High Style / Low Budget College Apartment Makeover Reveal – One Room Challenge Week 6

Hello! If you’re 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 “collected over time” look that comes from incorporating pieces that have had a previous life! You can follow my decorating journey on the HomeSpunStyle Instagram.

Here’s a round up of the first 5 weeks if you missed them:

• Week 1 – Before photos and design board
• Week 2 – Boho basket wall
• Week 3 – DIY kilim pillows
• Week 4 – DIY mid-century style plant stand
• Week 5 – DIY yarn wall art for $10 or less

Okay enough of the sneaky peaky tight shots! Today is the day we reveal the entire college apartment living room makeover.

As with all college housing, the main challenge was working within the “no changes to the walls” rule, as well as designing around the safety bulletins, fire extinguishers and illuminated exit signs required to be on display at all times. And of course college housing is temporary housing, so it doesn’t make sense to invest in pieces that will only work for this space.

Frankly, I love working within constraints! It really gets the creative juices flowing and puts me in “full on” thrifting mode!

BACK STORY

The apartment is actually a two-story townhouse shared by my daughter and her four roommates. All of them are third year design students, ranging from fashion, to textiles, to interior design to architecture. I was pleasantly surprised that they would even allow me to take the reigns on making over the common areas with all that creative talent among them. Then again, they are all busy with their studies and have no money!

I really just wanted to bless them with a comforting “home away from home” that had some style and character. One look at their depressing bare bones apartment with the stained and tattered furniture was all the motivation I needed. And, the One Room Challenge just happened to come at the right time to really push me into action!

BEFORE

The layout of the living room/kitchen is essentially one open space, separated visually by the entrance from the front door. The living room is on the left. All the walls are yellow. The floors are laminated hardwood (thankful they weren’t carpeted).

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The front entrance separates the living room on the left from the kitchen on the right.

THE DESIGN PLAN

My approach to the space was to:

• use the college-supplied furniture
• use accessories we already had
• add much needed task lighting
• camouflage the yellow walls to the extent possible
• soften the hard edges with textiles (slipcovers, area rug, curtains, pillows)
• create a boho vibe with baskets and plants
• thrift, diy and as a last resort purchase retail

Here’s my mood board for the space:

The furniture was pretty shabby with burn marks, stains and worn areas. And when the girls told me they found a sock in the sofa from the previous tenants, we were all pretty grossed out. So the first major purchase was slipcovers. I purchased these on Amazon. For $75 for 3 pieces, I felt this was a much needed spend. The fabric is a dark grey, stretch velour. I really liked the texture. Here you can see the before and after.

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The next big purchase was a 5 x 7 area rug. I wasn’t finding anything suitable at the thrift stores, so I bit the bullet and purchased this wool tufted rug from Target. The colors were perfect for the things we already had and I was drawn to its geometric design and great texture. I was able to get it on sale for $125. Here’s a progress shot (before slip covers) with the rug in place:

Next I addressed the window which desparately needed softening. Because we couldn’t permanently attach a curtain rod, I purchased the lightest rod and lightest curtain panels I could find, and installed them using three, 5 pound 3m command hooks (left, right and middle). I hung them high and wide which is one of my favorite tricks for making a window look bigger.

Above the sofa, I used a Target throw that I purchased on clearance a few years ago. I’ve used it in other spaces, including Elizabeth’s first dorm room. It adds some really great texture and fills up the wall. It too is hung with command hooks.

The boho basket wall really gave the room the biggest bang for the buck. I shared how we installed them here, but yeah, you guessed it, more command hooks. All the baskets were thrifted for very little money. We layered in a few air plants for added interest.

With the walls, floor and furniture addressed, I moved on to smaller accessories and lighting. I made 2 kilim style pillows from one $5 Five Below rug which you can read about here. I love how they turned out. The square white fur pillow, the rose denim lumbar, and the blush throw shown in the photos were from Elizabeth’s stash.

For lighting, I started with a black wire tripod floor lamp that I had purchased last year from Target but wasn’t using.

I purchased two matching Ikea Alang lamps for $25 each. Besides the price, I also liked that they were adjustable in height.

One of the things we did that really helped with the functionality of the space was to split up the two tables that were in the kitchen. The girls never all eat together so seating for five in the kitchen was not only unnecessary but also made the kitchen very cramped. By moving one of the tables to the living room, we created a nice little desk area which is already getting lots of use.

While the desk is higher than the end table at the opposite end of the sofa, I was able to adjust the lamp on the left to be taller and also elevate it with books so that the eye doesn’t really notice the difference in heights.

For accessorizing, I went with a lot plants. most of which we already had. Elizabeth enjoys them and I appreciate the air-cleaning quality of house plants, especially in a college setting! My husband made two mid-century style plant stands for the room which gave us better display options. I posted a tutorial on them here. The plant stand in the foreground was a Target purchase last year.

Books were our second accessory. I love books for styling and I am always on the lookout for them when thrifting. I rarely pay more than a $1 for a book and often find them for 25 cents! Over the course of six weeks, I was able to find an assortment of design books that I thought reflected the interests of the 5 young women who live here. And here’s a tip — often the real gem is the hard cover so don’t be deterred by the dust jacket!

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I use them as “pedestals” for smaller items and to elevate things like the lamp.

While this officially ends the Fall 2019 One Room Challenge, I’ll be back next week to share the details on how we gave their kitchen a little boho vibe too!

Be sure to check out all of the other Guest Participants in the One Room Challenge to see their finished rooms.  And check out the amazing spaces created by the 20 Featured Participants!

Debra