Today I’d like to introduce you to Deb. When I first came across her blog, I literally was blown away. How can one person have so much talent? It’s amazing. I’m definitely not a crafty person, I’m more of a Type-A personality, so creative things really inspire me. Her pictures were amazing and I couldn’t help but feel like she was a diamond in the rough.
You can be certain there is some good stuff there on her blog. Very high quality, so of COURSE when I was inviting friends to be a contributor, she was one of the very first that came to mind.
I’m super excited to introduce you to Deb Foglia from Seeking Lavender Lane. Take it away Deb….
Hi everyone, I am very excited to join all of you over here at Sarah’s site. I am quite honored to have the chance to reach out to all of you and hopefully share some exciting and new ideas that you will enjoy. I am a DIY junkie and Home Decor fanatic, and I am always trying to find decorating ideas on a budget. I don’t want to be giving the hubby some type of nervous break down!
Since I love decorating so much, I of course, love finding ways to make the best out of every room. Sometimes it is quite hard to work with what you get.
What do I mean by this?
Well, when purchasing a home or renting an apartment, we are not getting the opportunity to design every square foot and details that the house comes with. There are plenty of eye sores we have to accept and as for space…we get what we get.
Of course we all dream of beautiful spaces we can feel comfortable and homey in, and lets face it…we usually want bigger.
I feel very blessed to have the “American Dream” of owning a home and even more so, in my 20’s. Whenever I get wrapped up in my “Dream Home Pinterest Board,” I remind myself of this and that God has provided a roof over my head and a space my family can call home.
So how do I make the best out of a room? Especially when you envision BIGGER!
Here I am going to share ways that I have accomplished my bedroom makeover by spending very little money and making my master bedroom appear larger for a moderate size room.
Related:
- A Complete Guide to Organizing Everything You Have
- 12 Habits of People Who Have Organized Homes
- Where to Find Budget Friendly Decor
- How to Decorate a Home on a Budget with Fashion Accessories
- Bedroom Organization Tips
- How to Get Kids to REALLY Clean Their Room
Budget Friendly Tips to Create a Larger Room
Lets start with paint color! Paint is such an important and easy update to any room. I feel picking a color in your room that you truly love and soothes you is important.
If you are having trouble with your small space or room, I would definitely recommend choosing a color that is light to open up the space. Lighter shades always make a room appear brighter and grander. I chose a soothing blue shade for our master bedroom and white for an accent wall. Instantly our room felt bigger in size.
One of the most important pieces of advice I could give is to create an eclectic mix of furniture. When having “matchy matchy furniture” your room will appear less planned and seem more like a furniture store than a homey collected space.
Having non-matching furniture will also help with the size of furniture since you are not committing to all the pieces that come along with your “Raymour” collection. I love mixing textures and colors when I can and this too will make the space have character and dimension.
Keep in mind the furniture should work together and still be cohesive.
One of the best ways to achieve an eclectic room is to shop vintage. I love vintage pieces since most furniture that is vintage is good quality and timeless. If you’re not a vintage gal, then you can search craigslist or thrift shops. Adding some chalk-finish paint or sanding and re-staining, can give any piece a new look. This includes furniture you may already have or pieces you have inherited from relatives or friends over the years.
Here, I shared how to create your own chalk paint (no sand or prime paint). Another great way to gain furniture pieces is curb side browsing. Whoa-whoa-whoa….did I just say curb side? Yeah, you know your neighbors trash! LOL.
I know I just appeared crazy and you’re not quite sure you want to keep reading. Did you know that one of the ways Sarah used to make money from home is by taking curb-side furniture, fix it up, and resell it! She says it’s REALLY good money!
But, honestly I can understand the hesitation and I can understand if that is totally not your thing, but let me tell you…keep your eyes open, because you never know. I found my lovely dresser on the side of the road where the people were moving out and getting rid of their extra furniture. FREE is one of the biggest accomplishments when you’re a DIY’er like myself.
So now that I gave you some advice on where to find affordable furniture, what to do with the furniture, and how matchy matchy is never a good look….how about what types of pieces to get for a bedroom to appear larger.
Best advice right here….don’t buy night stands! Let me make myself clear…if your room is small and lacking storage than buy tall chests to replace your night stands to create space and height.
Since my husband and I needed as much storage space as possible, I decided a chest on each side of the bed would be much better. This allows us each to have 3 full-size drawers and the height of these dressers create drama. This may not work for every space, but our room has a narrow shape to it and where our bed and night stands go are along the longest wall.
Next bit of advice I can give, is give up on the long dresser. I had never thought about this design idea until I was desperate for a fireplace in our room. After almost giving up on this idea, I figured it out! Since we had two chests for storage, we could probably settle on an inexpensive tall dresser so our widest wall (which just happens to be directly across from our bed), can be home to our faux mantle.
Last piece of advice, stay vertical and tall not low. Every piece of furniture or accessories should be as tall as you can make it. I find adding tall elements draws your eye up creating a grander space. We recently added a barn door that reaches just about all the way to the ceiling, and we have our faux brick chimney that also draws your eye up. Don’t be afraid to do a gallery wall to the ceiling or large mirrors above furniture pieces to accomplish this same look.
So, now we have two large chests, a tall dresser, faux mantle, and even a chair in our room (more furniture than we began with), and some how our room seems larger than ever.
Why is this?
Well, for all the reasons I mentioned above. We now have drama on our largest wall with the tall chests and our largest dresser no longer is taking up a bunch of space. We have added character elements to our room that reach to the ceiling that create the room to have more height. The furniture being an eclectic mix keeps interest in the space that bounces your eye around the room to the details that are there.
I can not even tell you how roomy and cozy our master bedroom feels. It has become one of my favorite spaces in our house and I truly feel we have more space in there than we actually do.
Deb is a wife and mom of two. She is all about family and enjoying life’s little moments. She’s a home decor blogger at Seeking Lavender Lane where she shows you ways to do fantastic DIY projects and decorate on a budget.
