Resale Decor

The following is a guest post from Kerry of The Simple Year One who although she doesn’t follow a STRICT buy nothing new policy any more, still tries to walk the walk.  This is the second in a series that focuses on furnishing and decorating with found and used items. 

First post in the series is HERE

MASTER BEDROOM

I just recently “decorated” our master bedroom.  This was after roughly 16-years of it being the ugliest, cluttered room in the house.   Our bedroom was the room that got unpacked last after every move with photos waiting to be hung leaning against the wall for months and stacks of off season clothes leaning in corners.   It was also the repository for anything that didn’t have another home like towers of unread magazines and projects to be worked on.

So last year, when I decided to paint the purple walls left over from the last homeowner.  I took a lesson from my friend, April who makes a living staging homes for sale.  She removes about 99.5% of the things from a home and then hangs something nice on the wall.

So that is what I did.

I painted the walls and hauled everything out. Then I only put back things I thought looked great in the space.   Since everything I own was purchased second hand, there were quite a few items I loved that didn’t really fit the new theme, those are the hardest to donate.  I find it best to immediately transfer items to the back of my car so I don’t second guess myself. It’s like ripping off a band-aid.

I had to find something nice for the wall.   I live in earthquake country so anything that hangs over the bed has to be soft or light enough that if it falls on you, it won’t kill you.  So, I started searching for a nice tapestry in neutral colors.  Which I thought would be pretty easy since when I WASN’T looking for one resale they seemed to be everywhere.  But, I couldn’t find one.

A few months passed and I picked a new one out online.  It was ready in the cart.

Then the resale winds blew in my favor.  I stopped by a resale clothing store next to a high end furniture store.  The furniture store was having a sidewalk sale and lying on top of a big heap was a cowhide rug made of hundreds of little pieces sewn together, that was completely beat up and had large sections missing.  It was a rug they used in the store.  It was technically not new.  I bought it for less then one tenth of its original price, cut off strips from the top and the bottom and used a glue gun to repair areas (not good for walking on, but fine for hanging on the wall), and then screwed it onto to the wall.

Last time I posted, I invited you to guess what I purchased new in my living room.  In my newly decorated bedroom there are three things in these photos that were purchased new.  Want to guess?

 

 

 

The items purchased new are, the comforter (although bed skirt and pillows are all resale items), the luggage rack (my husband is airline pilot and I was tired of his bag lying on floor when he was home) and the hamper.  Everything else was purchased used or handed down to us to including the furniture and my guitars which we shall call “functional art”.


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