PublishedAug 5, 2025 2:00 AM EDT
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When sleep won’t come, most people study the ceiling; I’ve been fixated on the bare expanse above my dresser. It’s among the last untouched surfaces in my new apartment, and the empty composition has been nagging at me. Tempted to leave that corner of the bedroom entirely blank, I hesitated over what to rest on the top and what to hang above it. Then I noticed that the designers I admire all fall back on the same reliable formula for dressing a dresser: mirror, plus a table lamp, plus one art object. That last piece is where you can play—a vase, a bust, a small tray, a neat stack of books.
It seemed almost too simple to be true, but the more I looked, the more this triad repeated itself. Consider designer Justin DiPiero’s serene New York City bedroom, where he crowned a mid-century dresser with a sculptural white lamp, a diminutive glass object, and a slim bud vase, all set against an organically shaped mirror.
Alfredo Paredes takes a more relaxed route I’m equally drawn to, setting a lamp just in front of a mirror and leaning a small painting against its frame. McGee & Co. has leaned on this same essential grouping for its own shoots (pictured above), proof that the quick fix is genuinely catalog-worthy.
With the formula in hand, here are the fail-proof setups I’m now plotting for my own dresser.
I always look to the British for bedroom inspiration because they understand cozy on a cellular level. Channeling my inner Lucy Williams, I’d lean heavily into texture (bobbins!) and pattern (marquetry!). The lamp is hand-painted by a California artist, yet there’s something about florals in a bedroom that reads so unmistakably Cotswolds.
A bedroom feels more alive when every element carries a little movement, doesn’t it? Claude Home’s Minho mirror is carved from wood yet appears to be melting, a quality shared by Sin’s Furl art object—just the right topper for a single coffee-table book.
I often find the chicest mirrors tucked in the kids’ section, likely because those pieces trade in playful materials and silhouettes. This tubular number begs for companions with equally exaggerated forms—a lantern-like lamp and a chunky jewelry catchall glazed in Yves Klein blue.
Another source I return to for bedroom inspiration? Hotels. This cohesive grouping is built around brass, which lends the bedroom a touch of va-va-voom. For a lived-in feel, I’d prioritize pieces with distinctive details—hand-stitched bookends and a lamp finished with a linen dome shade.
The mood here is eternal summer, ideally set in the Portuguese countryside and wrapped in rattan and sunbaked ceramics. Since I’m not entirely smitten with the dresser itself, I’d gravitate toward pieces that claim more of the tabletop rather than less.
Some days I like to imagine our builder-grade apartment is actually a Craftsman bungalow, and I decorate it in my mind accordingly. Chubby bud vases, a lamp with a parchment overlay, and a burl-wood mirror make me feel warm and settled inside—exactly what I’m after when winding down for the night.
Lydia Geisel has been on the editorial team at Domino since 2017. Today, she writes and edits home and renovation stories, including house tours, before and afters, and DIYs, and leads our design news coverage. She lives in New York City.
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