The Unexpected Way Kim Added Pizzazz to Her Love Life

Could your bedroom be robbing you of a great love life?

I talk a lot on this blog about how to have fun with your husband, stressing finding hobbies to do together and finding ways to think positively about him and deciding to make sex more of a priority.

These are all important.

But increasingly I’m starting to understand how much our surroundings can actually impact our mood, and even our desire for our husband!

So when long-time reader Bumi, who actually attended one of my Girl Talk events in Los Angeles, asked to sponsor a post on the blog about how to create a bedroom that encouraged your sex life, rather than discouraged it, I eagerly agreed. Especially when I saw the results of what she was doing!

I’m excited to share it with you today.

First, she shared with me a startling “Before” and “After” of her client Kim’s bedroom, which she and Kim designed using Bumi’s bedroom decorating online program: Magical Escape – The New Science of Decorating Your Bedroom to Rejuvenate You and Rekindle Your Romance. Bumi is an architect, interior designer and design psychologist.

Before the makeover, Kim had this nagging feeling that she and her husband, Matt, were in a bit of a rut. They loved each other and their young kids, but as busy professionals juggling corporate careers with marriage, parenting and so on, life often got stressful and ho-hum. Here’s their original bedroom:

Kim’s “Before” Bedroom

What Bumi does differently from conventional interior designers is that instead of helping you decorate your home merely to look good, she helps you intentionally decorate your home to change the way you feel – to make you feel calm, enchanted, romantic, rejuvenated, or any other way you wish to feel! This is based on the cutting edge science of Design Psychology.

Before the makeover, Kim told Bumi that she wanted her new bedroom to engulf Matt and her in the tranquil and romantic feeling they’d experienced in an oceanfront cabin in Fiji. But they also loved the elegance and sophistication of five star resorts. The challenge was to decorate Kim’s bedroom to give her and Matt these specific feelings and experiences that they longed for. Does the new bedroom succeed at this? Kim thinks so – she says it feels like oceanfront cabin-meets-five star bedroom suite!

Kim’s “After” Bedroom

She says that in her bedroom today, she and Matt feel as though they’re on some magical vacation. She swears that it’s added fresh excitement to their love life! In her own words, “Who knew that decor could make such a difference?!”

Regardless of your taste in decor, which bedroom feels soothing and enchanting? Which one might put you and your hubby in the mood for romance? Which one feels like an escape from the outside world with its cares and concerns? Which bedroom might make everyday feel like a holiday? Which one might make every night feel like date night?

Compared to the “After” bedroom, how would it feel to spend every night in the “Before” bedroom? Enough said! No wonder Kim and Matt were experiencing the blahs! Does your bedroom feel like the “Before” bedroom or the “After” bedroom? Does your bedroom feel magical?

Surprisingly, many of the changes that make Kim’s new bedroom feel soothing and magical, are things that you can do by yourself with little time and money – if only you knew how!

Whether you’re single or married, your bedroom should give you an escape from the stresses that you deal with daily. It should indulge your senses, soothe your nerves, uplift and enchant you. And you can make this happen yourself, without spending a ton of time or money!

Here are a few things that Kim did, which you can easily do yourself.

She got a bed with a substantial headboard and installed a bed canopy

The word “bed”room means a room for the bed. This means that the bed is the focus of the room. And indeed your bed should feel like a focal point or mini-cocoon within the larger cocoon of your bedroom – it should feel like a cozy little place.

The problem with many beds is that, like Kim’s “Before” bed, the headboard is small, flimsy, or even non-existent; and so the bed feels neither like an anchor nor a cocoon.

In the “After” bedroom, Kim selected a bed with a tall and substantial headboard. The tall headboard anchors the bed within the room, makes it feel like a focal point, and helps to define an intimate space around the bed. To further strengthen the sense of intimacy around the bed, she installed a tiny rail on the ceiling and hung a sheer canopy.

Compare both beds. What a difference the headboard and canopy make! Where better to feel like you’re in a cocoon with your beau than in bed?

Reality Check

Does your bed have a headboard? Is the headboard substantial or flimsy? The good thing is that many beds allow you to replace the headboard without replacing the entire bed. If your headboard is flimsy or nonexistent as in the “Before” bed, replace it with a substantial headboard that anchors your bed and makes it feel like a cocoon.

Canopy beds and poster beds are also great for creating a cozy, cocoon-like ambience around your bed. And you can tie back the bed canopy drapes at the four corners as shown, or even slide them completely out of the way.

She added some color to her walls and ceiling

Most people are terrified of dealing with color. They think, “What if I paint my walls and the colors clash?” Or they think, “Selecting colors is so hard; I don’t even know where to begin.” And so, like in the “Before” bedroom, they paint their bedroom walls white or beige. But as we all know, white is the most sterile color there is, which is why it’s used in hospitals and laboratories. It’s emotionless! And your bedroom is the last place where you’d want to have feelings of sterile or emotionless. You want lots of emotion, sensuousness and pizzazz in your bedroom!

But you don’t need a ton of color to create a cozy and sensuous mood in your bedroom. In Kim’s “After” bedroom, mid-tone mocha walls and ceiling create a warm and cozy mood. The dark brown accent wall adds further warmth and depth, and the wine red benches and nightstands add a lush burst of color. Compare the warmth of the “After” bedroom to the sterile and stark mood of the “Before” bedroom. What a difference a little color can make!

Reality Check

What color are your bedroom walls? Does the color make your bedroom feel like a warm and sensuous cocoon? Or like Bedroom 1, are you one of the 70% with bland white or beige walls? If so, it’s time to create a sensuous and romantic mood in your bedroom using color!

Those are just a few relatively easy décor tweaks that took Kim and Matt from feeling blah and stuck in a rut, to feeling enchanted and romantic. These tweaks demonstrate how our surroundings can change the way we feel.

Scientific studies show that your home’s décor affects your feelings, moods and behavior 24/7. This is not Feng Shui; this is the cutting edge science of Design Psychology. Indeed, several studies show that your home’s decor may be secretly stressing you out, sometimes making you feel blah, creating tension in your family, dampening your love life (like Kim and Matt), hurting your and your kids’ productivity, making you fat (believe it or not), and worse!

But unfortunately, much of conventional interior design helps you to create a certain “look” in your home, more or less neglecting the psychological impact of your decor.

When Oprah discovered some of the things, she had a huge home decorating Aha moment! And she began to overhaul the décor of her Santa Barbara mansion.

In this complimentary presentation, Bumi reveals how your home’s décor may be negatively impacting you and your family. And then she shows you how to decorate your home to not just look good and function properly as you’re used to doing, but to intentionally calm and enchant you, bring your family closer together, add some pizzazz to your love life, boost your productivity, and much much more. All with little or no time or money! This is not interior design or decorating as usual; this is ground breaking design – this is design that literally transforms your life.

Do you dream of an enchanting lifestyle? Could your love life use some pizzazz? Join Bumi in this complimentary presentation and discover how your bedroom’s decor may be secretly sabotaging your love life.

Like Kim, you’ll learn how to easily transform your bedroom into a magical escape that’ll rejuvenate you and add pizzazz to your life and love life!

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