Designing a Holiday Apartment That Feels Like a Hotel Room

As the Nine Days are here, it means two things: we are right around the corner from Mashiach (halevei!), and summer vacation planning is in full swing.

Raise your hand if you have already booked a tzimmer, a hotel room, or an apartment swap. Keep it raised if you paid extra to upgrade to a nicer suite or a bigger master bedroom. I hear you.

Now keep that hand up if you live in a rental apartment and haven't invested a penny into making it look nice because — drumroll please — it's not your apartment.

Can someone explain the logic to me? I don't get it. You will happily spend hundreds of shekels extra for a few nights in a temporary room. Yet you won't invest a single shekel into your own bedroom, where you spend eight hours (hopefully) out of 24.

So let's talk about creating that holiday luxury right at home, starting with the ultimate sanctuary: your master bedroom.

The perfect scenario: the windowless wall

Whenever a room layout allows, my absolute favourite design rule is to place the beds on a solid wall without any windows. Why? Because it gives us a completely clean canvas. It opens up an entire, uninterrupted wall, perfectly primed for a dramatic customised headboard.

I love using something linear and clean like this. How do I know it's truly timeless? Because this comes from our established portfolio of past work, yet it still feels completely relevant, high-end and beautiful today.

Each room has its own unique style, colour and feel. Yet what they all have in common is a full headboard behind the beds. Good design simply doesn't age.

Thinking outside the full-wall box

But what if you don't want a massive wall-to-wall headboard? There are highly effective ways to design a space without extending the headboard all the way to the ceiling.

In this project, I brought visual height up the wall by positioning a stunning focal art piece directly above the beds.

And who said the headboard has to be in a straight line across? Why can't it be in a wave? I designed this custom curved piece specifically because these beds overlook a magnificent panoramic view of the Mediterranean Sea. The organic lines mimic the water outside perfectly.

The ultimate challenge: when there IS a window

So what happens when a layout is unavoidable and a window sits right behind the beds? This is where I get my creative juices flowing to design a custom solution for each unique scenario.

Solution 1: the recessed niche. In this room, we ran a headboard from side to side but intentionally built out a clever niche, allowing the window curtain to sit smoothly inside the headboard frame.

Solution 2: incorporate and ignore. In this alternative scenario, we simply incorporated the existing architecture and almost ignored the window entirely. By focusing heavily on the bed's design layout, it completely works anyway.

Bring the vacation home

Wherever you go and whatever you do this season, remember that true relaxation can start right in your own space. Take a second look at your bedroom today, and give it the revamp it deserves.

But as we focus on upgrading our temporary dwellings during these Nine Days, our truest desire is for the Ultimate Home. May Hashem answer our prayers, end this long golus, and finally bring us all back home to His permanent, Ultimate Sanctuary — the Beis HaMikdosh, speedily in our days.