Ideal Home has called "peige", a pinky beige, the bedroom colour trend of 2027. A change of colour can be done in a weekend with a roller, but panelling, wall lights and built-in storage are building work, so plan them before you decorate.
Bedroom colour ideas for 2027
Wallsauce's bedroom trends for 2027 include dusty pink and peige, which it says bring "a softer and more grown-up feel", and blue-greys "from misty blue and slate to smoky blue-grey", paired with warm woods and cream textiles. Rose Earth, the clay pink Graham & Brown chose for 2027, is in the same family if you want a named shade to ask for. More brands' choices are listed with the 2027 colour of the year picks.
A bedroom is mostly used in the evening, so judge the sample under your own bulbs at night. Pinks and beiges can look sallow under cool white bulbs and stay soft under warm white ones of about 2700K.
Bedroom panelling ideas
A panelled wall behind the bed does the job of a headboard and gives a plain room some shape. The usual choices are square or rectangular box panels, tall vertical slats, or panels to about two thirds of the wall with paint or wallpaper above. Most are MDF, painted in the wall colour or a shade darker.
Decide where the bedside sockets, switches and any wall lights go before the panels are fixed, because moving them later means cutting into a finished wall. Cables should run straight up, down or across from each socket and switch, but in older London houses they don't always, so check the wall with a cable detector before drilling. Electrical work must be done by a qualified electrician, and we arrange one alongside the carpentry and decorating.
Wallsauce also expects upholstered headboards, often oversized. A tall one fixed to the wall rather than the bed frame should go into the timber studs of a plasterboard wall, or onto fixings rated for its weight. Panelling and a fixed headboard are carpentry jobs; our carpentry and joinery page lists the woodwork we take on.
Bedroom lighting ideas
Wall lights either side of the bed leave the bedside tables free and let them be smaller. Put the ceiling light on a dimmer, and add two-way switching so it turns off from the bed as well as the door. Wallsauce's forecast puts "softer, more atmospheric lighting" at the centre of a bedroom designed for sleep. Have the wiring done before plastering or decorating, so the walls only need making good once.
Small bedroom ideas
- Build the wardrobes in. Built-in wardrobes run up to the ceiling, so they hold more than freestanding ones of the same width. See our wardrobe fitting page.
- Use sliding wardrobe doors, or a pocket door into the room, where a hinged door would hit the bed.
- Paint the walls and ceiling one pale colour, so the corners blur and the room looks bigger.
- Choose a bed with drawers underneath, and wall lights in place of lamps.
- In a loft bedroom, fit low cupboards or drawers into the space under the eaves.
What a bedroom makeover costs in London
Our painters typically charge £450 to £700 to repaint an average London bedroom, walls and ceiling, or £600 to £1,000 if the doors, frames and skirting are done too, usually plus VAT. Panelling, built-in wardrobes and new wiring depend on the room, so we price them from photographs and measurements.
Send us photographs of the bedroom with rough measurements and tell us which ideas you want to try. We will price the building work and the decorating together and reply within one working day.