How To Place Your Bed In Front Of A Window

Let me start out by being completely honest. My first choice would never be to place my bed in front of a window. Now this isn’t because it breaks any decor rule. It’s simply because I love my windows.

Staying in the tiny flats that we do in Mumbai, the windows are our only access to our little bit of sky and our piece of the earth… or at least a view of them. Given a choice I wouldn’t want to block a window in any way.

But for the very same reason… our tiny Mumbai flats… sometimes there is no option but to place the bed in front of a window. Sometimes that is the best way to optimise the space available. In such cases, not only is it absolutely alright to put your bed in front of a window, but here are ways to make it look fabulous and be useful all at once.

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How To Place Your Bed In Front Of A Window

That’s simple enough, right? You take the bed, and place it in front of the window. There.. done!

But that’s not what we’re really talking about. What if the entire wall is a window? Or only a small part of it. What if the window is in the centre? Or off centred in an awkward position? You might need the room to just look pretty. You might want be short of space and wanting to fit in some storage too.

So here are all the various permutations and combinations and how you can make a bed in front of a window look pretty anyways.

Let’s get started.

Window Is In The Centre Of The Wall:

Let’s assume you are really, really lucky, and the window is just the perfect size and centred right in the middle of the wall. This is simple enough to deal with.

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The bed centres neatly along the centre of the window. Fit in a side table on either side and you are done.

Some things to keep in mind though. Notice how the headboard isn’t a solid mass here? This way it doesn’t block the light in even though it blocks the window. The simple blind at the back is easy to use even from the bed, and will block out the light when it’s time for bed.

Also, do remember to keep a small gap between the bed and the wall to allow free movement of curtains and / or blinds.

Curtains work beautifully behind the bed too. Let the rod extend further on both sides of the bed so that when they are drawn, they drape along the walls and don’t block the light.

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Curtains are also useful when the window is slightly off centre. You can still centre the rod and allow the curtains to fall equally on either side of the bed.

There is loads you can do on the walls on either side of the window. Hang mirrors if you want your side table to double up as a dresser. Or display some pretty art or family photographs.

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And you don’t necessarily need to keep it symmetrical. I love how the wall mirror on one side balances the lamp on the other…

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… and how this over sized light fitting takes this room from pretty to spectacular!

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And then there are plants. A thick green screen in the window is a great way to get some privacy and add green magic to your bedroom.

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The Entire Wall Is The Window:

This automatically gives a symmetry to the room and is again, quite easy to deal with. Use drapes along the entire wall like in the pic below. Drop them from the ceiling to make the room look taller. Again, remember to leave enough space between the bed and the wall to allow free movement of the curtains.

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Combining blinds with curtains makes it a little easier to handle. You can use the string to roll your blinds standing in one place, versus having to climb the bed to draw the curtains behind it.

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Flip it around if you still want the dreamy look. Use sheer curtains and blinds with a black out lining. So you can have the soft light filtering in through the sheers during the day and roll the blinds down to block it out completely when required.

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A full wall of windows doesn’t necessarily mean a single window. Here the blinds take care of privacy in each window, while the curtains running across the entire width unify them and give the impression of a single large window.

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Here the single shelf running across unifies the entire wall and set of windows behind the bed… and is again a great way to add plants!

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Window Is Higher Up On The Wall:

If the window is higher up on the wall, you don’t need to do anything much differently. I would treat the window like a piece of art above the wall. Highlight it, make it pretty and place the bed below it.

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Love the trim below the window which acts as a shelf and a visual divider with the window fitting in neatly above it while the headboard fits in neatly below.

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Windows Are On Either Side Of The Bed:

Any kind of symmetrical arrangement is always easier to deal with in terms of decor than anything asymmetrical. So windows placed on either side of the bed with the bed fitting in neatly between them is decorating heaven.

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Using a combination of blinds and curtains works very well here too.

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You can use bold colours or wallpaper to highlight your bed wall along with artwork, as you would over your bed usually.

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And I love how the simple styling of these drapes has added so much grace to this bedroom.

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Asymmetrical Windows:

While we’ve spent a whole lot of time discussing all kinds of symmetrical ways a window can be placed on your bed wall we must realise that it is not a perfect world. The window on your bed wall is more likely to be placed asymmetrically in an odd position than not. But that is no reason to not have a beautiful bedroom.

Enhance the asymmetry of the room instead of being apologetic about it. The frames on the right balance the window on the left beautifully. And I especially love the way the floor lamp has been paired with the table lamp to show off the asymmetry.

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Here too, the bed is not centred on the window, but the artwork and lamps easily make the arrangement charming.

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The bold artwork once again balances out the window to one side and centres the focus around itself.

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In this room a shelf on the wall offsets the window on the other side.

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Whereas in this room, the bed chooses to go off-centre and align itself along the window instead of positioning itself asymmetrically.

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Create Storage:

In a small bedroom where storage is a problem, placing your bed against the window has an added advantage. It frees up the plain walls for you to place your wardrobes, dressers and other storage. But if you need yet more storage, then you can use your window wall well too.

You could do wardrobes on either side, giving you a whole lot of extra storage. Notice how shelves in the side also work as a side table for the bed?

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If wardrobes is not what you need, you can add a whole wall of book shelves around your bed and window to take care of all other knick-knacks. Notice the small shelf given at the base of the window behind the bed too.

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Or you could do a combination of both to take care of all your storage needs along one wall itself.

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Remember we introduced our Pink & Lavender Room for a little girl recently? We didn’t just put the bed in front of the window, we put it in the window itself. And then gave book shelves on either side to also make it the perfect reading nook.

We’ll have the full reveal on the blog soon, but here is a pic of this window bed for now.

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That about wraps up our post on all the different ways you can place your bed in front of a window. Did I miss anything? Do you have any questions? Please write in the comments below and I would love to hear your ideas too.

We have a whole lot of interesting and useful bedroom decor ideas on the blog. From headboards, side tables and the foot of the bed we’ve covered almost every part of the bedroom. Click here to read them all.

Until next time,