There’s a moment when you open the door to a good hotel room and something in your shoulders lets go. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to work out what creates that feeling, and I’ve come to believe it has very little to do with luxury and almost everything to do with restraint.

A great hotel room has fewer things than your bedroom, not more. But the things it does have are chosen with care. Here’s how I’ve borrowed that feeling for our own room.

Give the bed a backdrop

Hotels almost never push a bed against a blank wall. There’s an upholstered headboard, a panel of wood, a piece of art or a textile hanging above. It anchors the bed and makes it feel like the centre of the room, which it should be.

Make the bed generously

• Two sleeping pillows each, plus one or two decorative cushions — not seven.
• A duvet that’s slightly oversized for the mattress so it drapes rather than perches.
• A throw folded across the bottom third of the bed. It’s the single quickest hotel trick there is.

Light it like a hotel

Every hotel room has lights you can reach from bed. If you only do one thing after reading this, put a lamp on each side of the bed and stop using the overhead light at night. Warm bulbs, shades that diffuse, and ideally a switch you can reach without getting up.

Clear the surfaces

Bedside tables in hotels hold a lamp, a small dish and perhaps a carafe. That’s it. Ours used to hold chargers, three half-read books, hand cream and a forest of hair ties. Now there’s a small lidded box for the everyday clutter and the top stays nearly clear. It’s a tiny change that makes the whole room look ten times calmer.

The luxury isn’t in the objects. It’s in the space between them.

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Add one unexpected thing

Boutique hotels always have a moment of personality — a vintage chair, an unusual lamp, a piece of local art. Choose one thing for your bedroom that is purely about delight. Ours is a little ceramic dish my mother gave me. It holds my rings, and I smile at it every night.