Bedroom Ideas for North-Facing Rooms

You painted it a soft grey and it came out looking like a wet Tuesday. Or the white that looked fresh on the tin now looks a bit grubby. If your bedroom faces north that isn't bad luck or bad taste. It's the light.

The fix is simple. Stop trying to make the room bright and start making it warm. Warm colours and warm fabrics and warm bulbs. Get those right and a north facing bedroom can be the nicest room in the house to sleep in.

Why a north facing bedroom looks cold and why it's the easiest one to get right

A north facing room never gets the sun shining straight in. The light has bounced off the sky first so it's cooler and a little blue. It stays much the same all day. There's less of it too and it doesn't throw strong shadows. That's why colours look flatter in there than they did in the shop.

Cool light pulls out the cool side of any colour. A grey with a hint of blue looks properly blue. A crisp white looks dull.

Now the good news. Think about when you're actually in your bedroom. Early morning and then evening with the lamps on. You spend very little time there at midday so daylight matters far less than it does in a kitchen or living room. A room that feels a bit enclosed is no bad thing when the whole point is to wind down.

Pick a side: light and warm or dark and cosy

There are two ways to decorate a north facing bedroom and both work. You can go light with warm undertones. Or you can go dark and make the cosiness the point.

What doesn't work is the cautious middle. Cool greys and brilliant white are the safe choice in most rooms. Here they end up dull and dingy. So choose a direction first and then pick everything else to match.

The light route: warm neutral paint colours

For a bright and airy room look for paint with a yellow or pink or red base. Creamy whites, warm beiges and plaster pinks all hold their warmth in north light. They cancel out some of the blue and still bounce light around.

A warm middle shade often does better than a white. It sounds backwards but a clay or plaster colour can look livelier in low light than a pale one that has nothing to reflect.

The dark route: rich colours that make the room cosy

You can't turn a dim room into a sunny one so there's a strong case for not trying. Deep greens and chocolate browns and dark reds and inky navy all look good in soft even light. The walls seem to fall back and the room feels snug.

Two things stop it turning into a cave. Pick a dark colour with warmth in it because cool darks slide towards flat black here. And give the eye something to land on. Pale bedding and a lighter rug and a bit of brass all help. Dark colours also come out darker on the wall than on the paint chart in a room like this so you may not need to go as deep as you think.

Yellow and other brighter warm shades

A sunny colour can lift a dark room and yellow is the obvious pick. There's a catch. Sharp lemony yellows can turn greenish or grey in north light. An earthy one works much better. Think ochre or mustard or a buttery cream. Terracotta and peach do the same job and glow where a white would sulk.

Colours that turn cold in north light

These are the ones to be careful with:

• Brilliant white and any white with a blue or grey base
• Cool greys
• Pale and icy blues
• Lilacs and pinks with a lot of blue in them

If one of these is already on your walls and you're not repainting you can still pull the room round. Warm everything else up. Change the bulbs and swap the bedding and add some wood and brass. It won't fix the colour but it takes the chill off.

Ceiling and woodwork

A bright white ceiling over warm walls can look cold and a bit harsh. Try the ceiling in a lighter version of the wall colour. In a small room you can use the same colour if you like a wrapped up feel. Painting walls and skirting and ceiling in one shade suits the dark route especially well.

If you'd rather have contrast then use a warm off white on the woodwork with a finish that has a slight sheen. It catches what light there is.

Whichever way you go test first. Paint a big patch or a sheet of lining paper you can move around. Look at it in the morning and again at night.

Choose your bed and furniture as carefully as the paint

After the walls the bed is the biggest block of colour in the room. People agonise over paint and then pick the bed in two minutes. It shows.

Grey is the default for fabric beds and it's the colour that suffers most in north light. A cool silver or slate grey headboard will look colder in your bedroom than it did in the photos. For a neutral bed look at oatmeal, beige, mink or mocha. A grey that leans brown works too. If you want colour then deep green, rust and ochre look rich in this light. Warm tones are what people pick most anyway. The three most popular fabric colours in our own order data are all warm.

Fabric matters as well. Flat smooth fabrics can look lifeless when the light is soft. Anything with a pile or a weave picks up the light across its surface and looks warmer for it. Velvet and chenille and bouclé all do this well.

Then there's the rest of the furniture. You'll often read that a dark room needs pale furniture and there's some truth in it. A wall of big dark wardrobes will soak up light. But warm wood is one of the best things you can add to a north facing bedroom. Oak and walnut and other medium to dark warm tones ground the room and make it feel lived in. Use them in pieces that sit low. Bedside tables and a chest of drawers and a bench at the foot of the bed all work. Keep the tall pieces lighter or paint them to match the walls so they fade into the background.

Bedding and soft layers that add warmth

Crisp white bedding looks lovely in a sunny room. In north light against a warm wall a cool white duvet can look slightly grey. Pick warmer whites like ivory or cream. Or go for colour such as clay or rust or olive or ochre.

After that pile on the texture. A heavy throw across the end of the bed. A couple of cushions in velvet or wool. A linen duvet cover with a bit of slub to it. Rich touchable fabrics do the job the sun does in other rooms. They make the place feel warm before the heating is even on.

Don't forget the floor. Bare boards or a cool grey carpet make the room feel colder underfoot and to the eye. A thick rug in a warm light shade helps on both counts and a pale one throws some light back up the walls.

Where to put the bed and furniture

Keep the window clear. That's the main rule. Anything tall next to it or in front of it steals light you can't spare. So no wardrobe hard up against the frame and no dressing table blocking the glass.

Put tall furniture on the window wall or on the wall furthest from it where it gets in the way least. Choose lower pieces where you have the choice. A bed with a modest footboard or none at all lets light travel further across the room.

If you can place the bed where you can see the window from it. You'll get the most out of whatever daylight there is on a slow weekend morning.

Curtains and blinds that let the daylight in

Heavy curtains that sit half across the glass all day are a common reason a dim room feels dimmer. Fit a pole wider than the window so the curtains pull right back onto the wall. Hang it high too. It makes the window look bigger.

Light fabrics in warm colours work best for the daytime. A cream or oatmeal voile softens the view without blocking much. For sleeping add a blackout blind or lined curtains behind because you'll still want it properly dark at night. If you're fitting a blind fix it above the window instead of inside the recess so it clears the glass when it's up.

Lighting for the hours you actually use the room

This is where a north facing bedroom is won or lost. Artificial light is what you'll see it in most.

Start with the bulbs. Colour temperature is measured in kelvin and shown as a K on the box. Lower numbers give a warmer and more yellow light. Around 2700K is right for a bedroom. Anything sold as cool white or daylight will make the room feel colder.

One ceiling light isn't enough. You want light at different heights. Bedside lamps and a wall light or two and maybe a floor lamp in a dark corner. Then a ceiling light on a dimmer for when you need to see what you're doing. Several small pools of warm light make the room glow in a way one bright bulb never will.

And test your colours under those lamps. Look at paint patches and fabric samples at ten at night and not just at noon. That's the version of the room you'll live with.

Mirrors, warm metals and plants for low light

A mirror helps but only if it has something bright to reflect. Hang it opposite the window or on the wall beside it so it catches the daylight and throws it back into the room. A big one makes the room feel larger too. A mirror behind a lamp does the same job in the evening.

For handles and lamp bases and frames pick warm metals. Brass and gold and copper give off a warmer light than chrome or silver which can look a bit hard in a room like this.

Plants are fine in a north facing bedroom as long as they don't need sun. Snake plants and pothos both cope happily. Peace lilies and ZZ plants are good bets as well.

Keeping a north facing bedroom warm and free of condensation

Most decorating advice skips this part and it matters more than the paint.

A north facing wall never gets warmed by the sun so it stays colder than the other walls in the house. Cold surfaces are where condensation forms. You breathe out moisture all night and it settles on the coldest wall and window. Over a winter that can turn into black mould in the corners and behind furniture.

A few habits make a real difference:

• Air the room every morning. Open the window for a while after you get up even in winter. Pull the duvet back so the bed can air too.
• Keep the heat low and steady. A room kept gently warm has fewer cold surfaces than one blasted for an hour in the evening.
• Leave a gap behind furniture. Don't push the bed or headboard or wardrobe tight against an outside wall. A few centimetres lets air move behind it.
• Don't dry washing in there. It puts a lot of water into the air.
• Wipe the windows. If they're wet in the morning dry them off so the water doesn't sit on the frames.

If you can put the wardrobe on an inside wall. Clothes packed against a cold outside wall are often the first place mould shows up.

If mould keeps coming back whatever you do the cause might be something else like a leak or a problem with the wall itself. Raise that with your landlord or get it looked at properly because no amount of airing will sort it.

Get this part right and everything else you've done will last. The warm paint stays clean and the fabric bed stays fresh and the room feels as good in February as it does in June.