As You Like It: Interior Decorating

You don’t have to max out your credit cards to redecorate you bedroom. A new outfit can easily be more expensive, or an evening out.

As long as you are not buying new furniture, you can update and refresh your bedroom decor for a very little amount of money. The secret is carefully reusing things that you already have and knowing where to find the bargains. Another really important aspect is to give yourself enough time to collect everything that you need, on sale. You also have to be able to change the idea in your head on the fly. (I had no idea that I would end up with brown zebra stripes and would have been rather appalled if it had been suggested to me.)

“It will do for now” – we’ve all been there, even decorators

I was tired of the bright buttercup yellow in the room, so my beginning point was trying to find a dark ivory paint colour to go with the ivory king sized bed skirt and shams that I wanted to reuse. I finally settled on a paint colour by Benjamin Moore called “Maple Syrup”. (It is much browner than it looks in the picture) Keeping economy in mind, I went to Home Hardware who was having a sale on its already economically priced Beauti-Tone paint. I had them mix up the colour from the chip in their medium quality paint. So the paint cost about half of what I would normally have paid, around $20 a gallon. The white trim was still in good condition so I decided to forgo repainting the trim and 4- 6 panel doors, (that are such a pain to paint).

Looking good

The matching duvet cover definitely needed to be replaced though. The only idea for it that I had was that it had to go with the bed skirt and shams. I took one of the shams and headed out for JYSK, my go-to store for inexpensive decorating projects. They have tons of duvet covers, all at unbelievably low prices and have some on sale most of the time. So into the display area I went, with sham in hand, and just simply held up the sham until I found the one that yelled ‘pick me’. I was totally shocked to discover that the brown and ivory zebra-like patterned one was the answer. It was not what I had in mind at all but it just ‘spoke’ to me. The best part that it was on sale — a KING sized duvet cover  with matching pillowcases– for $19.99. Sold!

The next find was a dark brown, king sized blanket to be used as a throw across the foot of the bed for another $19.99. And then, to my joy and amazement,  I found a set of king size, extra deep pocket, 300 thread count, ivory sheets on a clearance shelf for only $12. I wasn’t even looking to buy new sheets.

The burgundy lampshades were replaced with ivory ones for only $10 each. For the walls, I raided my collection of framed prints and got out all my ‘Group of Seven’ prints to hang in my newly decorated room. The smaller Group of Seven prints were a previous ‘on the cheap’ project. I framed and matted 6 pictures from a Group of Seven calender. Art does not have to be expensive.

The final touch was a giraffe that my daughter bought for my room – to finish the look

I found a wooden rod with rings at Bouclair for $10 and the panels came from Giant Tiger at $10 each. They are way too short and I was going to add onto each of them with a 3rd dark brown panel that I bought for the purpose, but in real life (not so much in the picture), they look like they were meant to be that length. The two brown cushions on the bed were $3 each at JYSK and the cushion that matches the duvet, in the centre, was made from one of the pillowcases that came with the duvet and a cut down old bed pillow.

I still haven’t made the headboard. I am going to use a 34″w slab door from the ReStore store, pad it and cover it with that brown suede curtain panel. But that is another post in the making.

The final tally of expenses was impressive. The paint was $20 The curtains and rod came to $50. The lampshades were $20.  The total for all the bedding was $66 and the giraffe was a gift. The grand total was $156 for a total bedroom makeover.

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