How to create an inexpensive boho basket wall – One Room Challenge Week 2

Hello everyone! This is week 2 of the One Room Challenge. If you are finding me through the One Room Challenge, welcome to my blog where I share my passion for creating comforting homes by thrifting, sewing and a little diy-ing along the way! While I’m not averse to buying new. I love being able to stretch a budget AND get that “layered over time” look that comes from incorporating pieces that have had a previous life! You can follow my decorating journey on the HomeSpunStyle Instagram.

If you missed my post from Week 1 where I revealed my design board for a college apartment living area makeover, you can find it here.

This week I am focusing on the walls. The living room has two large blank walls and I needed to find an inexpensive way to cover the bulk of the area and camouflage as much of the yellow paint as possible. Keep in mind this is campus housing so no permanent changes allowed!

Wall art (landscapes, portraits, abstracts, etc) is very personal and I realized early on the impracticality (not to mention the expense) of trying to merge the styles of 5 design students! So my solution for the largest wall was to do a basket grouping. Because baskets are neutral, a basket wall really just serves as a textural background that can work with almost any decor.

I’ve been thrifting baskets over the past year, hoping for a project for which I could use them! On average I paid $1 per basket. Some were as little as 25 cents and a couple of them were as much as $3. Still a good deal.

This is definitely a job for 2 people – one to hold the baskets up to the wall and another to stand back and figure out placement. My daughter Elizabeth and I started in the upper right corner of the wall and worked downward to the left side of the wall. We were mindful of the color, texture and size of each basket in order to assure a balanced composition. Here’s how the wall looked after we had installed half the baskets:

To attach them to the wall, we used a variety of 3m Command strips and hooks. For baskets that laid flat against the wall we used the strips.

For baskets that we hung with the concave side facing the wall, we used Command hooks. With a couple of the baskets, it was more secure to make a loop out of strong thread and hang the basket off of the loop. Using a needle, it was easy to slip the thread through the woven slats of the basket and create a loop on the back side like this:

I decided to add a few air plants to the basket wall for two reasons: 1) to help purify the air and 2) there’s just nothing like plants to add life to the room! Faux plants would have been easier but I knew my daughter would appreciate the real thing. She has a healthy plant obsession and a green thumb!

I purchased 5 air plants – 1 large, 1 medium and 3 small. We “eyeballed” the placement to evenly disperse them.

We also had to come up with a way to secure them so that Elizabeth could easily take them down for a weekly water bath. We tried a few things but in the end used a combination of green floral wire wrapped loosely around the base of the plant, jute twine and paper clips.

In total I spent about $20 for 16 baskets and the attachment supplies. I’d say we got a big bang for the buck!

I’ll be back next Thursday with more progress on my College Apartment Living Room Makeover. Be sure to check out all of the other Guest Participants in the One Room Challenge to follow along with their progress!

Debra