When I’m not putting together outfits, videos or tumbling, I really love to look at bedroom ideas and home decor. As a student, I live among 3 other housemates in a small townhome in the “student ghetto”, pretty much on the edge of my campus. When we moved in, our house was your typical, absolutely disgusting student house with walls that had questionable colour choices. I thought that it had potential, and I started the entire “makeover” with my mom in September the week we moved in. It was a ton of work, but I’m happy that I have a clean space now that I can relax and it was well worth the work… 

I feel that your bedroom is an extremely important place where it should feel relaxing and sanctuary-like. I wanted somewhere that was calm, girly – I like to dub it my “Taylor Swift” bedroom. I wanted a bedroom that you can “fall in love” in, somewhere soft, feminine and romantic. It went well with the type of room I had, with a slanted ceiling and wood panelled walls, I knew that this was going to be the best type of look suited for my bedroom. 

Pictures are worth 1000 words, so here are the before and afters:

DISCLAIMER: The “before” photos are what the room looked like before I moved in (what it looked like when the last tenants were there). How ugly it was before was out of my control… 

A great tip to have a small place seem bigger is ti MINIMALIZE the crap. Keep only the nice things out, and put the ugly things in under bed storage tucked away. Ugly things are well, ugly! Ugly things will make your room look UGLY, plain and simple. Also, painting the room white made it look fresh, bright and a lot larger than it was before. I used a lot of soft colours and kept the colour scheme of soft baby blue, white and pink. For those of you who are wondering, I have a Queen size bed, and the mattress sits quite low because I do not have a box spring. The sleigh bed is a family heirloom, and the desk and chair was repainted white and are vintage pieces. 

How minimalize all the sh*t (!) in your room: Ask yourself, what is important to have on display? What are important pieces to you? If it’s books, have a bookshelf, if it’s work, have a desk, if it’s sleep, try to invest in a larger bed. Pick 2 priority activities which you’ll be using your room for and stick to those. For me, it’s my desk/vanity and my bed (Priorites: Filming/blogging, working, sleep). 

Paint colour: “Cloud White” by Benjiman Moore

Tip 2: Matching – Although “Matching” could get a little out of hand, I suggest to try to find pieces that are useful as well as cohesive in a bedroom. The more mismatched things that you have, the more your room will look disheveled. This doesn’t mean that it was to be matchy matchy, eclectic/vintage is a look that I love as well,  but there is still a sense of cohesiveness with pieces that have an eclectic feel. Also, know your scale and proportions, try to find pieces that suit the shape and size of your room. 

Tip 3: Utilize your space: The way the closet was organized before was the worst way of using space ever. Look at all the empty space that could’ve potentially been used for storage. It is common for the student rooms to have closets like this where they are “built-in”. Personally, I can’t stand it, but I tried to make it work. I took out the rod in the closet, and moved the dresser (which she left behind) into the closet space so I’m able to use the other clothing rod beside, where I display my jackets and prettier clothing pieces. I also painted the background chevron to keep things interesting! 

Finally, not my bedroom but I wanted to show the before & after of my living room. What a difference paint colour makes! This is just to show that furniture does not have to necessarily match to look put-together. These are all vintage pieces (besides the bean bag chair) and having less couches makes the space looks brighter and much larger than it did before.

Overall, I hope this helps show how much the small home improvements make when trying to make the best of a bad/ugly space. I tried the best that I could!