Blue bedrooms, from clear sky blue to deep navy: which shade helps you sleep well

Why blue bedrooms are so popular in hot countries

In a city with strong sun all year, opening the door onto a blue wall makes you feel cooler at once. The actual temperature hasn't changed, but your eyes have already decided the air conditioning is on.

Blue is also a colour you can live with for a long time without tiring of it, because you've seen it in the sky and the sea all your life. But blue has many moods. Some shades are bright like a weekend morning; some are as cold as a doctor's waiting room. Matching the blue to your light and the size of your room is the heart of it.

Light blue bedrooms for small rooms and condos

In a condo bedroom with a single window, light blue helps the room feel more open. Clear Skies is clear like the sky after rain stops. Mist is a soft, muted blue like a morning with thin fog. Blue Clouds has an indigo note with a little more weight.

Light blue goes with pale wood, white linen and sheer curtains. The whole room will feel like a seaside holiday house, minus the sand.

Mid blue to navy: use it on the headboard wall

For a bedroom with the depth of a boutique hotel, use a deep blue like Midnight Indigo, Navy or Deep Sea on the headboard wall only. Use light blue or a warm white on the other walls. The room gets a focal point without going dark all over.

If you like a blue one step brighter, Cerulean and Imperial Sky are lively blues, suited to children's bedrooms or rooms that get a lot of light.

Dark walls absorb more light than pale ones. A room with deep blue should have bedside lamps or wall lights to help at night.

A textured blue bedroom with Mineral Finish

Flat blue is beautiful like a freshly ironed shirt. Blue Mineral Finish is beautiful like a linen shirt that's a little creased but looks expensive. Voqe Mineral Finish is a limewash-style mineral paint with a matt finish. Each set has a Light Shade and a Shadow Shade, applied in crossing directions until the wall has depth, like the plastered walls of a house by the Mediterranean.

Chiang Dao Blue and Doi Luang Blue take their names from the sky over the northern mountains. Phuket Bay brings the mood of the sea. Squid Ink is deep and dark, for the bold. Use it on the headboard wall and finish with Mineral Wax to help reduce marks where your back leans every night.

How the light in your room changes blue

Blue changes character with the light more than any other colour. In a room with little light or no direct sun, blue looks cooler and greyer. In a room that gets afternoon sun, blue looks brighter and warmer. Warm white lights at night make a light blue look softer.

So don't choose from a screen. Order 100ml sample pots at ฿75 each, paint large patches on a real wall, and look at them in the morning, in the afternoon and with the lights on before bed. Voqe Wall Paint is low-odour and low-VOC, and its Eggshell finish doesn't reflect the bedside light into your eyes, so it suits a bedroom kept shut with the air conditioning on all night.