Decorating on the Cheap

Pizazz for Pennies

How to update a bedroom with a teensy budget

My daughter, who happens to be a senior in high school—something she regularly reminds me of lately, especially when it relates to curfew—wants to update her room. But first, let me lay down some background as to the house that we live in.

Some would say that our house is Ranch style, which I guess would probably be correct in some respects. The original structure was build around the late 40’s from another homestead. The older house had what we in the south call a dogrun which is a central open hall off of which there were several large rooms that were used for sitting rooms and bedrooms. The old house was rather large and my grandfather dismantled it to build a newer styled smaller home. The interior walls and ceilings were paneled with varnished knotty pine v-groove paneling which gives off a honey, albeit dark, glow. In the late 80’s my parents added close to the same amount of square footage in another bedroom, kitchen, laundry/utility and back entry with porch. More wood grain ensued with that addition including bead board and wooden faux beams in the vaulted ceiling of the kitchen.

My husband, her dad, loves the look. It goes well with the rustic motif in ‘his’ den. I , on the other hand am getting a bit tired of all the wood and would like to change it up a bit. So, my first experiment will be our daughter’s room.

The wood in this room was never stained nor varnished, so it has shrunk and there are several cracks where the v-groove paneling meet. This is going to be one of the obstacles in redecorating this room on a budget. My first thought, being the DIY person that I am, was to go out and buy some 1/4 to 3/8” sheet rock and put it up over the wood, then prime and paint it. That of course would include all the mudding and seam tape and sanding and more mudding, etc. Not something I was really wanting to tackle at this point. I have done it before, but it was not something I really enjoyed for the most part.

So, what was I going to do? First, I had to think about how much money I could spend on this project. I figured maybe I could get away with less than $200.00 and that included decorative items like bedding and window coverings, etc. and of course, the paint. I bought the paint at the local discount store for about 20.00 at gallon. You can buy cheaper paint, but when you are painting over knots in dark wood you need something with a stain killer in the paint as well as good coverage, and that doesn’t come cheap. I also plan to put a light coat of primer with another spot coat over the knots. I also bought 3 tubes of painter’s caulk. You can never have too much of that stuff. It covers a multitude of ‘sins’, and helps with those gaps in the groves and gives a nice finish to not so perfect corners on molding. It is my friend!

I lucked up when I bought the paint. Always look through the marked down bins when you go shopping for paint. You never know what you will find. As it turned out, I found a gallon of enamel in one of the accent colors we had picked out. It would be perfect to paint the night stand and the armoire she has in her room. I also bought a can of spray enamel to paint a chandelier that I had in storage. Yes, my husband and I never throw out ceiling fixtures, or anything else that can be repurposed in another way. So, for about 3 bucks, we had a cool light fixture painted in her color scheme.

Okay, so let me see, I have bought the paint and supplies and have spent, oh, about 75.00 in all. I think this is going to be the biggest part of our budget. If we had not had the wood paneling in the room and had sheet rock, we could have done with only a gallon of paint., so that would have probably knocked our budget for paint down to about 40—50.00. But, we didn’t have that option, so we had to bite the bullet on that one. Now, to figure out where to start…

I am not the most organized person in the world and that is an understatement. I sort of do things on the spur of the moment, sort of like getting an inspiration and going with it. It drives my husband nuts, but hey, he’ll get over it. So, let’s see...what does she have in her room that we can re-use and what are we getting rid of? She will keep the daybed, the armoire and night stand. She has a desk her dad built, but I am not quite sure what we will do with it. It is has a very dark stain on it, so we will have to see how it looks in the room once it is painted.

The curtains are fine and in the color scheme, so we wont have to buy new ones. She does need a different comforter, but we can make a cover for it from coordinating sheets and that shouldn’t be too expensive. Especially since the one she has is fairly new and I hate to spend money on a new set if I don’t have to. A couple of new sheet sets shouldn’t set us back more than 30 bucks. She also has several throw pillows that can be re-covered. Now is the time to go through my sewing material stash and see if anything there will work with the scheme.

Speaking of the color scheme, it is a rather vibrant one. It is composed of a turquoise, lime green and a sea foam blue. We are also going to incorporate some small amounts of black in with this as well as accents. So, with that said, it is time to try to get organized.

My next post will continue with photos of the before, and if I am lucky, the after as well. I hope to have some really exciting uses for color and re-purposing items that will make this a hip room for a young lady about to finish high school. See you next time!