Guide · Bedroom

What to buy first for a bedroom makeover

A bedroom makeover is two jobs under one name: the furniture you sleep on, and the layer that makes the room feel finished. They have different lead times and different consequences when they are late, and the risk is buying the second before measuring for the first.

No account needed to use this list — it works on paper, and the app is optional

Updated

Bedroom

A template in the iPhone app. It opens a 9-item checklist under the editable project name Bedroom makeover.

How to open it

Measure the room, the doorway and the window

Bedroom furniture has to get up the stairs as well as fit the room, and the stairwell is the measurement easiest to leave out. Three measurements settle it.

  • The bed size you are actually buying, and the space left to walk round it on the sides you need to use.
  • Wardrobe height and depth, against the ceiling and against the door swing — hinged doors need clearance a product photograph may not show.
  • The route in: doorways, stair turns, bannisters, and the ceiling height on the landing.
  • The window, width and drop, if curtains or a blind are being made to measure.
  • Where the sockets are, which decides whether bedside lamps need a plug near the bed or a longer flex.
  • What is leaving the room, and how it gets out.

The last one is the easiest to forget. A new bed means an old bed going somewhere on the same day, and removal is a separate arrangement from delivery.

Do the disruptive work first

Paint is on the template for a reason: it is easier in an empty room and harder to add afterwards. If the room is being decorated at all, that sets the sequence for everything else.

  • Empty room

    Filling, sanding and paint — including the wall a wardrobe will later cover. The day you move it is the day you regret skipping it.

  • Furniture in

    Bed frame and mattress first, then the wardrobe and bedside tables, positioned once the bed is where it is going to stay.

  • Finishing

    Curtains or blinds, lamps, the rug and the bedding. All quick to buy, and all easier to choose against finished walls.

What may not need buying

Much of a bedroom list may already be in the house, in another room, or borrowable for the single afternoon it is needed.

Already yours
Bedside tables, lamps and rugs move between rooms easily, so they are the first place to look before anything is bought.
Borrowed or hired
The tools for a single day’s work — a drill, a steam stripper, a pasting table. Buying a tool for one wardrobe is a decision worth making deliberately rather than by default.
Second-hand
Solid wood furniture is one to consider: worth looking at before buying new, particularly where an awkward room needs an unusual size.
Worth buying new
The mattress, and anything cut to your window. The rest is genuinely open.

Sorting the list into those four groups is worth doing before pricing anything, because it changes what actually has to be bought.

Deliveries, assembly and the night in between

  • Beds have the longest lead time

    Frames and mattresses can be the slowest lines on the list, and they are the hardest to improvise for more than a night or two. Order them first, whatever else is undecided.

  • Delivery is not assembly

    Check whether the frame is being built, whether the old bed is being taken away, and whether either is included. Delivery, assembly and taking the old bed away can each be a separate arrangement on a separate day.

  • Made to measure means no returns

    Curtains and blinds cut to your window are made to that measurement. Decide the drop you want before ordering, rather than the one the window happens to have.

  • Paint needs the room empty

    It is the task the rest of the schedule has to make room for, and it shapes when everything else can arrive.

Open it as a plan

Everything above works on paper. If you would rather keep it on your phone — with each line carrying its own price, priority, notes, deadline and a link to the thing you found — the iPhone app ships a Bedroom template that starts you with a 9-item checklist instead of an empty project.

  1. Add a project

    In the app, tap the + control in the centre of the tab bar. Its accessibility label is “Add a project”.

  2. Start from a template

    The “New project” sheet opens. Use the “Start from a template” row rather than typing a name into an empty project.

  3. Pick Bedroom

    Choose the “Bedroom” chip. The sheet says how many starter items it will add and pre-fills the project name, which you can edit here.

  4. Create project

    Tap “Create project”. The project opens with its checklist already written, and every line is yours to rename, delete or re-prioritise.

Bedroom is the chip in the template picker. The project name arrives pre-filled as Bedroom makeover, and that part is yours to change before or after you create the project.

What the Bedroom template starts you with

Suggestions, not requirements. Several lines may already be covered by something in another room, and the lines the template marks Urgent are the ones that decide how soon the room is usable.

  • Bed frameUrgent
  • MattressUrgent
  • Bedding set
  • Wardrobe
  • Bedside tables
  • Lamps
  • Curtains or blinds
  • Rug
  • Paint

What you can change. Every line is a suggestion: rename it, delete it, or add something the template never mentioned. Priority is one of Urgent, Normal or Can Wait, so nothing has to be deleted to be put off.

Coming soon on theApp Store

Plannli is an iPhone app. Nothing on this page needs it.