So ever since we bought the house money has been tighter. I have a really hard time spending money on things I don’t really need. It is a blessing and a curse. Unfortunately our house wasn’t exactly the way I wanted it when we moved in. Little by little I am making changes. One of the things that has been driving me crazy are the bedrooms. We have just made them work. Meaning is there a mattress in the room?....then yes you have a place to sleep.
I have been putting it off because honestly I lacked inspiration. No matter what I thought I wanted it just wasn’t right. So I gave up, then inspiration came knocking. My good friend asked me out of the blue if I wanted this totally amazing toy chest. I took one look at it and said “Uh, yes!!” It is seriously so beautiful, and great for a lot of toys. Well the American flag on the front made me think, red, white, blue, nautical. So I started searching for bedding. It never ceases to amaze me how expensive bedding is. I found this beauty at Pottery Barn kids, and of course I almost choked, I can’t justify spending $70 on a duvet cover when money is tight. Especially when I have the skills to make my own. So I tried and tried to come up with a more practical economic way of duplicating this, and it finally came to me.
I went to Walmart and bought 3 flat sheets at $4.00 a piece. Two red and one white. I already had a down comforter so I went ahead and measured that. I then began cutting my sheets into long strips. I made each strip 6” tall by the width of the sheet. I then laid them out red/white/red/white. Then I started sewing. I think it is easier to work with less fabric at a time so I just sewed each red to a white. Then took those strips and sewed them to another pair until I was sewing 4 strips to 4 strips, and 8 strips to 8 etc. I went ahead and did the whole duvet cover in french seams. I read this girls blog and decided to give it a try. I decided I wanted to try and brush up on some new skills and actually try to make it look as professional as possible.
I went ahead and did this until they were all together and then sewed my big sheet of stripes to one of my solid red sheets. I then finished the top, I decided to do buttonholes at the top. I had never done that before, that was fun, and actually ended up looking really nice.
Going into it I thought, this might not work out. I was a little worried about putting so many strips together. I didn’t want the seams to detract from the cover. I wanted it to look fluid. (I think the one at Pottery Barn is just dyed red and white, so there were no actual seams). I wanted to create that same look. Well I have to say I surprised myself. I think it turned out even better than I imagined and I like it even better than the one at pottery barn. Plus it was dirt cheap and I have a deep sense of satisfaction in the fact that I created it. So here it is.
And here is the before and After of Austin’s room. What an improvement. I love it, and overall I spent almost no money on his entire room. I repainted using paint we already had, it is a light grey we used for our upstairs. I went ahead and bought a bulletin board for $8.00 and painted the trim blue. I bought the stars from a consignment sale for $2.50, (I bought them last years so I don’t even factor that into the price because I bought them originally to have around on the 4th). I had the shelf from Ikea but had never actually opened it. I bought the fabric for the curtains for $4.00 when they were 60% off after the 4th of July. I then used leftover fabric for throw pillows. I painted the Chevron sign all with materials I had around the house. Everything else you see was already lying around in my grand stash of stuff. So in total Austin’s complete room makeover cost me around $25.00. Not bad.
