The perfect room is all about location, says Taylor Swift, who has the only bedroom on the first floor of the Hendersonville, Tenn., home she shares with her parents, Andrea and Scott, and brother Austin, 15. "I do most of my writing in the middle of the night," she says. "If my mom and dad heard me playing guitar at 2 a.m., they'd be like, 'You've got to go to bed!' But they can't hear me."

Swift's bedroom perfectly reflects its 17-year-old inhabitant, who is both a country music superstar and a typical teen. On one wall hangs the commemorative award for her platinum-selling debut album Taylor Swift. Just inches away is a photo collage of her high school friends. Then there's the portrait of her painted by a friend's older brother and a beaded necklace (a gift from her very first boyfriend) draped over the lamp on her bedside table. "That's one of my favorite things about my room," she says. "There are so many mementos from my life before all this happened, and then there are things that remind me of where I am now." Which, these days, is often on the road playing concert dates. "I'm home two or three days a month, so it's valuable to me every time I get to spend time in my room," says Swift. "I kind of took it for granted before, but now when I wake up here, it's like, 'Oh my gosh, this is not a bus. This is awesome!'"

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