Mini Bedroom Refresh on a Tight Budget

A few months ago, I shared plans for an impromptu mini refresh of our primary bedroom on a tight budget. Although it was not on our list of projects for 2023, my husband seemed eager to paint, and I struck while the iron was hot. Only problem was… we hadn’t budgeted for a bedroom makeover, so I had very little money to work with. $500, to be exact. That meant no big-ticket items like furniture or light fixtures. Did I stay within budget? Read on, friends…

*product sources are linked throughout for your convenience

bedroom before

The biggest priority was painting the walls. I love green, and I love a blue and green combo, but the color wasn’t bringing the right vibe. We wanted something more serene. We had leftover BM Dove Wing from our kitchen renovation, so we went with that. The result really speaks to the power of paint. Given the budget, we did not make any other substantial changes, but the whole room feels dramatically different.

the after

As you can see from the bed wall photo, the only elements that changed are paint color, drapes, and the abstract art we added. The art serves to add a bit more visual interest and height to that wall.

As an aside, Dove Wing looks pretty yellow in the photo above. It’s not the best representation of the color — if anything, the undertones are more taupe-y with maybe just the slightest hint of violet. The TV wall photo below is a closer match. (For a refresher on undertones and how lighting affects expression of paint color, check out this post.)

We replaced the navy drapes with other navy drapes. As you can see in the before photo, the old drapes did not go all the way to the ceiling. We replaced them with these pinch-pleat drapes, which go ALLLLLL the way up. They are also much wider, which allowed us to set the rod wider than the window, giving the illusion of a wider window.

On the opposite wall, we mounted the TV. That was one of those things I just hadn’t gotten around to because I figured it wasn’t a big deal. Wrong! Mounting the TV on the wall was right up there with new paint in terms of changing the whole feel of the room. The TV no longer takes up feet of physical and visual space, as it did when it sat on top of the dresser. The before is below for comparison.

Finally, we moved some art and photos around, shopped our home for a few decorative accessories, and purchased a few new items, like this lamp and a jewelry organizer. The jewelry organizer is great! It is made up of stackable trays and drawers, so you can customize your storage to the types of pieces you have.

And now for the moment you’ve been waiting for: I went over budget 🙁 But not by much! The grand total for this mini makeover was $563. I hope this peek into our bedroom refresh has shown that you can achieve a totally new feel in a space with just a gallon of paint (or two) and a few small tweaks. Thanks for stopping by!