As children, our bedrooms defined us. The décor changed as we grew—from toddlers clutching favorite toys when we climbed into bed to awkward adolescents posting "keep out" signs on the door meant for parents, younger siblings, and anyone else who would dare trespass within.

Even as adults, we spend more time in our bedrooms than any other room in the house. This is the room where we recharge to face the next new day. Mindful of the room's importance, the designers created quiet, healthy, soothing retreats that reflect the personality of the intended occupant.

Designer Lisa Teague says she designed an eco-friendly nursery, Lola's room, with the baby's parents in mind. With its comfortable chair, beautiful pink wall color, and layering of textures—which include the chair's soft chenille and brown velvet piping, the window treatments' luxurious ribbon trim, the bedding's raw linen fabric, the angora throw in the crib, and homespun stuffed animals made from recycled sweaters—the room's design is more pretty and sophisticated than cute and juvenile.

"The inspiration for the room was just wanting to do a nursery that was really a departure from what a lot of us think of as nurseries," explains Lisa. "In most larger homes these days, there's a separate place for a playroom The nursery really is a place for rocking the baby."

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She also took an unconventional approach to eco-friendly design. In addition to using environmentally sensitive paints and fabrics, she purchased the chair from a consignment shop and topped an old pine dry sink with a sheepskin rug to make it into a changing table. "My favorite part about doing the room was being able to re-use items that people might discard or might see as out of date, which is really an important part of green design...It's much more gentle on the earth to salvage an existing piece than buy a new piece."

The princess bedroom is intended for every little girl who imagines playing a starring role in a fairy tale. Conscious of the house's long history, designer Marcy Marceau of Designer Lines Kitchens & Interiors says she designed the room for an eight-year-old girl of the 1800s. "This room reflects her imagination as well as her very pampered lifestyle," says Marcy.

With its combination of silky fabric textures, bold black and white patterns, and whimsical pieces, the bedroom has a magical, Alice-in-Wonderland atmosphere. Marcy says the room's eclectic hand-painted ceramics by MacKenzie Childs, which include a colorful tea set and table that would have been right at home in the Mad Hatter's decor, inspired the playful but elegant design. "I had a great time playing off of the many colors and balancing them throughout the room," says Marcy.

Another colorful bedroom is the au pair retreat. "Tucked way up on the third floor ...it had the most spectacular views of the ocean in the entire home," says designer Cindy Francis. She used light, airy fabric in the window treatments to not obstruct the view for the room's imagined inhabitant, a college-age young woman spending her summer in a beautiful home on the coast of Maine caring for the owners' children.

"I wanted the room to feel comfortable and cheerful," explains Cindy. "A place that she could put her own stamp on and call her own ...a retreat, where at the end of the day, it was hers and hers alone." She chose hues of pinks, greens, corals, yellows and off-white to reflect youth, yet had a sense of sophistication about them. There are also hints dotted around the room reflecting her life: family photos, a hot pink mini-fridge, favorite books, a yoga mat, her college sweatshirt, and a huge magnetic wall calendar made with magnetic paint to keep the children's daily activities organized. "You can visualize her living in this room and using every inch of it," says Cindy.

Designer Sue Bartlett said she was first inspired by an embroidered linen used for the duvet, not only for its unusual color combination of copper and jade, but also because it was reminiscent of early embroidered fabrics. "Of course, we don't spend our evenings sewing by the fireside any more, but they would have back when the house was built," says Sue of the 1830s estate for which she designed the master bedroom.

Sue used traditional elements in the design, but also kept in mind that the home had been altered through the years. For example, the ceilings were pressed tin instead of the original plaster, and thin strips of maple flooring replaced the original wide-pine floors (both were probably installed a hundred years ago). "So I didn't feel the room had to be done in a purist style," she explains, "yet I wanted to relate somewhat to the original period."

To that end she found an antique-style four-poster cherry bed, done in a distressed finish to look more aged, she stenciled the walls and glazed the wood trim to give the room a subtler not-so-freshly painted look, and she added furnishings and accessories that could have been original or added by a later owner, such as the mirror over the mantel, framed with a Victorian vine motif. She also included more modern touches, including a faux suede chair and the coppery silk pelisse draperies. "The two rugs are both new, but based on traditional patterns," says Sue. "The brown rug has a weave like an old overshot woven coverlet, and the striped rug is similar to early hand-woven runners in narrow stripes."

Peace and serenity were key elements in designer Anne Cowenhoven's master bedroom. Anne says when she first stood in the room, she looked out to the ocean and decided that it would have a cool, ocean mist atmosphere that would be soothing and restful on a summer night. "When I found the matelasse of hydrangeas used in the bedspread, it became my inspiration," she explains. "It was simple yet elegant, and had the color of a foggy ocean day. Depending on who looked at it, and what time of day, some people saw it as blue, some as green, and some as gray. That was just what I hoped for. I took the color and worked with it to get a monochromatic feeling, layering tone on tone."

Using those seaside color tones as a base, Anne introduced French painted furniture and contemporary art, which she chose after she learned that she could not paint over the brick in the fireplace. "I had planned to paint it the same color of the trim, which would have blended nicely with the furnishings and fabrics," she explains. To counteract the yellow-brown brick, she selected artwork with bits of yellows and placed an urn in antique golds in the front of the fire surround. "The effect was very successful; the eye was not drawn to the brick, and it blended with the total design," says Anne.