In December, 2011 we bought a house that needed a gut job.  Every room needed something and some rooms needed everything.   We had a detailed budget and cash set aside for the kitchen and master bathroom project, but the rest of the rooms I planned to nickle and dime out of our monthly budget.  Little did I know that the nickles and dimes would average $600-$1,000 a room. This included craiglist and garage sale findings, sewing or building stuff, plus doing all the work ourselves.  If we did anything the easy way, it would triple our expenses.

I had an excuse for my poor decorating abilities for years. I didn’t want to spend the money on something so “superficial.”  The truth was I didn’t know where to start or how to decide what to buy that would make the room look right. Most of what I purchased to pretty up our home ended up a waste of money since things still felt “off. “So I decided it was all vain.  Deep down my environment mattered to me and the more cluttered and unfinished our space was (at one point we had a toilet sitting in our kitchen for months) the more depressed I got.

One day it occurred to me that God spent effort to put beauty in the world.  The flowers, trees, animals, landscape are all pretty amazing, even though we’re living outside the Garden of Eden.  I can’t imagine the scope of beauty that was inside. If he took that much care to create beauty and in turn created me in His image, then it was equally right for me to spend some effort to create beauty in my little corner of the world.

If you are working on a mock up for your room in powerpoint, like yesterday’s post mentioned, you can write down the costs of the items you chose and get the start of a budget.  You’ll be able to tell how much money you need to find/earn/save or if some of the items you picked out are just too expensive.

Here’s a budget, similar to what I used in my room, Caleb’s room, and Heather’s room.

Curtains: $30-$60

Area Rug: $200-$300

2 gallons of Wall Paint: $50

Trim Paint: $25 (One gallon will do a lot of rooms.)

Floor paint: $25 or New flooring: $600

Bedding: $50 (includes throw pillows)

Furniture: This widely varies.  You may be able to repurpose things you already have, or get some good Craigslist stuff to repurpose.  I repurposed a lot, but did buy a couch and bench for my bedroom for around $500 total.

Accessories: $200 (including wall art, organizing supplies, shelving etc.)

I cash flowed Caleb’s room from our spending freeze.  I used garage sale money for our master bedroom.  I can’t remember where the money for Heather’s room came from except that I saved up for nearly a year for it to be her amazing birthday gift.

When setting your budget, you’re going to go back and forth between the amount of cash you have on hand right now, the things you need to make the space just right, and how much cash you need to come up with to make up the difference.

How about you?  Does $1,000 a room seem like a crazy high budget amount?  Have you been able to do a room for less?