My sister and her family just moved so I’ve been helping her with the decorating process. When you’re in the market for MANY things, budget is what matters most and buying the most important items first versus a whole new room design at once is the reality. Makes sense! But I really want to help them put together a home that is cohesive and rooms that look designed!
I explained it can be tricky to create a cohesive look when you don’t have a full plan for the room and are buying one-off pieces like “our bedroom needs an additional dresser even though we don’t like our current dresser we’re going to hang on to it for now” or “our living room needs everything but we have to prioritize and just get this and this for now and stick with what we have for the other items.” Well what coffee table and media stand do you get not knowing what sofa, chairs, shelves, side tables you’ll EVENTUALLY have? It’s tricky! So you need a plan in place, even if you’re not getting those things all at once!
It’s hard to know what one dresser to get if you don’t have a plan for the rest of the room will EVENTUALLY look like. So I whipped up a design plan using their current bed, the dresser I was suggesting, and sourced very affordable furniture items for the rest of the room so they can at least have a plan in place for to get when it’s time to get nightstands and replace the current dresser…
I kind of love how it turned out and think it can work for others so I wanted to share!
The biggest challenge is when a room needs two dressers and nightstands with storage (meaning they basically look like tiny dressers) and not wanting ANY of it to match perfectly but still go together. I always recommend avoiding matching sets with dresser and furniture. Matching nightstands is fine and recommend. Matching dressers, not so much.
Here’s what I came up with:
A Chic Budget-Friendly Bedroom for Two (or one – just eliminate a dresser!)
GET THE LOOK
grey tufted bed or this more simple linen headboard like the one we own or this stripe is also fantastic
nightstand (great additional storage and price! you can always add brass knobs)
bedside plug-in sconces (a cheaper version of what we have – I like this style also)
striped throw pillows
white linen bedding (on rare super sale!)
frames above bed (get the oversized mat for a 5″7″ picture, we have 3 above our bed)
herringbone rug (we have this in The Everygirl office!)
marble and brass floor mirror (on rare super sale!)
basket for storage
wide 6-drawer dresser
round mirror (this is the one we have in our bedroom)
cement table lamp (see more affordable lamps here)
gold planters
tall 5-drawer dresser
framed modern art print (we have this large version in our living room)
hamper
marble tray (great for displaying sunglasses or jewelry neatly on a dresser)
gold shadow box (great for storing sunglasses or jewelry)
simple white window curtains (I’ve had these in multiple apartments)
black curtain rod (we have these in our room and they work great! can’t beat the price!)
feature photo by Aimee Mazzenga for me
photo two via Kristina Lynne
photo three via The Everygirl
I absolutely love your style and how you curated these pieces! What a great post with lots of fun decor ideas. Thank you!
This is a wonderful post! I really love the white curtains but have always had an issue with light and heat coming through when I don’t use blackout curtains. Have you ever had any of those issues with these curtains? Thank you!
I LOVE this budget-friendly type of post (loved the lamp one too!). I’ve been looking for a less expensive dupe of the Serena and Lily hamper for a while and can’t seem to find one. If I do end up going with the S&L version, which size do you recommend for a hamper? I’d love to be able to spend less and get the medium, but I’m afraid it won’t be big enough.
Love your style! I was wondering how you make sure dressers coordinate without matching? I have a long dresser and need a tall one in our bedroom, but I don’t know how to choose one that will go with everything in the room without matching. Thanks!
Love this!! I’d also love to know the source of the striped pillows on your own bed. I used like it to know on IG once but the pillows were not sourced in that post.
Thank you for sharing this! It’s exactly what I needed to see since I’m moving next month and have bookmarked a few of my favorites. I love how you did a vision board type layout with all this. What program did you use to be able to assemble all the different products together? Thanks so much! Love these posts.
Thank you for sharing this! It’s exactly what I needed to see since I’m moving next month and have bookmarked a few of my favorites. I love how you did a vision board type layout with all this. What program did you use to be able to assemble all the different products together? Thanks so much! Love these posts.
Love your style. I have a question. If you just buy a headboard, where to do you recommend buying an actual bed frame? I like the idea of getting an upholstered headboard, but not really sure where to get a bed frame. Do you just buy a plain metal bedframe? Thanks!