Our friend Genie has a budget of $300 to makeover her living room, dining room, and home office. It's not much money, but we're teaming up with Nicole from Making It Lovely to make it happen. With the help of Nicole's excellent eye, we're hoping to transform this 2-bedroom Chicago apartment by decluttering, rearranging, and scouting for thrift store finds. Click below to see how we started...
The cheapest way to decorate is to rearrange the furniture you already have. Before, Genie's large-scale pieces were lined up along one wall, which threw the apartment off balance. By rearranging the living room furniture, we were able to create a better flow throughout the entire space. An exposed brick wall was covered up with shelves before. By moving them into another area, we opened up a key feature in the apartment.
We want to create an area that acts as a home office and dining room, but we don't want a lot of clutter crowding the space. We'll need to get some new pieces to hold Genie's office supplies: a console table that will double as both a desk and a buffet, a new dining set, and a credenza that will keep Genie's papers tucked away behind closed doors.
Our first stop was Jubilee Furniture, a warehouse-sized thrift store in Carol Stream. (Store review coming soon!) It was a goldmine of good finds.
We scored a new dinette set ($45), an oversized table lamp for the living room ($30), and a desk chair ($5). With tax, everything came out to about $87! That leaves $213 for the rest of the space. This mod orange lamp helped us choose our accent color.
Nicole even found a new dining room table and chairs for herself! We think it might be a vintage Henredon set.
Next on the list: curtains for the living room, a console table/desk, a credenza, and a few accent pieces. Stay tuned to see if we can bring this space together for under $300...
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LOVE those windows! and Jubilee sounds like a wonderful store- why isn't it closer to DC???
I look forward to tracking the transformation.
view CQ in DC's profile
i didn't see where the shelving that was blocking the brick wall went to - in a bedroom perhaps?
can you do more before pics please? i need some similar pieces and i'm in a very similar situation both in layout, flow, price range, and furniture needs. so lots of details will be so super helpful :) thanks!
view Joan Vignocchi's profile
What a fun post! I love Nicole's blog and read it all the time. I can't wait to see what the finished product looks like.
view suziegoombs's profile
Joan, right now we have the shelves against the entryway wall, where the credenza will go. We'll probably get rid of the shelves and replace them with a credenza so that all the office stuff can be neatly tucked away. I'll do more pictures soon (unfortunately I didn't have before pics for the furniture rearrangement, but the after pics are on the way). :)
view sarah c's profile
Anyone else have any thoughts on putting sofas right in front of windows? I know that sometimes people are constrained by lack of wall space, so sometimes there is not much of a choice. But, personally, I like to sit on my sofa and look out the window. Just wondering.
view jyw's profile
Please say there will be more pictures of the apartment before and after?
I'm sure this will be helpful for lots of readers.
view jennifer in sf's profile
can't wait to see the end results...and i must get to jubilee!
view Goody's profile
I look forward to seeing some before and afters too. Glad you bought that 50's set. I had my eye on it too and appreciate the thin wire behind the seat back. Maybe I'll meet you at Jubilee sometime. I'm there frequently. If you are interested in other shots, go here.
http://studiosmith.blogspot.com/2008/02/jubilee-furniture-help-spread-word.html
view studiosmith's profile
I'm really looking forward to seeing how you do this.
I love shows like "Design on a Dime" and "Decorating Cents". The problem with doing what they do is the lack of a professional carpenter, seamstress, and a designer. If you lack the skills, the tools, or friends who can do those custom pieces, you'd have to hire it done. By the time you add in those costs, you'd have to triple their budget.
view Aldyth's profile