10 Small Ways to Make Your Bedroom Luxurious, Like a Posh Hotel Room

Refresh Bed Linens

The best part of a cozy, pristine hotel bedroom has to be the big, comfy bed. If you'd like to recreate the hotel feel at home, start with a mini bed makeover. Jon de la Cruz, an interior architect and designer who has created multiple hotels and restaurants across the country, recommends starting with a new set of sheets that are freshly laundered and pressed.

"I always recommend top-quality crisp cotton percale," de la Cruz says. "Forget about thread count; rather, touch and feel the quality of the fabric and iron with some DIY linen spray kissed with lavender or rose essential oils, and you will truly feel like you're sleeping in the lap of luxury."

To make a relaxing linen spray, drop a few capfuls of vodka into a pint-sized spray bottle of distilled water, then add about 20 drops of essential oil. Fresh sheets plus a soothing linen spray? That's the secret recipe for an incredible night's sleep.

To buy: Parachute Percale Sheet Set, from $129; parachutehome.com.

Learn the Hotelier Trick: Triple Sheeting

When we asked Lynn Easton, one of the owners of the beautiful Charleston boutique hotel Zero George, for her advice on a hotel-worthy bedroom, she let us in on a little hotelier secret: triple sheeting. "Triple sheeting is a fancy hotelier trick that involves layering a thin blanket or comforter between two starched sheets," Easton says. Not only does this technique create a bed that feels crisp and clean, but it's also very cost-effective and easy to achieve. "The blanket can be laundered less often and it eliminates the need for a duvet cover," Easton explains.

To try this method at home, Easton suggests starting with high-quality sheets (Sferra is her favorite) and tucking everything in nice and tight. Add a plush throw pillow or a soft blanket for the five-star treatment.

To buy: Sferra Grande Hotel Collection, $162 for flat sheet; bloomingdales.com.

Accentuate the Beautiful

Since you're looking to update rather than completely make over your bedroom, accentuate what's already great about the space, advises interior designer Pilar Proffitt, one-half of the design firm Bristow Proffitt Studio, which designed Richmond's Quirk Hotel. "Does the room have large charming windows, great ceiling height, beautiful floors?" asks Proffitt. Whatever's beautiful about the space, play up its best feature.

At the Quirk Hotel, the standout feature is the very high windows, the result of the building being a former department store. Rather than raise the floors, the designers decided to accentuate this unique detail by adding steps and seats beneath the windows, creating unique perches with a view. Find the unique details in your room and let them shine.

Choose a Peaceful Color Palette

Picking the right paint color is important in every room in the house, but to create a relaxing vibe in the bedroom, color is crucial. "I firmly believe that a neutral color palette leads to a calm, serene sense of mind, and nowhere can you feel this more tangibly than in a bedroom," says Easton. "At our hotel, Zero George, each guestroom is decorated in a soft, neutral palette of pale blues, beiges, and creamy white," Easton explains.

And the neutral palette goes beyond the walls—neutral drapery and upholstery work together to create a peaceful space where guests can escape the chaos of daily life. To get the look at home, skip the red sheets and opt for soft shades of blue or white.

Appreciate the Little Luxuries

It isn't just the bedding and décor that make a five-star hotel feel so luxurious, but also all the little details that have been carefully planned out. To get the same effect at home, Easton recommends adding a few of these touches you frequently see in a hotel bedroom to help you and your houseguests feel pampered.

For example, leave an empty glass and a water carafe on the bedside table and invest in a sound machine. If you're preparing a guest room, add nice hangers in the closet and leave out a pile of new magazines (bonus points for personalizing the selection for your guests).

To buy: Marpac Dohm All-Natural Sound Machine, $50; amazon.com.

Pick Fresh Flowers

Both de la Cruz and Easton swear by this one simple way to make any bedroom instantly feel fancy: leave out fresh flowers. "As much as I'd love to have fresh flowers and greenery in every room of my house, that's unreasonable given how much maintenance they require. But there are two places I always have something living—the kitchen and the primary bedroom," says Easton.

And you don't need to splurge on an expensive bouquet; de la Cruz says the simpler the arrangement, the better. "Stick to one type of fresh flower—whatever is abundantly in season," de la Cruz recommends, and add a tiny drop of bleach to the water to kill smelly bacteria. Pick florals with a gentle scent, like garden roses, peonies, or hyacinth. "Avoid heavy pollen flowers, like lilies, that will make you sneeze and wheeze."

Splurge on a High-Quality Candle

Nice scented candles can get expensive, de la Cruz admits, but when you buy high-quality, even a small candle with a longer burn time will last all season. Recommended aromas include fig, citrus, and floral scents for the spring, and sandalwood, firewood, and cedar scents in the winter. "Skip the synthetic pumpkin spice pillar candles from the mall shop and instead head to the cosmetics counter where designers and perfume houses are making really beautiful home fragrances that are available in hefty glass votives," de la Cruz suggests. Consider the higher price tag an investment in your relaxation.

To buy: Diptyque Feu de Bois, $78; amazon.com.

Follow the Window Treatment Formula

"The best hotel experience is one where you can sleep in late despite the nagging tug of early morning light," says de la Cruz. To get that same luxury at home, rethink your window treatments. The key is to follow the conventional hotel formula of a layer of sheer curtains combined with a blackout layer for maximum room darkness.

De la Cruz suggests having blackout shades, whether roller or roman, custom-sized for your windows, and then adding a sheer curtain on top for light filtering, privacy, and softness. "Avoid heavy valances or big droopy swags that collect dust and dampen your spirits," de la Cruz adds.

Keep It Personal

Hotels tend to lack personality, so to keep your home bedroom cozy, don't skip the eccentric, personal touches—simply curate them more carefully. "Bedrooms are havens. Keep it simple and understated, but add dashes of fun and whimsy so you can wake up with a smile," says Proffitt. Anything that brings you joy and lightens up your mood deserves a spot in the room, whether it's flowers, art, or décor objects. Choose items that make you smile, then pare down the collection so the space feels personal, not cluttered.

Choose the Right Lights

Think about your standard hotel room and all the different sources of light. There are often wall sconces beside the bed, overhead lights, a table lamp in the work area, lights in the bathroom, and the vestibule. All these different sources of light work to create a variety of moods and help the room serve multiple functions. "Lighting is key—you can mess up the entire design with the wrong lighting," Proffitt warns.

To get it right, focus on two things: what the actual fixture looks like and the effect you want the light to have. Lights that can adjust and dim are ideal for the sleeping area, while a bright table lamp is perfect for a desk area. Consider all of the functions your bedroom serves (sleeping space, home office, makeshift yoga studio) and choose lighting solutions that fit each.