Everyone who knows me, knows that I love love love to decorate & organize things. I find it relaxing and the final result from a transformation really lights me up. So needless to say, many of my friends & family are always asking me to come over and help them.
And just recently, I went to Virginia with my boyfriend to visit his grandpa (who’s seriously so kind and he absolutely adores me). Because of this, he allowed me to organize a few things in his home. I wish I would’ve taken pictures of all the transformations, but atlas I only managed to snap a few pictures of one of the rooms I did. However, the transformation is pretty incredible, and I didn’t buy a single thing!
He had all the pieces I used in the room already. Some were inside of closets, others were down in his unfinished basement. This got me thinking, how many people probably have really great pieces that could totally transform a room!
So, I wanted to write out the process and show you how using what you have, and putting furniture in the right place can really make a world of a difference.
Per usual, let’s start with the before pictures:
The Process
The first thing to do it to always clean up anything that’s just clutter or never got put away. I wasn’t sure why that ironing board was there, but I put it away inside the closet, and while we were using this room to sleep in, I put all our stuff back into the suite cases, and got everything that was trash out of the room. Now, the real steps can be taken to doing a true room transformation.
Step 1: Minimize
If you take a look at the before pictures, you’ll notice that there are two TVs. One was old and the other was a good flat screen already mounted to the wall. So I convinced grandpa to throw out the old TV. Which meant that we could now get rid of the weird box piece the old TV was on. So that’s 2 pieces gone (yay!).
You’ll also notice that there are two small nightstands under the flat screen. The thing is: they are too small to match the other pieces in the room, they were too small to match any bed furniture he had, so those needed to go. Luckily he wasn’t sentimental about any of these things and said he’d have the vets come get them.
Step 2: Apply The Principles of Design
As a general rule, you want your largest pieces to be furthest from the entry of a room. So technically the day bed was in a decent spot. The issue was the medium sized chair (it’s considered medium when compared to the bed) was all the way in the far right side of the room. Which again, wasn’t necessarily bad, but wasn’t really helping the shape of the room. Plus, the lamp was in a strange spot. So, I shifted the them.
Luckily, the bed is a day bed with a wood frame, so it sort of looks like a large couch, and it can be placed away from the windows on that wall (vs. right up against them).
The next obstacle was getting something under the flat screen so all the gadgets had something to sit on. I took a stroll around the house looking for a piece that could maybe be better in that room, and that’s when I learned about the basement. Much to my luck there was a small black dresser down there. I had my boyfriend bring it upstairs and viola the room was coming together!
Step 3: Decorate
Now that I had all the big pieces where they needed to be it was time to see what I could do about decorations. Luckily, when it comes to decorations less is more. I got lucky and found two basket containers in a closet, so I put those on top of the black dresser. I also noticed a beautiful framed painting of the ocean leaning against the wall in the storage room, so I grabbed that to be a statement piece on the back wall which was getting beautiful lighting from the ceiling can lights.
While on my decor hunt through the house, I also noticed a chess table shoved into a random corner in the dining room, and that room already felt crowded as it was, so I moved it into the spot just under the picture.
The bed was the last piece that needed a little TLC. I happened to find pillows and a better-matching comforter in one of the closets so I just used those to make the bed look a little more like a couch.
To Sum It Up
Sometimes you don’t need to spend any money to make an improvement in a room. All I really did here was remove some pieces of furniture so the room wasn’t as crowded, put the furniture in better places, and used items that were already elsewhere in the home. So sometimes all it takes is moving furniture pieces around to make a room really look great!
What do you think about this room transformation?
