The $4 Amazon Buy That Lets Me Redecorate Whenever I Want

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: I am very cheap, non-committal, and capricious, so making things look good on the first time around is very hard for me. We also all know by now that I’m “redesigning” my itty bitty Brooklyn bedroom—which will probably be a work in progress for the next 20 years of my life—in a style that can only be described as Scandinavian hoarder (a.k.a. white minimalist accents amid piles of things on every available surface as well as under the bed).

The most recent problem I’ve come up against in this “redesign” (besides the continual realization that I am my own worst enemy) is that I have a couple of posters I want to hang, but I don’t really know in which fashion I want to hang them. Also, the wall they need to go on (a.k.a. the empty one), is a thin layer of drywall and then brick—so drilling is a bad idea I’ve already tried (especially because it’s a rental, sorry landlord, I’ll spackle!) Also I keep forgetting to measure the posters and do the math, so buying frames ends up being a problem when I’m in the mood to buy frames, like 12:11 a.m. in my bed on a “school night.”

So one day, just casually minding my own business, I heard the word “washi tape.” It set off something in me. For those who don’t know what washi tape is, it’s just basically cool masking tape that doesn’t hurt your walls (it’s low tack) and comes in better colors than manila or blue (and if you’re really feeling frisky—there also patterned ones). There are all sorts of cool ways to decorate with washi tape—especially if you want to plan it out and use a ruler. But the best thing about it is that you get a lot of it and it’s not permanent, so you can also just be an play around with it. This is always my preferred method. I had to have some of it, so I ordered a couple of rolls using an Amazon gift card.

Once I had my rolls in hand, I taped up some of my posters in a gallery-wall type fashion, and decided to play around. I will say, I was inspired by my interview with Hannah Simone, when she mentioned that her brother taped up all these crazy designs on the walls of their first apartment and then painted over them. Painting was out of the question for me, so I just made designs around my posters until I was happy with them. Here is what I ended up with:

I can almost guarantee I will be bored with this latest DIY foray in a couple of months—but again, that’s why it’s so great. I still have a lot of tape left (in different colors, too), so I can add, subtract, or even just measure my posters and buy proper frames. I’ve gotta say, for $14 all together (and ample tape left over for gift wrapping come December), it’s worth the compliments alone.