Happy Friday Everyone!
This week’s FIF is one of my favs because of the little resources I had to use. We had a very tight budget and a VERY short timeline, ONE day! Take a peek below to see some of the things I did to really work with the items Ms. Client already had in her spacious living room. Oh and ps, I’m going to link some of the similar items from this room that I found online incase you wanted to try to implement this look in your own home. Ready, set, read!
About the client:
A friend of mine desperately needed help with her condo. She wanted a home she could be proud of. A place she would WANT to come home to where she could invite family and friends over and enjoy her nights and weekends. She was reluctant to ask me for help because she didn’t want to take advantage of our relationship … LOL. I put her mind at ease and offered to take a Saturday and help her do a quickie to get her over the hump!
Challenges:
- We only had one day to pull this together
- We only had $500 to spend. Yep, you heard me, only $500 for the whole makeover
Changes I made:
- I took before photos, came up with a game plan we could accomplish in one day and took her shopping. First stop… the art and framing store. One where we could get a second frame for one penny!
- Second stop… local home improvement store! Fresh palm trees could add color, texture and height.
- Finally, we stopped at a local discount home furnishings store to pick up some accent throw pillows!
- Once back from our shopping trip, I re-arranged her furniture, brought in from another room, a chest of drawers, hung the TV on the wall above the drawers (well, I directed a male-type friend to hang it) and went to work hanging the frames, distributing the new accent pillows and pacing the trees in the right locations.
- The current budget didn’t allow for new lighting but the condo already had adequate lighting so it worked! A random iron candle sconce was found and hung on the drywall between the main windows.
- We worked with the neutral carpeting already in the condo.
- My friends existing futon-like sofas were kept. Interestingly, the sofas had a convertible mechanism in them so I adjusted the way she was using them. One became a chase and the other remained a sofa. I found an overlooked chest of drawers in an adjacent guest room and moved it into the Living room to serve as a base under the TV area. Now she had a place to store media equipment, video’s, DVD’s etc.
- I knew proper window treatments were out of the question due to the very tight budget so I opted to create a sense of window treatments by hanging frames (horizontally) above the windows, which added height to the room and offered a budget friendly alternative to traditional fabric panels. I also hung the same frames vertically in a pattern of 3 up the narrow fireplace wall. We hung a piece of art she had above the larger opening of the fireplace where the TV once lived.
- My friend had an oversized elephant figure… I guess you could call it a huge stuffed animal! It was cool and very unusual. I decided to use it in the room for interest, as an accessory and definitely a conversational piece!
- All in all, my friend was thrilled with the mini makeover and marveled at what a big difference we could make in one day with so little to work with!
Another quick tip: See… It’s not so much about WHAT YOU HAVE… but rather, HOW YOU USE what you have!
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We are working on getting this look shoppable, check back later today if you’re interested in any of the furniture in today’s post.
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