Where a bedroom starts
A main bedroom works well when four things are settled before the finishes: where the bed goes, how much space surrounds it, what happens with the electrics at the headboard, and how you get to the bathroom at night. Curtains, headboard and wall colour come afterwards.
The reason is simple. The bed, sockets, switches, air-conditioning unit and bathroom door are all fixed into walls and ceiling during first fix. You can move the bed to another wall once the renovation is finished, but then the headboard has no lights and no sockets.
Where to put the bed
The headboard goes against a solid wall that does not border the lift, the neighbour's bathroom or the kitchen: through a thin partition in an old building you hear both the flush and the lift. Under the window is a poor choice: draughts, a radiator and awkward curtains.
It helps to see the door from the bed without lying directly in line with it. In Eixample flats, bedrooms usually face either the street or the inner block courtyard. The courtyard side is quieter; if you have the option, put the main bedroom there and give the street side to a study or guest room.
Clearances: centimetres you feel every day
As a guide, allow 60 to 70 cm on each side of the bed to get in and make it, and about 90 cm in front of a wardrobe with hinged doors so you can open a door and stand in front of it. The same applies in front of a chest of drawers.
If the room cannot give you those dimensions, a 160 cm bed is better than a 180 cm one you have to squeeze past. The alternative is sliding wardrobe doors: they save space in front of the unit, although you only open half the wardrobe at a time. Check all of this on a plan with furniture drawn to scale, before the electrical layout is signed off.
Lighting and sockets at the headboard
The minimum nobody regrets: a main light you can switch from the door and from the bed; separate reading lights on each side, each with its own switch; two sockets at each bedside, one with USB or a charging slot built into the bedside unit itself.
The third layer is a low glow at floor level along the route to the bathroom. It lets you get up at night without turning on the ceiling light or waking the other person. If you plan a full-width headboard or made-to-measure bedside units, socket heights and wall-light outlets are set from their drawings; otherwise the switch ends up behind a panel.
Climate and quiet
A wall-mounted air-conditioning unit above the headboard is a common mistake: the cold airflow lands straight on your head. Place the unit so air runs along the bed or into the walkway. In a full renovation a ducted system with ceiling grilles is more comfortable: it is quieter, and the unit is hidden in the corridor or dressing area where it can be serviced.
Street noise is handled by the windows and how they are installed, which we cover in a separate article. Noise from the neighbours through the headboard wall is handled by an insulated wall lining, which means a few centimetres of thickness you need to reserve on the plan.
The bathroom and wardrobe next to the bedroom
If the bedroom has an en-suite, the route to it must be free of furniture and easy to follow in the dark. A sliding or pocket door works better: a hinged bathroom door opening into the bedroom eats space next to the bed. Flush and fan noise is reduced by insulating the partition and choosing a quiet fan, and humid air should not drift into the bedroom, so bathroom extraction is sized with a margin.
A wardrobe zone between bedroom and bathroom acts as a buffer: light, steam and noise reach the bed much weaker. How to set up wardrobes and a dressing area is covered in other articles; here you only need to decide where they sit relative to the bed and the door.
An example and the order of decisions
Take a 14 m² bedroom in an Eixample flat with a window onto the courtyard and one wall shared with the neighbour's kitchen. The 160 cm bed goes with its headboard against the corridor wall, not the shared one; the wardrobe runs along the shared wall and works as an acoustic buffer. Ducted air conditioning, with the grille above the walkway by the window. A sliding door to the en-suite and floor-level night lighting.
The order: a furnished plan, then electrics and climate, then doors, and only at the end finishes, textiles and light fittings. On our renovations we sign off this scheme before first fix so the crew chases the walls only once.