Minimal Bedding: How to Make a Calm, Aesthetic Bed
Minimal bedding is a bed made of few things, in few colours, chosen well. One solid colour on the sheets. A second, close colour or plain white on the duvet. One quiet texture, such as a stripe woven into the cloth or embroidery in the same shade. Nothing that fights for the eye. Done right, it is the most aesthetic bed you can make, and the easiest to keep looking that way.
It is not a bare bed, and it is not an all-white bed by rule. It is a bed where every layer has a reason to be there. Here is how to build one, layer by layer, in about the time it takes to change the sheets.
If you would like to see the colours first, start with our solid bed sheet sets.
What makes bedding look minimal
Three things, and none of them is price.
- Few colours. Two is calm. Three is the limit. Four starts to look busy, however good each piece is.
- Solid cloth. Prints carry a lot of information. Solids let the shape of the bed and the fall of the fabric do the work.
- Good cloth. In a plain bed there is nowhere for a thin sheet to hide. A smooth, even weave reads as calm. A pilled or shiny synthetic reads as cheap, even in a lovely colour.
Step 1: Choose one colour for the sheets
Start with the sheet, because it is the largest piece of colour you see when the bed is turned down. Pick a colour the room already owns: the wall, the floor, the wood of the bed frame.
- Warm rooms (wood, cream walls, brass): taupe, cream, mocha, ivory. Our T200 Taupe Sheet Set is the easy place to begin.
- Cool rooms (grey or white walls, black metal): sage green, mist, light grey, navy. The T200 Sage Green Sheet Set is soft enough to sit beside both.
- Not sure: white. It works in every room and with every second colour.
The T200 sheets come in 14 colours, all 100% cotton, 200 thread count sateen, with a flat or fitted sheet and pillowcases. Because every colour is the same cloth, you can mix two of them on one bed and they will feel the same and wear the same.
Step 2: Add a second colour, close to the first
The duvet cover is the second colour. Keep it near the first: taupe with cream, sage with white, navy with light grey. Two shades of one family look considered. Two strong colours look like two beds.
If the sheets are a colour, a white duvet cover is the safest choice and rarely wrong. If the sheets are white, let the duvet cover carry the colour. Browse our solid duvet cover sets to find the pair.
Step 3: Add one texture, not a print
An all-solid bed can feel flat. The answer is texture in the same colour, not a pattern on top.
- A woven stripe. A fine stripe in the cloth itself adds depth you only see up close. The T300 Luxe Navy Striped Sheet Set is our 300 thread count long-staple sateen with a navy stripe: still one colour from across the room.
- Tone-on-tone embroidery. White on white, or cream on cream, on the pillowcases or the duvet edge. Up close it is detail. From the door it is still one colour.
Choose one of the two. Both on one bed is texture fighting texture.
Step 4: Edit the pillows and the throw
Minimal beds lose their calm at the pillows. Two sleeping pillows, in the sheet colour, are enough. If you want more height, add two in the duvet colour and stop there. Cushions in five prints undo everything above.
A folded throw at the foot of the bed is the one place a third colour can live. Keep it in a deeper shade of the same family, such as mocha with taupe or navy with mist.
How to keep it looking that way
- Wash colours together, cold. Our sheet pages say machine wash cold on a gentle cycle and tumble dry low. Sateen softens with each wash.
- Iron the pillowcases and the top fold. On medium heat, as the care line says. A crisp edge does more for a plain bed than any cushion.
- Own two sets in the same colours. One on the bed, one in the cupboard. The bed never has to change character on washing day.
A quick plan
- Sheets: one colour the room already has.
- Duvet cover: white, or a close shade of the same colour.
- One texture: a woven stripe or tone-on-tone embroidery.
- Pillows: two, in the sheet colour.
- One throw, in a deeper shade.
That is the whole method. Choose your first colour from our solid bed sheet sets, and build the rest of the bed around it.
From Nishat. Since 1990.
