21 Tips for Styling an Odd-Shaped Bedroom

Are you faced with the design challenge of an odd-shaped bedroom? I had the same problem. I’m talking awkward angles, asymmetric walls, off-centered lighting, the whole deal. And on top of that, I had two of them! One small oddly shaped master bedroom and one large weird-shaped guest bedroom.

But as someone with a passion for interior design, I was determined to crack the secret of how to style an odd-shaped bedroom.

I’ve come up with these 20 tips to help you decorate and arrange furniture in an odd-shaped bedroom.

Let’s get to it! Here are some important things to remember when decorating a weirdly shaped bedroom.

1. Determine which wall makes sense for your bed

Ideally, you’d be able to place your bed against the wall opposite the entrance to the bedroom. However, in both of my odd-shaped bedrooms, that just wasn’t possible.

So if you’re in the same boat as me, don’t fret! You can definitely break this general interior design rule and do what makes the most sense.

For my master bedroom, that means our bed is on the wall to the right of our door.

For my guest bedroom, that means the bed is immediately on your right as you walk in, on the same wall as the door.

2. Don’t be afraid to put a king bed in a small bedroom

We had a queen bed for our first seven years of marriage. After we had our son, I slept in the queen bed in the nursery while my husband stayed in our room. And we slept so well (yes, even with a newborn)! We’d forgotten how good you could sleep with tons of space and without worrying about disturbing your spouse! So after seven years of marriage, we decided it was time to upgrade to a king bed.

There was just one problem: our master bedroom is not only oddly shaped, but it’s also small!

Ironically, the guest room/nursery is significantly larger than the master bedroom. But we consider it the master bedroom because it has a much larger bathroom (with a larger tub and a stand-up shower), a fireplace (romantic!), and a balcony.

I decided to just go for it and upgrade to a king bed because our sleep is more important than any interior decorating faux pas.

Fortunately, when we set up the king bed, we realized that it still worked perfectly and didn’t feel too big for our room.

So if this is your fear, as long as it physically fits and there’s enough walking space around the bed (think: at least 3 feet of space around the side and foot of the bed. Also make sure all doors can be opened), then go for it! Put a king bed in a small bedroom!

This is the bed frame we chose and we love it! It’s in the Light Cream color and we paired it with a Nectar mattress with a 7.5-inch box spring.

3. On that note, don’t be afraid to use large pieces in a small room

There are three main reasons people want to use large furniture or decor:

• Large furniture, and especially large wall decor, typically feels nicer
• It’s necessary for practical reasons (ie. we got a king bed so that we could sleep better, a larger person feels more comfortable in a large chair that actually fits, you need a large dresser to accommodate more clothes, etc.)
• For balance reasons (ie. a large nightstand feels more proportional with a king bed, a large piece of artwork is a statement piece, etc.)

If your space can physically handle larger furniture (you’ll want to measure first… more about that in tip number 18!), don’t shy away from using it.

For the same reason that an empty room can look bigger once furniture is in it, a small room doesn’t necessarily feel smaller with larger furniture!

And when it comes to wall decor, I love big pieces because they typically feel classier and tie a room together.

4. Ground your odd-shaped bedroom with an area rug

This tip is really important when dealing with an odd-shaped bedroom. An area rug can make a huge difference in a bedroom, and I think that every bedroom should have one- even the odd-shaped bedrooms! And yes, that includes carpeted bedrooms.

When placing the area rug, try to get one big enough to feel grounded. As a general rule of thumb: the bigger the rug, the more elevated the room feels. Here’s a good guide for choosing rug sizes.

However, you may need these next two tips if you have a really odd-shaped room as we did!

5. If needed, use a runner or place an area rug off-center

We had a tricky rug situation in our master bedroom because one side of our king bed is almost all the way up against a wall.

Though I like to follow the rug rule of having most of the bed on a rug, I simply wasn’t able to in this case.

So, instead, I opted to off-center a 6×9 area rug. And I actually really like it!

An alternate idea is to have a runner alongside one or both sides of the bed.

6. Layer rugs to fit an odd-shaped room

As you might imagine, custom rugs can cost a pretty penny.

But area rugs are pretty essential in bedrooms.

So, if you have an oddly shaped room, layer two (or more!) rugs to cover more ground. A great combo is a large area rug and a faux fur rug.

That’s what we decided to do in our guest bedroom/nursery. There’s a large nook in one area of the room so we put the faux cowhide rug to connect that space to the main area.

7. Break a large odd-shaped room into areas

On that note, if you have a large room that is oddly shaped, you can break it into two or more areas to give it more purpose.

A nook, for example, can become a reading nook or a desk area.

An angled area that juts out could be home to a vanity or sitting area.

You can section these out with rugs, as explained in the previous example. Furniture is also key (obviously) as it gives each area a purpose.

8. Float furniture in nooks

Speaking of nooks, if you decide to place accent chairs (or a crib, in our case) in one, don’t push them to the wall. Instead, float your furniture out so that it blends in more with the rest of the room. (This tip applies to all rooms, not just bedrooms! So many people want to put their couch right up against their wall, and in many cases, this simply is not necessary or recommended!)

9. Add seating where you can

Seating is a great way to make a bedroom feel cozier.

If you want to add seating in a small weird-shaped room, the trickiest part is finding the best place for it. It might be in an angled area that juts out or in a little nook created by a dormer window. You’ll just want to make sure there’s enough walking room around the chair(s).

Say there’s nowhere that makes sense- you can always add a bench at the foot of your bed. If there’s room, this is usually a great thing to do for several reasons:

• A bench at the foot of your bed builds in seating where there may not otherwise be room for it
• It gives you a little area where you can leave throw pillows at night
• You can place a little basket underneath for additional storage (blankets, scarves, shoes, etc.)

Of course, if there’s simply no room, then there’s simply no room! You can just cozy up in bed instead!

10. Keep all your walls the same color

If you have an irregular-shaped room with a lot of angles, it’s best to paint it all the same color.

(Note: I love the color white, but our master bedroom was already painted a gray color when we moved in. To save on cost, I decided to work around it using tip number 19 to make sure my colors were cohesive.)

There are two exceptions that I can think of to this rule:

One is if you have a clearly defined nook- this could be painted a different color or wallpapered.

The other is if the biggest wall or the wall behind your bed is flat for the full width of the room. Then you can move on to the next tip!

11. Choose an accent wall carefully

As I stated earlier, if you have your heart set on an accent wall, then ideally it would span the full width of the room.

We did this in our nursery to give a pop of color to an otherwise white room.

We already had a white headboard paired with some cream-colored nightstands. So to give that area some contrast, we decided to keep that wall behind the bed gray while painting the rest of the room white.

12. Embrace the asymmetry

Sometimes an asymmetric room calls for more asymmetry.

One of the biggest examples of this is when it makes sense for a bed to be placed not in the center of a wall.

We had this exact situation come up in our master bedroom since anything larger than a full-sized bed would have to be pushed against one wall to leave enough room for walking space.

When this is the case, just run with it! I’m talking about irregularly shaped mirrors, off-centered artwork, mismatched nightstands, etc.

In our case, embracing the asymmetry meant only having one nightstand! But, hey, I think it works for our odd-shaped bedroom.

13. Get curtains that fit your space (custom or DIY!)

Window treatments can make a huge impact when it comes to interior decorating. That fact remains in odd-shaped bedrooms, too!

Here’s the kicker- sometimes weirdly shaped rooms come with other nuances like no room for curtains or 80’s style glass block windows. And odd-shaped bedrooms can also feature quirks like curved windows or bay windows.

If you’re thinking those are all very specific examples, it’s because we dealt with them.

In our guest bedroom, I was wondering how to put curtains on a curved window. In our master bedroom, I was wondering how to put curtains on a wall of windows and doors without extra space above or around them. Oh, and both rooms had chunks of block windows.

Fortunately, I found this curtain track that can be curved or angled, and it’s very reasonably priced on Amazon. I got it in black for our master bedroom and in white for our nursery/guest bedroom. It’s very easy to install, especially if you watch the video posted in the Q&A section on the Amazon listing.

You can get a blackout curtain from Amazon as well- we used these high-quality linen curtains in the nursery and these cheaper (and not *quite* as effective but still very good) gray curtains in our master bedroom.

But to really upgrade your curtains, if you have a sewing machine, you can turn regular curtains into pinch pleat curtains! All you do is sew pleat tape to rod pocket curtains (it doesn’t work on grommet curtains unless you cut the grommet part off, which is what we did in the nursery), and use pinch pleat hooks. They hook right into the curtain track loops!

So if you’re needing curtain ideas for a curved window, a curved window track is an affordable solution that you can DIY.

14. Fill awkward corners with plants

Oddly shaped rooms are bound to have awkward corners. Plants are the easiest way to disguise or fill awkward spaces!

I got this 6-foot tall faux-olive tree off of Amazon and am very pleased by how it looks for the price!

I also put some real plants in the nursery in the awkward space to the left of the crib. They serve a dual purpose: they balance out the rocker that’s on the other side of the crib and they improve the air quality in our baby’s room!

Side note: if you’re interested, here’s how I styled our nightstand.

• The nightstand itself I got off of Facebook Marketplace for $30 (I know!! Such a good price!). I upgraded it with this drawer pull and these tiny knobs for the pull-out tray.
• This bone frame
• Studio McGee wall art
• A gold wall sconce
• This tissue box cover (so cheap and worth every penny!)
• Coffee table books from Half Price Books
• A vase to polish it all off

15. Create balance with artwork

Speaking of adding balance to a room, adding artwork is a great way to do just that. As I mentioned before, large artwork is a great way to make a statement- even in a small room. But smaller pieces can do that, too!

In our master bedroom, I opted for a smaller frame on the nightstand instead of something over the bed. But balanced our large king bed out by placing this single large piece above the fireplace that sits opposite our bed.

In the nursery, three frames sit above the queen bed, though I think a wide and short single painting would be great there too. You have many options when it comes to artwork, but the general idea is to make sure things feel balanced.

You might even embrace the asymmetry in your bedroom by not centering a piece of art at all or by hanging two pieces of different sizes above your bed or dresser.

16. Center off-centered overhead lighting with a swag hook

Weirdly shaped rooms might lend themselves to the odd placement of an overhead light fixture. If you find this is the case, here’s a simple trick to center an off-centered light.

If your overhead light is hung with a wire (ie. this wouldn’t work with a fan or a flush-mount light), you can pair a swag hook with a ceiling hook to hang your light where you want it.

That’s what we did in our nursery/guest bedroom. The queen bed and nightstands are centered along the wall between the entry door and the side of the room. But for some reason, the light fixture was too far to the right.

So I used a swag hook to hang it in a better spot. I also chose to move it so that it would be centered with the mirror on the adjacent wall, too! Much better!

17. Utilize wall sconces in small odd-shaped bedrooms

While we’re on the lighting topic, here’s how to choose lighting for a small bedroom. Specifically, how to choose lighting for a small bedroom that is a weird shape. Because chances are, the size and weird shape limit how much furniture you can fit.

If you find yourself in need of more surfaces to place things on, then a wall sconce above your nightstand is a great solution.

Since our master bedroom furniture arrangement only allowed for one nightstand, having a wall sconce allowed us to use basically the full surface of the nightstand. This is the exact wall sconce I ordered on Amazon. It plugs in so there’s no need for hardwiring, though it has a hardwired option, too!

18. Use mirrors to make a small, odd-shaped bedroom seem lighter and bigger

Mirrors bring in so much light to a room and can make a room appear bigger.

So if you have a small, odd-shaped bedroom, a mirror is a no-brainer! We actually have two in our master bedroom.

This circle mirror functions as a vanity mirror above our dresser, while this arched mirror is a full-length mirror that’s useful for a last look before heading out.

19. Measure your room before actually buying items

I can’t emphasize how important measuring is when it comes to oddly shaped bedrooms. You’ll want to make sure that weird angles don’t get in your way, that nooks are large enough, and that walls are long enough for the furniture you plan to use.

Measure once, measure twice, and then measure again! I had to really make sure that our wall was long enough for a king bedframe plus a 25-inch wide nightstand. Fortunately, it was, so I could add the olive tree in to balance out the curtain wall on the other side of the bed.

I had to measure our rug multiple times to make sure it would fit underneath the bed without overlapping with the fireplace hearth.

You’ll never regret measuring before purchasing something.

20. Design your room on an app like Canva beforehand

Besides measuring, this is another saving grace when it comes to designing your space. I used Canva to design our master bedroom redesign and I’m grateful that I did! Screenshotting each item that I wanted to put in the room, then uploading them to Canva and doing a mock placement helped me determine if something would look good.

You can see a lot of pieces that I played around with but didn’t actually use in the mock-up above.

Designing beforehand helps with color placement, finding balance, and making sure there was enough contrast between various items. And that leads me to this final tip for styling an odd-shaped bedroom:

21. Elevate an odd-shaped bedroom with different textiles and layers

This is an important interior decor tip for all rooms, and it especially applies to odd-shaped rooms. Here’s the thing. With an asymmetric room, you may find yourself with more walls to decorate or an inherent lack of balance.

By layering in different textiles, you’ll elevate your bedroom and give it a designer feel. They’ll draw the eye away from any room irregularities and tie textural elements together.

To get a good combination of textiles and sizes, here’s what we did on our master bed:

Our 26-inch chenille throw pillows pair nicely with this 20-inch corduroy throw pillow in front. (This is the pillow insert we use to get the perfect throw pillow “chop!”) We threw in this embroidered cotton lumbar pillow to tie it all together!

You should also incorporate layers on your bed, as this automatically upgrades your room as well and adds some class. This is the quilt we use year-round and this is our duvet cover.

In conclusion…

An irregularly shaped bedroom might be a bit of a conundrum, but I hope these tips give you a fresh perspective on how to decorate and arrange furniture in an odd-shaped room!

And if you have learned any other design tips on this topic, drop them below!

Let your asymmetric bedroom give your room some character! It doesn’t have to be an obstacle, but can be something you embrace, instead!

Happy decorating!

Jasmine

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