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Cheapish Apartment Decorations
Manic205
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I've finally got my dual-monitor desk setup and everything else arranged exactly how I want it, and I'm noticing the room is still pretty bland.
What can I do, for a fairly low price(<$100) to spruce my room up? I'd say it's around 16'x16' and about 9' tall, with light blue carpeting and white walls. My furniture(computer desk, dresser, nightstand) are all a light-colored wood, and I just have no decorations to speak of. The lighting during the day is through my open blinds(window ~4' wide by 6' tall), and a tall floor lamp that gives off a very warm orange-amber light. I'm thinking something a bit more original than random posters of movies or videogames. Wall-rugs? I honestly just can't think of anything I could do.
Any ideas?
What can I do, for a fairly low price(<$100) to spruce my room up? I'd say it's around 16'x16' and about 9' tall, with light blue carpeting and white walls. My furniture(computer desk, dresser, nightstand) are all a light-colored wood, and I just have no decorations to speak of. The lighting during the day is through my open blinds(window ~4' wide by 6' tall), and a tall floor lamp that gives off a very warm orange-amber light. I'm thinking something a bit more original than random posters of movies or videogames. Wall-rugs? I honestly just can't think of anything I could do.
Any ideas?
Manic205 on
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Do you live by yourself or with people?
Personally all I have in my bedroom is my bed side tables and tall boy with my ties neatly arranged on it, it looks very neat and nice.
In my living room I've hung up various sporting bits and pieces off things and stuck the odd object on my tv. (it changes as I feel it needs to)
Bookshelves are great for putting up interesting nick nacks.
Also you can go to flea markets or something similar and buy cheap framed pictures.
Satans..... hints.....
Posters aren't bad things, just make sure they are things that you want to see everyday. Like posters of places you want to visit, or making posters from certain photos you like.
This sounds kind of tacky to me ... is this supposed to be a cheap way of adding color to the room? Instead of doing that, I'd say go to Michael's (or a similar art store in your area) and pick up a couple different sized canvases, some different colored paints and brushes. Paint each canvas a different color (or you can add multiple colors to each canvas if you want) -- and then hang them haphazardly along your wall to give it little "pops" of color that stick out from the wall.
Adds color, keeps you from painting the whole room, and it's cheaper than buying actual paintings and artwork. This is what I'm planning to do over the weekend.
If not this, then I'd recommend just hitting up Target. Go to their decoration section. They have a TON of nice stuff for relatively low prices, you should be able to pick up a bunch of things. If you want, you could look for a nice fake or real plant to add to your place, too. Makes things look a little more alive, although larger plants CAN be expensive.
No artist friends. I do have a big collection of paperbacks, however. I guess I could plop those up on the wall if the shelving isn't too expensive or hard to install(I am hardwaretarded), as I'm very often "the book guy" when people need reading material.
Hmm, I am digging the idea of shelving, now. Any recommendations? Anything slick-looking that's not hard on the wallet?
Also consider that you may have problems with a plant, I know I can't put any plants on carpetted areas because of my lease agreement. Additionally plants are much like puppies, people often forget how big they grow to be. Make sure you get a plant that wont grow too high and is an indoors plant and try to describe the amount of light it gets to the person at the nuresery.
I was actually talking about actual bookcases but shelves could be a goer also, again check your lease. You can get some extremely attractive supportless shelves if you hunt around, get some plexiglass bookends and it could look very swish.
Satans..... hints.....
http://www.instructables.com/id/Invisible-Book-Shelf/ I'm kind of a fan of these. I mean, how cool does it look to have "floating" books around? I read a lot, so I plan to put up a few of these in my living room and bedroom for books I've recently read and books I'm reading.
As said, sometimes a plant is a bit of trouble especially with lighting and all -- that's why I almost want to suggest a fake plant. I know it's "bad feng shui" and all that mumbojumbo, and fake plants are weird when you can have real ones -- but if the situation is ideal, a nice fake one is suitable.
You could even just get one or two small ones and put them on a desk, on a dresser, etc. It'll just bring a touch of color and life.
You could actually get a fake bonsai tree if you wanted. Which would be kind of neat as long as you don't get one that looks super-fake.
Little framed pictures of family and friends on the wall are nice, too. You can hang them in a cool little grouping, and I've always liked having pictures of people I cared about around.
Depending on how many books you have, if you get one of the shorter ones, you could get a smaller plant to sit on top of the bookshelf and maybe drape down it if you go with something like a phyledendron.
Oh, and go to walmart
"I was born; six gun in my hand; behind the gun; I make my final stand"~Bad Company
They're nice for covering up a particularly bland wall.
You need to find a stud behind the wall to anchor into. You can probably get a cheap studfinder at your local hardware store (maybe around $20). You could just try tapping around and listening for solid versus hollow sounds, but you had better be sure you're anchored to a stud before loading up 30 pounds of books.