Which painting for the bedroom: above the bed, facing it, and which colours
The bedroom is the room where you see the painting when you wake up and when you go to sleep. It asks for something different from the living room: calm, a secure fixing, and nothing that stares.
01What you ask of a painting in a bedroom
In the living room, a painting has to hold the room. In the bedroom, it has to calm it. It is the first thing you see when you open your eyes, the last before you sleep, and you see it lying down, from the side, in half-light.
A painting that stirs things up - loud colours, shapes that move, a face that stares - tires you in the long run, even if you love it. A painting that soothes is kept for twenty years. It isn’t a matter of taste, it is a matter of the hour: you don’t look at the same thing at 7 in the morning and at 11 at night.
02Above the bed, or facing it
Above the headboard is the classic spot: a landscape format, roughly two-thirds the width of the bed, so around 100 cm for a 160 cm bed. Leave 15 to 25 cm between the top of the headboard and the bottom of the painting.
Facing the bed is the spot you really see. A freer format, portrait or square, centred on the bed, with the centre of the painting at the eye level of someone standing, 145 to 150 cm. It is the one to choose when you only have one work for the bedroom.
- Above the bed, no heavy glass and no frame with sharp edges: if a fixing gives way in the night, you want a light canvas, not a pane of glass.
- Two fixings rather than one, and a test: pull on it. A 100 cm canvas on a stretcher weighs little, but a glazed frame of the same size soon weighs several kilos.
03Colours and subjects: calm first
The colours that work in a bedroom are those of an evening sky: deep blues, muted greens, ochres, warm greys, off-whites. A very pale painting makes the room feel bigger; a dark painting makes it more enveloping. Both are good, depending on what you want from your bedroom.
- What soothes: a soft abstract, a landscape without detail, a seascape, a nude in flat colour, a texture that catches the morning light.
- What tires: a portrait whose eyes follow you, a very busy scene, bright red over a large area, a work that asks a question.
- A bedroom painting can be more intimate than the one in the living room: it is the only room guests never see.
04Size, and the morning light
A bedroom is often smaller than the living room, and the bed takes up the space. A medium format, 60 to 100 cm, is almost always enough. A very large format above the bed overwhelms; facing the bed, it can work if the wall is bare.
Morning light comes in from the side in most bedrooms. It is the best light for thick paint: the relief shows. Avoid, on the other hand, the wall that gets direct sun: colours fade there, and a painting seen every day soon shows what it has lost.
05In a child’s bedroom
A child’s bedroom asks for three more things. Nothing heavy above the bed, ever. A frame without glass, or with acrylic glazing, which doesn’t shatter. And a work out of reach of little hands for the first few years, which puts it higher than usual.
For the rest, an original work in a child’s bedroom is a lovely choice: a small drawing, a watercolour, a canvas in bold colours. The child grows up with it, and it is often the first work they take with them when they leave home.
06Finding the work, and seeing it before you hang it
A bedroom painting is judged in the light of the bedroom. Ask to see the work in real life before you buy, or get a feel for its place with masking tape at the actual size on the wall, for two days.
That is what arvel organises: a gallery for every Belgian artist, original works, and a handover in person. The price you see is the price you pay, and the artist keeps all of it. The client’s money is held until the handover, and refunded if the work doesn’t match. Art doesn’t travel: we meet.
arvel isn’t open yet. Today the site lets you take your place on the waiting list, nothing more. We would rather write it than let you guess.
The questions we get asked
- Which painting above a bed?
- A landscape format, two-thirds the width of the bed, light, with no heavy glass. Around 100 cm for a 160 cm bed, with 15 to 25 cm between the headboard and the bottom of the painting, and two fixings.
- What colour painting for a bedroom?
- Evening-sky colours: deep blues, muted greens, ochres, warm greys, off-whites. A pale painting makes the room bigger, a dark one wraps it up. Avoid bright red over a large area.
- Can you hang a heavy painting above the bed?
- Better not. Above a bed, you want a canvas on a stretcher, light, with two fixings. A heavy glazed frame goes facing the bed, not above it.
- Which painting for a child’s bedroom?
- Light, without glass or with acrylic glazing, out of reach for the first few years. A small original drawing, a watercolour or a canvas in bold colours, which the child keeps as they grow up.
- A painting facing the bed or above it?
- Facing it, if you only have one work: it is the one you really see, when you wake up. Above it, to dress the headboard with a landscape format. Both together, if the colours speak to each other.