certain message behind the concept of the bedroom, both physically and emotionally. It's the kind of place that is always reserved for the best room of the house, the most spacious and glorified sector of any apartment of bungalow. In this, it's obvious that we put a pretty high importance in this one, simple room. It's where we decorate as we please, some opting for a JC Penny's floor model of a bed, others wanting only a mattress slouched on the floor with some comfortable sheets thrown over it. The better of the two is really a matter of personal preference, which is what makes the bedroom so great. You can be whoever you want to be. You can be yourself. You can be someone else. This room, his crazy little room, is all yours, and very few will have the audacity to criticize you for it.

Bedrooms are human, and although many gnaw endlessly on design catalogues and floor plans trying to map out decorating choices, I say fuck feng shui. The real heart behind the room is something personal that bedspreads and allergen-tested sheets can't penetrate. The bedroom has history. It has life. This room, this little piece of doubly-expensive drywall, this is us. And that is something that even those reserved suburbanites cannot deny.