Drew Barrymore Is Designing a Room for This Year’s REAL SIMPLE Home

A Hollywood Star Steps Into the REAL SIMPLE Home

Drew Barrymore has spent much of her life in front of cameras, but her latest starring role required paint samples, furniture plans, and a serious discussion about cucumber water. For the 2025 REAL SIMPLE Home, the actress, producer, talk-show host, and entrepreneur was invited to design a wellness room within a luxury New York City penthouse.

The project was part of REAL SIMPLE’s eighth annual ideas home. Instead of decorating just one residence, the magazine assembled designers, organizers, and content creators to transform two apartments at One Park Row in Lower Manhattan: a four-bedroom penthouse and a separate two-bedroom DIY Annex.

The penthouse occupied the upper levels of the newly constructed building and featured floor-to-ceiling windows, two stories, generous bedrooms, sweeping city views, and a roughly 1,500-square-foot terrace. It was a glamorous blank canvas, but the goal was not simply to produce another untouchable designer showcase. REAL SIMPLE Home projects traditionally combine attractive interiors with attainable organization strategies, functional layouts, and ideas readers can adapt to ordinary homes.

Barrymore fit that mission particularly well. Her Beautiful by Drew product line has made furniture, appliances, cookware, lighting, art, and decorative accessories available to a broad audience through Walmart. Her taste may be expressive, but it is rarely icy or intimidating. She likes homes that look collected, comfortable, and inhabited by actual humanspossibly humans who have misplaced a sock.

What Drew Barrymore Envisioned for Her Wellness Room

Barrymore did not approach the assignment by installing a treadmill and calling it a day. She first considered what wellness actually meant to her. The answer was not relentless self-optimization or waking up at 4:30 a.m. to drink something green. It was the simpler act of remembering to include yourself in your own life.

Her concept became a transitional space where someone could sit down, let go of the morning, stop rehearsing the afternoon, and spend a few moments in the present. She compared its emotional purpose to the beginning of a meditation or exercise class, when an instructor asks participants to release their to-do lists and focus on where they are.

That idea shaped what Barrymore called a “feel-good room.” She wanted it to have the quiet luxury of a spa waiting area without becoming clinical, anonymous, or so immaculate that visitors would be afraid to breathe near the upholstery.

A Spa-Inspired Room Without the Sterile Look

Many wellness interiors rely on white walls, pale beige textiles, and enough visual emptiness to make a cotton ball feel overdressed. Barrymore took another route. Her room was intended to be enveloping, warm, and emotionally soothing rather than conventionally minimalist.

The result demonstrated an important principle of wellness room design: calm does not have to mean colorless. A restorative room can include pattern, art, books, decorative objects, and several design periods, provided those elements share a compatible mood and do not fight for attention.

Terracotta Pink Became the Room’s Calming Foundation

The defining color in Drew Barrymore’s REAL SIMPLE Home room was an earthy terracotta pink. The completed space was wrapped in Valspar’s Rosy Sandstone 2001-7C, a warm clay-influenced shade that looked richer than cream but softer than a saturated red.

Barrymore considered terracotta grounding and calming. She also liked that the shade retained enough brightness to work with the penthouse’s natural light. That balance mattered because the room needed to feel cocooning without becoming dark or heavy.

Terracotta is especially useful in relaxation spaces because it visually connects a room to natural materials such as clay, sandstone, wood, and sunbaked earth. It also pairs comfortably with muted blue, sage green, dusty mauve, cream, brown, brass, and black. In other words, it is remarkably sociable for a wall color.

Why the Color Choice Worked

The color was not treated as an isolated accent. It became a unifying background for the room’s striped upholstery, wood furniture, artwork, plants, sculptural accessories, and attractive fitness equipment. Rather than asking every object to match perfectly, the palette allowed varied pieces to appear related.

This is a useful lesson for anyone experimenting with eclectic interior design. A room can accommodate multiple styles when its colors repeat gently across the space. The repetition does not have to be obvious. A touch of brown in a wooden tray, a muted pink in a pillow, and an aged gold mirror frame may be enough to create rhythm.

The Striped Sofa Was the Design’s North Star

Along with the terracotta palette, Barrymore used a striped linen sofa from her Beautiful by Drew collection as a central reference point. Comfortable seating was essential because the wellness room was designed primarily as a place to pause.

That distinction separates the room from a conventional home gym. Exercise was supported, but physical activity did not dominate the design. The sofa told visitors that resting, journaling, reading, breathing, or doing absolutely nothing for five minutes also counted as worthwhile activities.

Its stripes introduced pattern without overwhelming the space. The structured lines also balanced the room’s softer, more romantic components, including floral details, woven artwork, and an ornate traditional mirror.

Comfort Was Treated as a Function

Barrymore’s approach challenges the idea that function is limited to storage capacity or technical performance. Emotional comfort is also a function. A sofa that encourages someone to sit down may serve a wellness routine more successfully than expensive equipment that spends six months acting as a clothes rack.

Rounded forms, soft upholstery, accessible surfaces, and welcoming proportions can all make a room easier to use. When furniture appears too formal or fragile, people may admire it without ever settling into it. That is not relaxation; that is furniture surveillance.

An Eclectic Mix That Still Feels Peaceful

Barrymore has never been eager to pledge allegiance to one decorating category. For the REAL SIMPLE wellness room, she mixed Bohemian woven wall art, floral influences, midcentury shapes, Moroccan references, antique-inspired pieces, sleek modern tables, and a traditional ornate mirror.

On paper, that list sounds like several rooms accidentally arrived at the same address. In practice, the elements worked because they were edited around a consistent emotional goal. No single object was allowed to shout over everything else.

This is the difference between eclectic design and visual clutter. Eclectic rooms contain contrast, but successful ones also include relationships. Similar colors, repeated materials, compatible proportions, and breathing room between objects prevent variety from becoming chaos.

A Home Should Tell More Than One Story

Barrymore’s mix reflects the way many people actually acquire furniture. Most homes are not decorated in one heroic shopping trip. They evolve through inherited objects, affordable discoveries, travel souvenirs, vintage finds, practical purchases, and things bought simply because they caused an unreasonable amount of joy.

Her wellness room made that layered reality part of the design rather than something to conceal. It suggested that relaxation can come from being surrounded by objects that feel meaningful, not merely objects that belong to the same product collection.

Exercise Equipment That Does Not Hijack the Room

Physical movement remained part of Barrymore’s wellness concept, so the room included fitness accessories such as Bala Balance Blocks and a multipurpose Stakt exercise mat. The equipment was selected partly because it could coexist with the interior instead of making the room resemble a storage closet behind a sporting-goods store.

Muted greens, earthy blues, and sculptural shapes helped the equipment blend into the palette. The pieces could remain accessible without immediately becoming visual clutter.

That accessibility is practical. A yoga mat hidden behind six boxes and a vacuum cleaner is technically stored, but it is not exactly issuing a persuasive invitation to exercise. Wellness tools are more likely to be used when they are easy to reach and pleasant enough to leave in view.

Closed Storage Handles the Less Photogenic Essentials

A tall bookshelf with arched sides displayed plants, vases, books, and a journal. It also included concealed storage for items that did not deserve a starring role. The combination of open and closed storage allowed the room to feel personal without exposing every resistance band, charger, and miscellaneous cable to public scrutiny.

The bookshelf, sofa, and bar cart came from Barrymore’s Beautiful line. Their inclusion reinforced her broader philosophy of combining accessible retail pieces with objects from different periods and styles.

The Bar Cart Became a Self-Care Station

One of the room’s cleverest choices was a bar cart reimagined as a hydration and refreshment station. Barrymore pictured the infused water and small bowls of nuts commonly found in spa waiting rooms. It was a modest detail, but it helped turn the room into an experience rather than a furniture arrangement.

A wellness station like this can be adapted easily. A tray or small cart might hold water, tea, a carafe, glasses, hand cream, journals, rolled towels, aromatherapy products, or a speaker. The specific objects matter less than making restorative habits convenient.

It is also a reminder that furniture does not have to remain trapped in its original job description. A bar cart can hold books. A dining chair can become a meditation chair. A vintage cabinet can organize exercise gear. Labels are helpful in grocery stores; interiors can afford to be more imaginative.

Why Drew Barrymore Was a Natural Choice

Barrymore’s appointment was not simply celebrity decoration. She had already established herself in the home category through Flower Home and Beautiful by Drew, developing products characterized by approachable prices, rounded silhouettes, expressive colors, vintage references, and practical everyday use.

Her talk show also centers on emotional openness and comfortable conversation. Guests are frequently invited into discussions that feel less like formal interviews and more like supportive exchanges among friends. That ability to create an atmosphere of safety translated naturally into a room devoted to slowing down.

Her personal design philosophy is similarly relaxed. She has spoken candidly about imperfect storage, chaotic closets, and homes that do not behave like professionally staged photographs. That honesty matters in an online design culture where every book is mysteriously aligned and no household appears to own a phone charger.

Design Lessons to Borrow From Drew’s Feel-Good Room

Define Wellness Before Buying Anything

A wellness room should support the way its owner actually restores energy. For one person, that may mean yoga. For another, it could mean reading, painting, listening to music, stretching, praying, journaling, or taking a nap with tremendous professionalism.

Beginning with a personal ritual prevents the room from becoming a collection of attractive objects without a useful purpose.

Choose an Emotional Anchor

Barrymore used terracotta and a striped sofa as her North Star. Homeowners can follow the same process with one wall color, rug, chair, artwork, or meaningful object. An anchor simplifies later decisions because every addition can be judged by whether it supports the intended feeling.

Use Texture to Create Softness

Woven art, linen upholstery, wood, rugs, plants, matte surfaces, and layered textiles help a room feel physically and visually comfortable. Texture is particularly important when the palette is restrained because it prevents a calm room from looking flat.

Keep Useful Objects Within Reach

A journal should have a pen nearby. A meditation cushion should not require a ladder. Exercise equipment should be stored where it can be retrieved without reorganizing the entire household. Good design removes friction from desirable habits.

Leave Space for Real Life

Wellness should not become another standard of perfection. A room can remain restorative when a book is left open, a blanket is unfolded, or a yoga mat is temporarily visible. In fact, evidence that the room is being used may be its most successful decorative feature.

Practical Experience: What Happens When You Create a Feel-Good Room at Home

The most surprising part of creating a personal wellness space is that the room itself is rarely the real challenge. The challenge is granting yourself permission to use it. Many homeowners can enthusiastically select paint, arrange pillows, and order a handsome storage basket. Sitting quietly for 15 minutes without checking email is apparently the advanced level.

A practical approach begins by testing the idea before redesigning an entire room. Choose a corner near a window, move in the most comfortable chair available, add a small table, and place one restorative object within reach. That object might be a book, sketchpad, candle, speaker, or yoga mat. Use the corner for a week and observe what is missing.

This trial period often reveals that comfort depends on ordinary details. The chair may need lumbar support. Afternoon sunlight may be too strong. A nearby outlet may encourage phone use when the goal is to disconnect. The room might need a basket for blankets or a lamp with a warmer bulb. These discoveries are more valuable than copying a complete designer space because they reflect how the area functions in daily life.

Start With the Ritual, Not the Shopping Cart

Suppose the desired ritual is evening reading. The experience improves when the chair supports the neck, the light reaches the page without glare, and books are close enough to grab without standing up. A beautifully styled bench on the opposite side of the room contributes less than a humble table in the correct location.

For stretching or meditation, the process is different. Clear floor space becomes more important than additional furniture. A mat, folded blanket, and small speaker may be all that is necessary. Closed storage can keep the room visually quiet once the session is finished.

Color Changes More Than the Photographs

Warm earthy paint can make a wellness area feel more enclosed and protected, especially in a bright modern apartment. Before committing to terracotta, test a large sample at several times of day. Clay colors can appear peachy in morning sun, brown under weak artificial light, and dramatically pink beside cool gray flooring.

Living with the sample for several days prevents an expensive case of “this looked calmer on the internet.” When the color is right, repeat it in two or three smaller elements, such as a pillow, ceramic bowl, artwork, or rug detail. This makes the palette feel intentional without turning the room into a terracotta convention.

The Best Wellness Spaces Are Easy to Reset

After regular use, blankets migrate, books multiply, water glasses appear, and exercise bands begin forming small colonies. A room remains relaxing when resetting it takes less than five minutes. One basket, one closed cabinet, and a designated tray can be more effective than a complicated organizing system.

The final experience should feel supportive rather than demanding. Drew Barrymore’s feel-good room succeeds as inspiration because it does not present wellness as a performance. Its comfortable sofa, warm color, attractive equipment, and collected objects suggest that self-care can be woven into an ordinary day. The room does not ask anyone to become a different person before entering. It simply offers a pleasant place to stop, breathe, and remember that the person maintaining the home deserves some maintenance too.