Welcome back to Home and Hosting with Louis Burke, your friend
giving you all the free advice to make any space feel like
home. If you're unfamiliar with me, hi
I'm Louis. I spent years working at my
parents restaurant and accommodation, learning how to
set tables, make beds and do flowers for weddings.
I then went on to study design and become a photographic
stylist across bed linen and fashion.
I later worked as a creative director and marketing manager
and now I'm a fully fledged home content creator.
You can find me on all social media forms at Louis Burke.
That's Louis with no S and Burke with no O.
I'm teaching you how to set tables, make beds, and make any
space come to life. Today we're going straight to
the room. You probably spend the most time
in your bedroom, and I hate to break it to you, but your
bedroom is probably making one of these five mistakes that are
stopping it from feeling like that sanctuary that it should
be. The good news is they're all
completely fixable without a Renault, without ripping up
carpet, without buying a whole new house.
Some of these things, things you can literally do right now while
you're listening to this podcast.
So grab those sheets or a tea and get comfortable and let's
make your bedroom 200% better than 98% of the bedrooms out
there. I had a series running on TikTok
where I got thousands of submissions of people's bedrooms
across the world. And there were so many common
mistakes that are so easily fixable.
And I know that if you're listening to this podcast
episode, you are willing to put in the work to make your bedroom
amazing. A lot of my content and focuses
around beds and bed making. You know why?
Because it is a big topic. There are so many variables to
making the perfect bed. We all sleep in beds.
We all want something to be extremely comfortable and we
also want it to look good. There's so many options and no
one really knows where to start. And things cost money.
We don't have time to be going out and buying one duvet up that
didn't work. We'll buy another duvet up that
didn't work. I wanted some cotton our way.
Actually, no, I like linen. Like there are so many mistakes
that can be made and so much money to be wasted and not to
mention landfills. So here are my 5 tips that are
going to make your bedroom instantly better.
So without further ado, let's get into it.
So mistake number one is ignoring the bed frame.
Let's talk from the bones to the decorative pieces.
So this all makes sense. Imagine an empty room.
Most people jump straight to the bed linen, but you have to start
with the bed itself. If your bed has spindly little
legs and nothing underneath it, it looks temporary, like you're
back at uni. You need to get a gas lift or
draw bed frame so you've got the storage.
Especially if you're in an apartment, it's one of the most
practical upgrades you can make. And go for a frame that goes all
the way to the floor so there is no wasted space, no dust, and no
nasty surprises. If you're moving out of that
rental. And you lift up the bed and you
see like a pile of dust is embedded in that carpet, like
we've all been there where it's required you to like vacuum it
three times just to try and get that deposit back because so
much dust is accumulates under the bed.
The problem is solved if you grab a bed with storage.
Ideally, you want to buy the base and the headboard
separately so you can change the headboard in future without
having to buy a whole new bed. And Speaking of headboards, go
for a large head. So if you have a queen bed, go
for a king size. If you have a king bed, go for a
super king. Hey, even if you have a queen
bed, you can grab the Super king.
Because we want the exaggeration.
We want that headboard to take up the full width of that wall.
It just instantly looks so much better.
It doesn't matter how much beautiful bedding or bed linen
you buy, if the bed frame is not working, it's never going to
look good. We do not want mattresses on the
ground. Guys, seriously, go have a look
at a couple of Tik Toks and find out what happens with the
mattress on the floor in terms of your health and also the
bacteria. It's not good.
So be sure to get yourself a bed frame ASAP if you don't have one
already. Mistake #2 We're going to talk
about the bedding. Once you have the bed frame, we
need to move on to the foundation.
Grab yourself a good mattress. You are sleeping on that thing
every day. Head into somewhere that sells
mattresses. It can be a department store
like DJ's. My mattress is from Freedom.
You can lay on the bed. You can speak to the
professionals that know all about what's going on inside and
outside that mattress. You then want to head out and
grab yourself a waterproof protector and also a
hypoallergenic 1. The reason why I say this is
that we want it to be waterproof so there's no yellow stains on
our mattress. It stays just as clean and crisp
as white as the day you bought it.
I get it. The waterproof protectors can
feel a bit towelling. They can also make funny noises
because it's like a plastic lining underneath, which is why
you grab the hypoallergenic one. It has a soft lining underneath.
Also it looks really nice if you get an onion quilted, 1 it on
top so then it eliminates that towelling texture feel and the
mattress looks nicer. It's double the amount of
protection. We've got some waterproof.
We've also got the dust proof. You can vacuum it.
Wash the hypoallergenic one once a month and you are good to go.
That mattress is staying in prime condition.
Once we have that, if you want your mattress to look like a
cloud before you've even put the quilt on, you should grab
yourself a mattress Topper. You really have to focus in on
the GSM, which is the grammes per square metre.
So the higher the number, the more fill it has, the fluffier
it will be. The thing you also have to
consider is what is inside the fill, because if it's a
synthetic fill, it will feel more foamy and it will not be
lofty and light. If it is a down it will be more
lofty and light. If you cannot have down you can
go for a high loft or a cloud corn fibre which mimics that of
down which is lofty and light. Don't go for the cheapest option
because 9 times out of 10 it will be the synthetic foamy fill
which is lumpy. It clumps together, it doesn't
look lofty. It's not going to give you that
cloud like feel. It also is hotter.
I just, I would avoid it at all costs.
And that goes for all fills. That's quilt fills, Topper
fills, cushion fills. We don't want that synthetic
foam fill. It's pretty much just like a
placeholder to make things look good.
Like when you go into a store and you see cushions with the
insert, replace them with the down insert.
The cushion will look instantly 20 times better.
Let's go all the way back to the Topper.
Once we have the Topper, we're then going to look at pillows.
You want to make sure that you grab yourself 2 standard pillows
that are built for support. I grab mine from Adairs.
They're the high loft wraps around memory foam pillows.
They have a memory foam little cushion on the inside and then
it is wrapped in a high loft surround.
So it looks and feels like a pillow, but it also has a
support of memory foam on the inside, so you get the best of
both worlds. You have support and also it
looks and feels like a pillow. We then also have to pick up two
more standard pillows because within a duvet set you have two
pillowcases and within a sheet set you have two pillowcases.
So you will have 4 pillows on the bed at a minimum.
Are you sleeping with all these pillows?
No, you're sleeping with that pillow that has the memory foam
and the Hiloph surround, and then you can put that other
pillow on a bench or a chair or if you need the extra support or
you like to cuddle a pillow, that is the pillow that you
cuddle. And the reason why I specify
this, this is going to feel very obvious to some people, but the
things that feel really obvious, some people don't know that.
There's a reason why the videos of me making the beds and
tucking your top sheet has millions of views.
It's because people don't know these things and I'm very
comfortable with sharing them with you and I'm not going to
shame you for it. Those other standard pillars
don't have to have memory foam in them.
They can be a simple feather down.
I really like grabbing my down pillows from IKEA.
They have a certification to say that there's been no life
plucking, so they're ethical. Down is a byproduct of the meat
industries. You don't need to be worrying
about live plucking. It really is not going on
anymore. There are literal companies that
go around to all these factories to make sure none of that is
happening. As long as people are eating
poultry, there will always be down and feathers available in
bedlinen. It is entirely up to you as to
whether or not you want to go down that path.
I like the look and feel of feather down.
I think they have the best payoff.
If you want an alternative, go for the cloud corn fibre
available at Sheet Society. It's a little bit pricier, but
that's because it's an alternative to down.
I personally think that it is the best replica of down on the
market. OK, so we've got the pillars
that we're going to sleep on that have support and also look
good. Then we also have two extra
pillars that we're going to use as decorative or extra support.
If we want to cuddle the pillow at night, great, now we're going
to talk about the duvets. Same thing.
Duvet, quilt, duna, whatever you want to call it, call it a
comforter. I do not care.
Go out and get a high GSM count, Duna.
If you live in a warm climate and it gets really warm, you
unfortunately cannot have as high a GSM as that of us who
live in a cooler climate. My duvet is 700 to 800 GSM I
believe, so it's quite warm, but you do get used to it and it's
very fluffy. If you want a fluffy cloud like
duvet, make sure you get a down or the cloud corn fibre in a
high GSM count and you will have the fluffiest bed ever.
If you do live in a warmer climate, go for a duvet or a
quilt that's around the 506 hundred GSM and grab a high GSM
count mattress Topper. So you're sleeping on top of all
that down versus having it on top of you making you warmer.
So you're pretty much just placing the down underneath you
rather than sitting on top of you, which ultimately makes it a
bit cooler. So once we have that, we've got
a good bed frame, then we have a mattress, we've got a mattress
Topper, then we have a good Duna.
We also have 4 standard pillow cases, one that has support and
the other one for decorative purposes or extra support.
If you have all of these things, you are already like 75% than
the majority. We're then going to go on to
pillows and cushions. Make sure those inserts aren't
down, old cloud corn or high loft.
Like I said earlier, I picked up those standard pillows over at
IKEA. I also grabbed the European
pillow inserts in the down from IKEA as well.
And you can also get the cushion inserts.
You can grab squares and you can also grab lumber pillows.
Grab some of those and then you have everything you will need to
make the perfect bed. And it all doesn't have to cost
you a fortune either. Those cushion inserts and
pillows at IKEA are a great price and then the only thing
that will really cost you a bit of money is probably the duvet
and maybe those pillows that you sleep on.
The rest is really cost effective, really the price per
where you're sleeping on your bed every day.
So you're definitely getting your money's worth.
One quick tip before I move on to mistake #3 is if you have a
king bed, you can grab king pillows.
As in the pillows that you sleep on.
The standard pillow you can grab in a king size.
A lot of people have standard pillows on a king bed and wonder
why it feels that empty. It's because the mattress is
wider so it feels more empty because the pillows are not
taking up the full spans of the mattress.
If you grab for king pillows instead of standard pillows, you
will see that it will come together so much better than
that of if you have standard pillows.
The only thing that is bad about this is that a lot of bed linen
brands don't sell king pillowcases a lot of the time.
They are getting better because more and more people are
sleeping on king mattresses these days.
So it's something to keep in mind.
On my bed I have a queen bed and I have queen pillows, so it
makes it easier for me, but I'm going through a lot more linen
than the standard person. So if you only have a couple of
sets of linen, you can certainly buy some that have king
pillowcases and you are good. You are set where you lose out
on when it comes to really interesting bed linen you can
make up for in cushions and blankets and coverlets.
Speaking of, let's go on to mistake #3 in that people think
it's all about the linen. I see it all the time.
They don't build on a really strong foundation by beautiful
bed linen. Expensive sheets, but the bed
still looks sad. It's like fashion.
You can wear the most beautiful designer pieces, but if they
don't fit or you don't style them properly, it's not going to
look good. So you need to actually style
your bed. Fold your duvet back so it feels
inviting. Use a top sheet, stack your
pillows properly, EUR at the back, then your sleeping pillows
and then a lumbar or a pair of cushions at the front.
And please no €3 on a king bed. Just go with two and finish with
a coverlet or throw to add depth.
You grab those four king pillows and stack them first and then
put €2.00 in the front and do a long lumbar.
It is so chic, €3 just feels off balance to me.
I could change my mind in a few years time so don't hold it
against me but at the moment I just don't love 3 heroes.
I also don't love pillows stacked upright, I prefer them
stacked down one on top of each other.
When it's upright it just feels very teenager bedroom.
You can see how I stack pillows on a video on my Instagram.
So many different ways in which you can do it and you can change
it weekly so it feels fresh and different.
That's the best thing about bedding and bed linen.
It instantly refreshes your bedroom without even needing to
do anything if you have all these foundational pieces.
So we've got an amazing bed. We've got the bed frame, the
mattress, the bed linen, the cushions of making the bed like
a pro. So mistake #4 is just neglecting
the room around the bed. The bed might be the star, but
the room around it matters just as much.
We need to get 2 matching bedside tables.
Ideally withdraws 2 matching lamps or at least two that
relate to each other. Feel like I say it over and over
and over again and yet it doesn't seem to sink in.
People only have one bedside table or have altering ones.
Have stools and chairs. No, don't go interesting.
If your house is a standard house and you have a standard
style, you need to get 2 matching bedside tables, ideally
with storage because people have a lot of stuff.
You don't have things cluttered on a little bench seat.
It just doesn't make sense. If these things are too
expensive, look on Facebook marketplace.
You will be able to pick up a beautiful set of bedside tables
second hand at a great price that will instantly make the
bedroom look better. It's all about the symmetry.
It's all about balance. It's all about layering.
That is interior design, interior styling.
But most importantly, that's exactly what you need to do in a
bedroom. Same goes for the lamps.
We want nice, warm, cosy lighting, low lighting that
makes us feel tired, that helps us relax and go to sleep.
We've got to think about the purpose.
Like with Indesign, there is form and function.
All of these things look beautiful, but they also serve a
purpose and that is to have the best sleep of your life.
Another common question that I get is where are all these
cushions and extra pillows going at the end of the day?
And that's where I encourage you to pick up a bench seat or a
chair to go in the corner of the room to not only house your
clothes, other bits and pieces, it's also for those blankets and
cushions that you're not using that evening.
Those things should speak to what is going on in the room.
They should feel like the cousin or the relative to the bed frame
and ideally the rug. And let's speak about the rug.
Bigger is better. Every time that you think that
it's going to be the right size, go up a size.
Yes, it's expensive, but it's well worth the investment,
especially if you don't have have carpet in your bedroom.
But if you do have ugly carpet, if you're in a rental, grabbing
a rug that's really large actually makes people think that
that rug is the new carpet or the flooring in that space.
Highly encourage you to pick up a rug, a bench seat, and a
chair. Minimum in your bed is other
bits of furniture. Like if you go to a hotel there
is always a bed, a chair, and usually a bench, along with two
matching side tables. And lambs, by the way.
Finally, the last thing I want to talk about is hanging up some
curtains. Even if you're renting, you can
do this with tension rods or no drill brackets.
Or honestly, just put them up anyway because your landlord is
not going to care if you put in a curtain rod above a window.
Curtains are instantly going to soften the room and make it feel
finished. Is it all about the textiles?
The tactility? It not only looks visually soft,
it sounds more muted because the fabric absorbs the sound and it
feels comfortable. Again, it all comes back to that
form and function. These items not only look good,
but they serve a purpose and you're going to get your money's
worth because you use it every day.
You don't have to really justify these purchases because they are
well worthwhile even if you're renting, because you take all
these items with you into the new place and nine times out of
10 they're going to fit in any space that you're in.
Which speaks to the style by the way, which is my 5th and final
mistake is that people don't go with the right formula when it
comes to print, colour and pattern.
I would personally go for furniture that is more on the
neutral earth tone side. It feels soft, subdued and
relaxing. Then when we want to introduce
more character through prints and pattern, that's how we
incorporate bed linen, cushions and blankets. 50% of the
population love change, the other 50% hate change.
So the ones who don't like change, you can definitely go
for the more colourful bits and pieces.
When it comes to the bed frames, the side tables, the drugs and
the curtains, the other 50% who grow tired of things, who like
things to change, who also like to feel more relaxed, I would
say go for the softer neutrals in those larger, more costly
pieces. That way, when you're over deep
green, Navy blue, polka dots, it's not going to cost you
thousands to replace that bed head.
It's not going to require an air Tasker or a professional to come
along and replace the wallpaper. It's a simple strip off the bed
stick in a cupboard. Come back to it in six months
time and it feels brand new. If you want to update and
refresh, you can grab a new style of cushion.
Bolsters are all in at the moment.
Or if you like that mid century vibe, grab a Pebble cushion.
If you want to make things feel more elevated and fancy, grab
some European pillows, add a tailored edge or an Oxford edge,
a flange, whatever you want to call it.
There are so many ways in which you can elevate and transform
your bed through the linen and the cushions.
When you get the right bed frame, the right bedding, the
styling right, and the furniture balance, suddenly the room feels
intentional. And that's the goal.
A bedroom that feels like it belongs to you.
Not a halfway house or furniture showroom.
If you don't have the final say on how your whole house is.
If you're in a share house right now, your bedroom is your
sanctuary. It is the place to call home.
It all starts in the bedroom. Once you nail an incredible
bedroom, it is so much easier to make the rest of your space feel
like home. Now to quickly recap #1 it all
starts with a really good bed frame with storage and make sure
the headboard goes all the way along the wall and you can
separate it and swap it out if you want without having to buy a
whole new bed #2 Get the right bedding.
Make sure that it has a high GSM count and it's ideally a down or
a down alternative like a cloud corn fibre #3 It's all about
styling it. Get the good bed linen but make
sure you style it properly #4 Balance the room with the
tables, the lamps, the rugs and the curtains and #5 play with
soft neutrals as the base and play it up with the colour and
the patterns through the bed linen.
Do just these five things and I promise your bedroom will feel
200% better than 98% of people's bedrooms.
If you need some visual references, please head over to
my TikTok and my Instagram where you can find me making a bed
weekly. I show so many different styles
and so many different ways to make a beautiful bed each and
every week. One quick tip that I wanted to
mention too is to decorate for the seasons.
If things feel tired or things feel old, really refer to what's
going on outside because not only will it make you more
comfortable as you sleep with lighter layers, but also the
colours speak to what's happening in the year, whether
it be the holidays or the seasons.
So right now in Australia, it's heading into spring, summer.
So pull out those lighter colours, work with the whites,
the butters, the sages, the sky Blues, the soft pinks.
You know it's time to step away from the deep cherries and the
Browns with out of winter. If you're in the Northern
hemisphere, welcome the plaids. Welcome the berries and the
cherries and the Browns. Get excited about the seasons
changing. And hey, if you're in the
Northern Hemisphere, it's Christmas soon.
Why don't you pull out like a check or a Plaid or a tartan?
That could be fun. The best thing of all is that if
it feels scary, it doesn't matter because you're changing
the bed linen next week so you don't ever get tired of it.
You never get sick of it. It just lives on, which is the
thing that I love the most about the bedroom.
There's just so much versatility, there's so much
practicality. It looks amazing, it feels great
and like it's so beneficial because at the end of the day,
sleep health is just so important when it comes to
anything and everything when it comes to you.
And that's the thing, your bedroom is where you start and
and every single day, it's not just a room, it's the place that
sets the tone for your life. When you get the bed frame
right, layer the bedding properly, style it with care and
balance a room with thoughtful furniture and lighting, suddenly
your bedroom stops being a functional space and starts
becoming that sanctuary that you need.
And that's what I want for you. A space that feels considered,
calm and completely yours. No matter your budget or whether
you rent or own, if you do even one of these upgrades this week,
please tag me on Instagram at Louisbourg.
I want to see your before and afters.
And if you'd love this conversation, follow the podcast
and share this episode with a friend who's well overdue for a
bedroom refresh. Because you deserve to wake up
in a space that inspires you, and I'm here to help you get
there. I'll see you all in the next
episode of Home and Hosting with Louis back.