Thrifty Upgrade with Vintage Crap Weekend

Wow. That title just drew you in, didn’t it?

Well, as you may have guessed, I missed a few letters again. We are almost done though, so I can’t quit now!

Anyway, a few weeks ago, I mentioned to my husband that I would like to clean our room. Like, deep clean. Move the bed, vacuum base boards, remove clutter, take out my bookshelf, buy new bedding and maybe even add “official” furniture. We never really had a bedroom set. Money’s always been a bit tight and a bedroom set seemed like such a small thing. 11 years later, I’m wishing we at least had a headboard and matching nightstands…

However, the cost of my idea was going to be over $1,000. My husband was so not on board for that. But I couldn’t just ignore it anymore. I had to do something…

That’s where the title comes in:

Thrifty: I can’t buy anything. Well, I did buy new bedding. But it was on clearance at Target for $60. Win. In order to update our room, I had to use stuff I already had around the house.

Upgrade: I wanted to use stuff I had around the house, but I didn’t want it to look like it was sitting around our house for years. So, I made some changes.

Vintage: Some of the crap I found, was vintage. Also, that’s the look I went for. If you call it Vintage, your old crap becomes “fashionable”. The half-assed paint job I did makes it look “shabby chic” instead of “done by a 5 year old in a rush”.

Weekend: The cleaning portion of this event, took all weekend. I’m not quite done with the full upgrade yet, be patient.

I do, however, have some pictures of the process so far that I will share.

Be prepared to be amazed. Or disgusted. Whatever. When I started this process, I didn’t have a lot of hope of it actually turning out. But I’m actually pleased to say I like it so far.

Here are the pictures of some things I’ve done:

This was my side of the room “before” we tackled it. The clutter was a bit much and my books were making my allergies act up.

I moved my bookshelf to our living room and got rid of so many books! I cried a little, but it was time to let them go.

This was the starting of cleaning and getting rid of clutter. I am really sick of brown. I really want to paint, but it’s a lot of work…

I did a makeover in our living room in September. Since I’m a hoarder, I still had our old lamps. But they needed some help.

In this picture you can see that I covered the lampshade in an old dress I don’t wear anymore. Plus, our new blanket is on our bed! So pretty!

But what the heck am I doing with all those buttons?!

And here you see some old windows from a torn down school. My husband bought these for my birthday a few years ago. I didn’t have a specific plan for them until now! Introducing my new headboard!

Hopefully…I have to get it on the wall still. And make it actually stay there so it doesn’t fall on us and kill us in our sleep. I don’t think my idea of duct tape will help us for long.

I will post an update once I finish this project. It’s taken me a lot longer than I thought it would. The windows are time-consuming for sure.

But, if I take the time now, I probably won’t die later from them falling on me.