$100 Room Makeover – Home Office

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It’s HERE!!!! I’m so excited for this day – the big reveal of our $100 Room Makeovers! My blogging friends and I have been plotting and planning for this day over the last few months and it’s finally here! It all started when we found ourselves a little frustrated with these “room makeovers on a budget”. We’d be so excited to read about this fanTABulous room makeover the homeowners managed to “keep under budget”…only to read and find out they spent thousands of dollars on their one room. Sigh….

The Idea is Sparked

What about the rest of us? Those of us who DON’T have thousands of dollars to make over one room?

After some discussion, we decided that most people who are looking to update a room probably have $100 to put into such a project. And so the budget was set at one hundred dollars. The challenge was on….what all could we DO in a room with just $100 in our pockets? We knew this amount was going to really make us think outside the box, and we fondly dubbed it our “Champagne Taste on a Kool Aid Budget” challenge.

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Let the Games Begin

I’m going back to the very beginning for this room reveal to show you just how far it’s come and where it began. I’m warning you now that these photos from the room as it was when we first bought our house may make your eyes hurt. They certainly make me cringe. Let these photos just be an inspiration as to how much you can do with a little vision and some DIY. Ok…brace yourself.

Behold.

The Horror.

These two photos were taken just a couple days after we moved in. You can see we had randomly placed boxes of toys in here and out of the way.

A circus tent just seems to fit with the mayhem that was this room, yes? Please also note the double border, sponge painted walls and teeny tiny ladybugs cut out of wallpaper and pasted onto the walls and ceiling. We had to peel/scrape off every single one of those ladybugs. Lord have mercy. My Aunt Judy was my saving grace in this room.

Room Makeover #1

After removing the two borders and every. single. wallpaper. ladybug. (insert eye rolling) I chose a stormy blue/grey for the walls. This was before I dove headlong into my love affair with white. While the blue was an improvement, it still lacked creativity and inspiration. And so it sat. Still so sad, still so…blah.

But that couch? I refused to give it up because it came out of my parent’s house when they moved and it’s where my brothers and I had long talks with Mom; it was where we opened Christmas presents every year, and it just holds so many memories. And it’s still solid as a rock. So it stays. You’ll see what I did to it below.

The Office gets Painted. Again.

The first thing I did was paint the room white with leftover paint from a previous project. Yay for leftover paint!

Then the light fixture had to go.

Bless.

However, with only $100 in the budget, I knew buying one was out of the question. So I shopped the house! 😉 After a quick walk-about, I decided to ask my Dad to help me move the chandelier from the guest room (which hardly gets used) to my office. And she’s PERFECT. While it’s hard to find chandeliers like this anymore (this one is quite old) there are still lots of gorgeous options to be found.

Here she is, the crowning glory of this room makeover. This chandy also has a story. You know I love pieces with a good story. She hung over our dining room table most of our growing up years and when my parents decided to switch light fixtures, I got her! These kinds of hand me downs are my favorites.

The Couch

Here, you can see the couch again – with my vintage metal tv tray. When I got an estimate to have the couch recovered, it blew my mind. Over $900 to have it recovered! Well THAT wasn’t going to happen, so for now, I just purchased a drop cloth and tucked it into the couch – pushing it deeply into the back and sides. By tucking it in this way, it doesn’t scootch like it would if I just draped it over. *whispering: I didn’t even wash the drop cloth first. Straight out of the package and onto the couch*. I know, I know. For shame. Lol!

I didn’t want to lose the shape of the arms, so I folded pleats into the curve and simply pinned them to stay in place.

I love having this couch in my office. It’s where my boys come to sit and chat with me; it’s where I snuggle my littles when they wake up and find me working early in the morning, and it’s where we sometimes read our bedtime stories.

In the above photo, you can see that I’ve brought in a lot of my DIY projects. From left to right: My birch stump side table, the drop cloth covered chair, the faux fur footstool, and the chalk-mix painted side table.

And that rug? I painted it. I’ve painted a lot of things – even kitchen floors – but nothing has made me question my sanity quite like painting this rug. I almost gave up on it several times, but in the end, I’m so glad I persevered. Get all the gory details here.

The Clock

One thing I knew I needed in this room makeover was a clock. But again, clocks are so expensive! So I made this one – and I love it. You can read all about how I made the clock here.

Where it all Happens

Lastly, here’s my “desk” – the old formica table that I painted a while ago. The paint is holding up brilliantly! On the left of the table sits my thrift store lamp that I updated.

Cost Breakdown

lamp – $7
paint for lamp – free/leftover
lampshades – $19.96
white shelf in corner – $25
chandelier – shopped the house (STH)
table – shopped the house (STH)
rug under the table – already had
dresser – STH
clock – already had (updated for $9)
floor lamp – STH
drop cloth for couch – $17.98
couch – already had
pins for couch arms – STH
rug under couch – STH
paint for rug – leftover/already had
tiny black wooden pear on shelf – $1.40
All remaining items in the room were from shopping my house/things I already had.

Total cost of Room Makeover: $80.34

I truly hope this inspires you to know that you CAN do an entire room makeover on a super tight budget. You *don’t* need thousands of dollars to create a space you love! Shop your house – it’s already full of things you love – and find new ways to use the stuff you have on hand.

Be sure to Pin for later!

Be sure to hop on over to these blogs to see what they did with $100 in their room makeovers! There’s so much inspiration to be had with these women!

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