Along with the items in the shopping cart, she also bought a headboard and dresser. Then she purchased another inexpensive dresser off of Craigs List.This is what the master bedroom in their basement apartment looked like when I first saw it.
Like most young couples their furniture consisted of freebies and mismatched finds. The room wasn't a true reflection of this cute couple. They didn't feel good about it''s appearance and as a result it had become a catch-all. 
And, like most young couples, when they did purchase new furniture it was for the baby's room, not theirs. Fortunately they were at the stage where they were ready for a change, even though the change had to be done on a shoestring budget. I met with them to discuss their vision, gave them some ideas and shared some photos to give them inspiration. Then we went shopping at the thrift store to pick furniture and accessories and to the home improvement store to pick paint. We picked Behr Paint and Primer in Subtle Touch for the walls. It's a light gray with a hint of lilac. The furniture paint is Polar Bear, a soft white.They spent several late hours, after their baby was asleep, painting walls and furniture. It was long, hard work, but I assured them that it's always good to have a deadline for a project and their hard work would be worth it.
When I next saw their room, they had it emptied out, with all of the painting done.
I started my part of the work by distressing the newly painted furniture. It's nice to have a little distressing from the beginning, that way when life gives the furniture an occasional nick or bump it will only add to the character. Then my favorite part began, moving furniture and accessorizing. Oh how I love to accessorize a room! It was so fun to pull together the thrift items along with goodies that I grabbed from other parts of their home, like a beautiful mirror that was in the living room but looked so much better in the bedroom.This is what the room looked like after.
It no longer looked like a dark basement room. It was now fresh and light. We even managed to give them full length curtains on the tiny window to give the feel of a bigger window.
There was no way I could hang a curtain rod with that annoying pipe. So, since they didn't need the privacy, I did the next best thing and used pretty upholstery tacks to do the job.
Do you notice how those pretty thrift store finds help to bring in a little sparkle, add the green accent color, as well as give the room a sophisticated, finished look.
They are both very talented photographers so I included several empty frames for them to fill with gorgeous black and white photographs that they've taken. One of my favorite accessories was an old camera (on top of the dresser) that they had purchased for a dollar at a flea market.
They already had the two nightstands, although they weren't really using them before. They painted them both a beautiful gray to contrast against the light gray walls and white headboard.The lamps were a thrift store find.
It was so much fun to give this sweet couple a beautiful room to retreat to at the end of the day, and to do it on a tight budget. I estimated that the total cost for furniture, paint and accessories was about $300.
I loved their reaction! They couldn't believe it was their room. They felt like they had gone from a college dorm to a honeymoon suite. They said that they used to hurry to close the door of their room when they had guests over. Now they were so excited to have guests come stay in the room. And all it took was some creative shopping, and a lot of paint and hard work. 
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