Move over, minimalism — maximalism is having a moment, and it’s anything but restrained. While this design style is often used in public, communal spaces like private dining rooms and hotel lobbies to make a strong impression and set a special atmosphere, this style works just as well in your bedroom. After all, your bedroom is the most intimate space in your home, so it should feel as uniquely ‘you’ as possible. Maximalism gives you an opportunity to turn your sleeping sanctuary into a celebration of individuality.
Here’s how you can create the maximalist bedroom of your dreams — even if you’re on a budget.
What is maximalism?
Maximalism is an interior design style rooted in the philosophy that “more is more.”
The maximalist approach to decorating gives spaces an energetic, daring style through a mixture of lavish textures, hypnotic patterns, curated collections, and eye-catching finishing touches. Everywhere you look in a well-curated maximalist space, something interesting should catch your eye.
That’s not to say maximalism is clutter, though. Even though a maximalist space might contain a lot of items, each piece plays a role — and those that don’t have a story or role should be edited out during the curation process.
The difference between maximalism and clutter has to do with intentionality. Every piece, pattern, and hue has been deliberately chosen for its personal significance and contribution to the overall space. It also focuses on layers, pattern scale, and color complements to help a theme reverberate throughout a space. That theme might be a specific set of colors, a period of time, a shape, an animal, or something else entirely — you decide what you’re going with and build the room around it.
“Maximalist design is a very curated, smart way of pulling together pieces you never would have imagined work together, but all look and feel like they’re in unison,” explains Steven Favreau, an interior designer who specializes in maximalism and owner of The Favreaulous Factory, a home furnishings and decor store in Hudson, New York.
The thematic storytelling works to create a sense of cohesion and organization — important factors in making your bedroom feel like a tidy space that lends itself to getting sound sleep.
A successful maximalist bedroom ultimately depends on how everything fits together and reflects your personal tastes.
“It’s not about pieces of furniture or lighting or art — what makes a maximalist bedroom is this vibration of color, texture, and pattern,” says Favreau. “If you can do this in 75% of what’s in the room, you’ve hit a home run.”
Getting brave and intentional with maximalism in the bedroom
When you look at images of maximalist bedrooms for inspiration, it can be tricky to figure out exactly where to start. Favreau recommends beginning your bedroom makeover by “getting inside your own head” and asking yourself questions like:
- How do you want to feel when you walk into the room?
- What colors do you love? What colors do you dislike
- Do you prefer a dark, moody, romantic room or something light, bright, and sunny?
- What basic items do you need for your room to be functional?
This can help guide your overall design concept and make maximalism feel less overwhelming.
It can also be helpful to create Pinterest mood boards. When you’re thinking of buying a new piece of furniture or a fresh paint color for your bedroom, you can compare it with your mood board to get a sense of how it will fit in with your bedroom before you make the investment.
Give this process as much time as it needs, whether it’s a couple of days or even a month or two. Then, when you’re ready to max out your bedroom design, get brave and begin experimenting, advises Kate Dawson, interior decorator and owner of Decor Whore.
“People get so scared to paint a wall hot pink or do something else bold, but just try it — don’t be scared. Remember that you can add things slowly to see how it feels, and you can always change it back,” says Dawson.
7 maximalist bedroom design tips to try
Ready to get started with maximalism in your bedroom? Here are some designer-approved ways to try this design trend.
Start with something thrilling
Favreau urges people to start small. “If you’re trying to decorate a bedroom and want it to be maximalist, find one or two pieces you can’t live without and let them set the tone,” suggests Favreau. “It could be an incredible rug, a family heirloom, or maybe a brand-new modern art painting that you just love beyond comprehension.”
A striking wallpaper pattern can also do the trick, says Dawson.
Find concepts to echo
From there, you can use elements of that core piece to pull together the rest of the bedroom. This could mean pulling colors from the core piece into the rest of the space to set the palette.
You could also do this with textures or shapes to echo a design theme throughout the bedroom, says Favreau.
To help visualize the concept of pulling through shapes, Favreau uses the example of squares in a geometric wallpaper, replicating the design elements elsewhere in the room. “Maybe you mount square cubbies in a grid pattern on your wall to display a collection of ornate boxes from your travels,” he says. “You might not understand why it works at first glance, but if you look at it closely, you realize there are squares in the wallpaper and squares on the wall and the boxes. Your eye begins moving around the room like it’s being led by a secret force.”
Make your walls bolder
Walls are a great place to start with maximalism.
But tempting as it might be to pick one fun color to splash on your walls, that might not be quite enough to give your bedroom a statement-making maximalist style. After all, the wall is one of the biggest pieces of design real estate in a bedroom, so it’s an opportunity to really lean into something that makes a bigger statement.
“Challenge yourself to stay away from a solid color and instead find a wallpaper you absolutely adore,” says Favreau.
A wallpaper printed with flowering vines can give you a botanical feel and a variety of colors to play with in the rest of the room. A wavy grid-patterned wallpaper, on the other hand, gives you a lot of crisp edges and lines that can make the space feel vibrational.
If your budget is a concern, Dawson recommends saving a few dollars by applying the wallpaper yourself. “Hanging regular wallpaper on a straightforward wall is pretty easy. You can also just do an accent wall with amazing wallpaper you love,” she says.
But if printed wallpaper feels too busy to help you relax at bedtime, painting the wall with a bold color or simple design could also work to set the tone for a maximalist bedroom.
“Paint can also bring vitality, life, and texture into a bedroom,” Dawson adds. Plus, it has the benefit of potentially being less costly than wallpaper. Dawson suggests using two or more adventurous paint colors to create geometric shapes or add a wide color-blocked stripe to your walls to amp up the maximalism. Online color palette generators can help you find which hues complement one another.
Max out your bed
Your bed offers more real estate than you might think when it comes to pumping up the maximalism of your bedroom.
Color, pattern, and textile choices can all help with the maximalist vibe.
If you’ve got a ho-hum headboard (or no headboard at all!), that’s a prime place to start. “Maybe you do a tufted headboard for an opulent feeling in your bedroom,” says Dawson.
Experiment with pops of color and fresh finishes, too. You could shop for a headboard in a vibrant, unexpected hue or a metallic finish — just to give a few ideas. Keep your eyes peeled for something unexpected that still fits the theme of your space.
Focusing on just the headboard rather than the entire bed frame can help keep your budget in check. If you’re really looking to stay on a strict budget, you can even try DIYing a headboard yourself.
A maximalist bed should also have three or four different layers, says Dawson. Start with a set of high-quality sheets and blankets that feel nice against your skin as the first layer — this is what you’ll sleep under, so you’ll want something comfy and functional. Then, drape on a few blankets in mix-and-match prints, textures, and colors to make the bed feel sumptuous; fold them down so you can see swatches of each one. For a final touch, add a dramatic throw with an unexpected element, like faux fur or a funky graphic.
Pillows give you another canvas for layering, adds Dawson.
“You’ll want standard pillows to sleep on, then add throw pillows and a lumbar or bolster pillow,” she suggests. “Using tons of pillows with different scales of patterns and sizes is super important.”
While pillows can be pricey, you can build your collection over time and score deals on accent pillows at discount home goods stores, says Dawson.
Hang luscious window treatments
Plain, gauzy curtains won’t cut it in a maximalist bedroom. Instead, look for a set of drapes in a pattern that echoes — but doesn’t exactly match — a pattern on your wallpaper, rug, or bedspread. “Make sure the pattern scales are playful together. If you do a wallpaper with a large-scale pattern, then do a curtain with a small-scale pattern to give it some contrast,” says Dawson.
Layering fabrics for window treatments can augment the wow factor. You can also shop for decorative curtain tiebacks to accent the drapery.
Don’t favor design over darkness, though. You’ll need the room as dark as possible to get your best sleep, so look for drapes that block out the light if you don’t have shades.
Cover the floor with accent rugs
Like layering blankets on your bed, topping your floor with accent rugs adds essential dimension to a maximalist bedroom.
“Rugs cover so much space, so they make it easy to get the maximalist feel in there,” says Dawson.
You could opt for a large area rug in a fantastic pattern to cover most of the floor. But a layering approach could also work if you’re on a tighter budget, as small rugs tend to be a lot more affordable than larger ones.
“If you’re going to layer a rug, the bottom one should be relatively simple, like a lattice pattern. Then you can absolutely put a couple of rugs on top of that if you make sure the colors relate to each other,” Dawson explains.
Play around with the orientation of the rugs, too. “You can put one on a diagonal with another overlapping it for more maximalism,” she adds.
Don’t forget wall art
Wall art can be one of the most affordable decor options to infuse a bedroom with a maximalist feel. You can use it as an opportunity to create a collage wall rooted in a common theme (such as exotic animals, travel postcards, or surrealist clocks) or abstract shapes in your chosen color palette. If you’re artsy, you could even try making your own wall art — otherwise, look online for downloadable digital prints from artists, which come at a fraction of the cost of originals.
“You can get fun artwork on Etsy that you can print yourself, then get low-cost frames from crafts supply stores to make a gallery wall, which adds a maximalist look,” says Dawson.
Again, think about scale. It’s often more visually interesting to have art in a variety of sizes than one standard dimension, but what you choose to display is entirely up to you.
