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Bedrooms…

One of the manifestations of a New Zealand culture, as Mr. Westbrook has pointed out, is our weekend habit of tearing the insides out of our houses and doing them up with pinex and paint. Maybe you are in no position to display your talents to quite this extent, inhibited by unsympathetic landlords, landladies, parents, etc., but you need not be condemned to spend your private hours in an atmosphere of someone else's leftovers. You probably have at least a bedroom, a “room of one's own”, which can be an exact and personal expression of your particular way of life with as little (or as much) trouble and cost as you like, and as much (or as little) structural or other permanent alteration as you can get away with.

The first thing to think about is what you want to do in this bedroom. Well, you sleep and dress there. Just how you do even these elementary things is worth a bit of thought. A coal miner, a debutante, and a poverty-stricken poet each have different ideas on the processes of dressing, and no doubt their attitudes towards getting into bed differ also. Think about it.

It is quite likely that you work in your bedroom. Swot? Weekly accounts? Painting? Private practice? Short story writing? Model aeroplanes? Dressmaking? Music? Whatever it is, it probably takes up the greater part of the waking time you spend there, and you should work out just what provision you can best make for it. How much space? What sort of working surface? How much storage for what? How can you get the best light (both daylight and artificial)? The answers to these questions and to others like them will set the character of the room.

Probably people come up to see you there. Ten friends with beer? Three with gramophone records? Just one? So work out where you can seat them all, how you conviently arrange the gramophone, how to show your etchings to best advantage, etc.

At this stage the process runs something like this:

1.	What do you want to do in this bedroom?
2.	What kinds of spaces therefore?
3.	What useful objects are called for?
4.	How can these be used to define the spaces?

For example: A young male painter living at home might need a divan bed capable of being sat on; a generous clear area for painting in, close to generous south-facing windows with curtains capable of controlling light; a work table with an abusable top and racks below for storing paintings; shallow shelves for paints; plenty of bookshelves; a bit of room for dressing with provision for mirror, hair oils and things and a generous and convenient wardrobe.

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Your ideas for your own bedroom may be quite different. Why not work them out? There is more to replanning your room than shifting the bed to another wall and changing the curtains, but at the same time you don't need to spend any more money than you can afford. Some points to consider are:—

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Get some advice if you are going to shift any wall framing.

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A bed takes up less space without ends and if it is built in low above the floor it is more use for sitting on, you don't have to sweep under it, and it makes the room look larger.

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8in. × 1in. dressed pine is great stuff for building almost anything with, especially all the shelving you want. It's cheap, light and easy to work and fix. A good finish is raw linseed oil. If you want to paint it you'll have to plane it by hand. If an immaculate finish on your furniture is important to you, you'll probably have to pay for it.

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Shallow shelves in a wardrobe are just as convenient for clothes as drawers, and a fraction of the cost and trouble. Curtains are an attractive, inexpensive and effective substitute for wardrobe doors.

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Holland blinds are an abomination. They are drab and unsightly and of little use. Curtains can be chosen to give complete privacy at night and be attractive all the time. If you are worried about sunglare or privacy during the day, net curtains are the thing—you can see out but not in. If you are worried about sunlight fading the furnishings, consult a psychiatrist.

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In a small room a set of little elegant chairs will take up more room than a divan and will look much more lonely when empty. And for that matter, when you are alone you can be really comfortable in a big padded armchair, and it can seat half-a-dozen at a party.

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Remember that this is the room you live in and that you “did it up” yourself. It is the room you live in. It is not an exhibition of contemporary furniture and tasteful ornaments (or antique ditto for that matter). It is not the bedroom of Louis XIV, or Rita Hayworth, or Le Corbusier, or Mr. Westbrook. It's not just a room. You live there. See what you can do with it.