Today I’m going to start a new series called Make it Happen for $1000. With this series, I’ll pick a beautiful room, then source items for that room for a total of $1000 or less.
The challenge
My challenge with this is that I do so much thrift shopping, and I’ve been fortunate to have a lot of family items in my home, so I rarely have to furnish a room entirely from retail. The one room in this home that I did, our library for the One Room Challenge, I came in at over $1200. I want to challenge myself to show my readers that beautiful rooms are possible at any budget, even if you are starting from scratch.
Now, on to the show!
Make it Happen for $1000- a light and bright cottage beach house
I found this beautiful beach cottage on Coastal Living and fell in love. It’s exactly what I picture in a beach cottage: light and bright, lots of white, but still plenty of color and pattern.
What I really love is that they didn’t stick to a typical “beachy” color palette. The red with the turquoise is such a great combination, and I love the pops of pink!
So what do you think the biggest challenge for sourcing in this page is? It’s the showstopper, of course- the slipcovered chair. You can tell it’s a custom made slipcover and definitely not off the rack. In fact, the sourcing for the article says it was bought at a local antique shop.
Here’s what I did:
Yeah, it’s not quite as cute as the original. But it does come pretty close to capturing that light, bright, beachy feel. And, except for the stuff on the coffee table, it all comes in under a grand.
The two biggest challenges were the chair, of course, and the coffee table. The coffee table would have totally been doable if the budget would have been a little higher.
Make it Happen for $1000-budget and sources
*Affiliate links included
Here’s the breakdown:
Couch– 499.99
Red and white chair– 167.99
Table– 102.99
Aqua chair– 113.99
Artwork– 29.92
Lamp– 29.99
Curtains– 4.99
White Pom Pom pillow– 18.74
Red/white small print pillow cover– 6.00
Red/pink/white pillow cover– 6.00
Small white rectangular pillow– 10.00
Total: $990.60- under budget!
3 Ways to Make it Happen in this room for even less, with a lot more charm
A big reason why this room has so much charm is the collected vibe that it has. It’s really hard to get that when you buy a lot of stuff brand new off the shelf- unless you have a pretty big budget.
The answer? Thrifting!
There are three pieces in this room that I wouldn’t buy new if I had this budget to work with- the striped chair, the coffee table, and the artwork.
I see vintage/antique chairs in that shape for next to nothing in antique and consignment shops all the time! It would be easy to find one that you like and then have a custom slipcover made. Yes, you’d probably end up dropping about $400-$500, depending on the fabric and your local cost for having the slipcover made, but that would be much less expensive than trying to source one, and you’d have a beautiful, custom piece.
You could also try your hand at sewing a slipcover yourself. I see tutorials on Pinterest all the time, but I’ve never done one that intricate, personally.
The coffee table is a statement piece too, but the vintage (and dare I say, slightly ’80s esque) lines mean that I often see tables much like this at thrift stores for around twenty bucks or less. If you loved the color, you could easily spray paint it. You’d have a much better piece at half the price.
For art, I definitely find unique, beautiful artwork thrifting all the time. One of my absolute favorite pieces was found for less than $5 at Goodwill! (Here’s a post I wrote all about great sources for artwork!)
If you want me to feature a room that you are interested in for Make it Happen, just email a pic to me to Beth@avenuelaurel.com, and I will be happy to take a shot at it 🙂
PS- I’ll see you back here tomorrow for a $100 Room Challenge update!
