Just because we spend around one-third of our lives asleep there’s no reason to design a bedroom principally for this purpose — after all, you can’t see, feel or appreciate your decorating skill while you’re dead to the world. I under-stand people do still use their bedrooms to love in — all the propaganda promoting white sand beaches, railway carriages or kitchen tables as suitable venues can’t entirely finish the bedroom as an erotic play area; at times it’s too cold for the beach, the trains are on strike and the kitchen table is littered with Meccano.

So this is a room to love in —whether you care to sleep in it as well is your own affair. The alternative methods of post-coital entertainment are well catered for — the stereo and tape deck are built in, as is a projector for blue movies or slide-shows. Food and drink can be stored within handy grabbing distance of the orgy-size velvet-upholstered bed which incorporates the practical features of an oriental divan — ie it’s low, large, firm and on two levels.

Lighting is from below — two ordinary recessed ceiling lights are recessed into the floor instead to give a flattering and romantic effect. How you’re supposed to read those book-cases full of erotic literature in the resulting gloom is not explained but perhaps that’s what the candles are for. If you ever need pure daylight the window is hidden behind that black-and-white chevroned blind. I can only think of two changes I personally would make to this perfect love environment — and they would be a lock on the door and the absence of the telephone.

By Shirley Conran.

Photographer uncredited.

Scanned from Over 21 Magazine, December 1973.