Your girl comes over for an evening of Netflix and chill, and soon the fooling around leads to your bedroom. The sexy fun could end right there if she gets an eyeful of your bedroom and gets turned right off.

It’s a bit of a stereotype that guys aren’t such enthusiastic decorators, and whereas we girls shouldn’t paint every man with the same brush, there is certainly some general truth behind the stereotype.

When you think about your bedroom decor, you might not care about it much or know what to do, but girls pay attention to details and see things in a different light. The way your room looks is important to her, and a yucky room will probably make her run the other way, with all her clothes still on.

If you want to make a good impression, you might need to take a few tips and put in an effort to make your lady feel sexy in your boudoir.

It’s called bedroom for a reason

I feel slightly silly for saying this, as it seems as transparent as Princess Leia’s slave bikini, but experience has taught me many lessons, so…let’s start with the basics: you need a bed.

Unless your girl is a hardcore ascetic, a mattress on the floor isn’t going to cut it. Also, a cramped and lonely single bed with an old and flat pillow will likely turn her right off. Your bed should be big enough to fit two people without their having to play a game of twister in the process, with at least two new-looking pillows.

In terms of the bed linens, no girl wants to snuggle naked under a gross-looking and dirty quilt. Your sheets and covers need to be a non-scratchy fabric, stain-free and freshly washed. What is freshly washed? Within the past week. If you’ve had somebody else in your bed in the meantime, it is very decent of you to wash the sheets in between.

What colours and style of quilt covers are desirable? Anything that looks like a teenage boy’s room is out. Action heroes or comic book characters aren’t very adult, and if you have Radioactive Man sheets, she won’t see you as a man who can bring it in the bedroom but rather as a soft little boy whose mummy still buys his underwear.

Also, bold and crass animal prints such as leopard print are cliched and in bad taste. In terms of colours, white or other very pale colours are always a safe and neutral choice, but they are also harder to keep clean.

If you want to inject your room with a touch of masculinity, try using sheets in burgundy, mahogany or forest (for you colour-insensitive men out there, that’s dark red, dark brown and dark green to you). Overall, your bed needs to look warm, clean, inviting and comfortable.

1 in 4 guys has missed out on sex because their bedroom was messyBoy clean vs girl clean

Yep, you’re going to have to clean up if you want your girl to feel good in your room. Some effort is required, I’m afraid. That means no dirty dishes or crusty cups lying around, no clothes strewn all over the place, and as clutter-free as you can make it.

She needs to enter the room and be focused on you and the bed, not on picking her way through pizza boxes and last week’s shirts.

When you hang out in your own room all the time, you nose becomes immune to the ambient odour, but her nose might wrinkle the first time she’s exposed to the smell. To cover your olfactory bases, open a window and air out the room regularly (but make sure the window is closed during playtime so that she doesn’t have to worry about the whole neighbourhood overhearing your vocal passions).

It’s not a good idea to use perfumes or sprays, as they can be overwhelming. If you do want to use some kind of fragrance, go for dried lavender, which is a relaxing scent, or a drop or two of an essential oil that you like.

Creating the perfect sexy atmosphere

Your room should be warm and inviting, and lighting plays a big part in that. Even the most confident girl is going to feel like she’s in an unsexy doctor’s examination if your room has very bright and harsh, blue-based fluorescent lighting.

Use low-wattage light bulbs with yellow-based colours, as these create a warm and smoochy atmosphere. You can also use candles, but it’s sometimes a hit-or-miss about whether it looks nice or looks like you’re trying too hard.

Music, sweet music. It can really make or break the atmosphere in your bedroom. If your music choices could form the background for a cheap-o boom-chicka-wau-wau ’80s porn film, it’s all wrong, trust me.

Choose music that is instrumental only, as voices and words are distracting and will take her concentration away from you and onto the music instead. Play something that is fairly consistent in volume and texture, and keep the volume low – you want ambience, not a demonstration of your superior sound system.

Some girls might really be into your ceiling mirror, but others might be turned right off by it. However, it’s likely that most girls will be turned off if your bedroom walls are plastered with posters of your favourite action heroes or, even worse, your favourite porn stars.

Also, she probably won’t be thinking about sexy time if your bedroom is dominated by a huge TV or your extensive PlayStation setup.

Something that you might not think about is the temperature in your room. Too hot and she’s going to be embarrassed and uncomfortable about the sweaty sexercise, and too cold and she’s not going to want to get naked in the first place. It’s oh so delicate with us precious girls sometimes, and for that we’re not at all sorry.

Last but not least, keep your condoms, lube and other sexcessories nearby (but concealed, not out in the open!) so that you don’t have to go running out of the room on an errand for rubbers when the time comes — total mood killer.

Now you know how to turn your bedroom into a sophisticated sex-pad that will get your girl in the mood and make your bedroom her favourite place to be. Have fun and remember to venture out of the bedroom every now and then for food and water.