How Do You Design A Dressing Room?

A dressing room might sound like a luxurious concept, but in reality you don’t need a mansion to add a dressing room to your property. In fact, all you need is a spare bedroom and an eye for dressing room design.  To help you work out how to create this kind of space in your home, we’re sharing some of our tried and tested dressing room design principles. However, if you need some help, our experienced team can help you decide what furniture and fittings you need in your bespoke dressing room to ensure you get what you want from this space.  One of the advantages to having a dedicated dressing room is that it provides you with an opportunity to audit what you have in your closets - and what you actually wear.  Research from WRAP found that, on average, UK adults have 31 items in their wardrobes that are unworn for a year or more. That equates to around 26 per cent of their clothes.  While having a dressing room might not solve that problem, it could help you rediscover some gems that are currently buried in your drawers or on your rails.  Here are our five top tips for designing your dream dressing room:

1. Audit what you own

Before you start designing the storage space in your dressing room, take a look at the clothes and accessories you own.  This can take a bit of time, but is well worth it in the end. The idea is to work your way through your whole wardrobe and catalogue what you own, what you wear and what you might want to get rid of, either by donating it or selling it. When it comes to designing a dressing room, a wardrobe audit is an essential first step because this will help you decide what kind of storage space you need. Are you in need of more full-length hanging space, or would a shoe drawer be a better investment? 

2. Think about the space you have

Even a small bedroom can be transformed into a dressing room with plenty of space in which to try clothes on and get ready to go out, but you have to be smart about how you design your storage. One top tip is to make sure that your fitted wardrobes make use of all the height in the room. However, consider how you will access any items in the uppermost cupboards. Will these be reserved for items you rarely wear? Or do you need to think about access? Another option when it comes to making the most of a small bedroom as a dressing room is to invest in sliding wardrobes, which take up less floor space but still provide plenty of storage. 

3. Consider more than your clothes

Your dressing room shouldn’t only be for your clothes. Consider how you can use this space to store shoes, bags, jewellery and other accessories that make up your outfits. There are plenty of ways in which to display these pieces and doing so can help you make more use of them. Also think about what else you might want to use this room for. Do you want to have space to do your hair or makeup in the dressing room, for instance?  If so, make sure you talk to your designer about how to incorporate a dedicated space for these activities into your dressing room. 

4. Use select pieces of furniture for a luxurious touch

Even if you only have a small space for a bespoke dressing room, you can make it feel more luxurious by adding certain items of furniture. For example, having somewhere to sit always makes a dressing room feel high-end, so consider how you could fit in a comfy chair or even a stool to give that kind of impression.  Mirrors are another good option to make a space feel bigger and bounce light around, not to mention being highly practical. 

5. Focus on the light

Ideally your dressing room will have a window that lets natural light in. If so, you want to position your dressing table near the natural light to take advantage of this. However, if this isn’t an option, be creative in how you use artificial lighting. Explore how to incorporate spotlights to provide brighter areas - either to highlight what’s in your closets or to give you the extra light you need around your dressing table.  Meanwhile, LED lighting that runs along the edges of shelves, for instance, can not only make your wardrobes and dressing room furniture look incredibly stylish, but it will also help you see what’s where in your fitted wardrobes.