Styling your home can be tricky, especially when you do not have thousands of dollars to spend on a designer’s opinion. Having recently graduated from college and starting this new chapter in the business/career world, I do not have a lot of money to be spending on myself or my apartment for that matter.

I recently moved into a nicer apartment with an actual dining space (unlike my college apartment). The area between our kitchen and living room is an awkward distance and needed some type of furniture to break up the two spaces. We decided we wanted to ground the unnamed territory with a dining room table. Unfortunately, none of us had a table or the money to buy a new one with four chairs.

Living Area (Yes, I know the tile and its placement is beautiful)

Most people would see these two areas and be confused as to how to fill the gap, if not that where to place the furniture to fill the gap. Adding a dining room table to our little/oddly big apartment would give us another place to eat dinner together, but more importantly gives us a better surface to play our favorite card game on, Nertz!

Since we were not looking to buy a brand new table, I opened up Facebook Marketplace to scroll upon a great find. It took a few days to find the one we wanted… especially for the best price that we could find. $15!! Many of the tables I was clicking on were one hundred dollars or more. Below you’ll see the Facebook Ad and although its not beautiful, you have to see through that to the potential it has! I will explain how to make it not so ugly in your home.

See.. a product not a lot of people would be intrigued by to add to their new home. But, we were excited and ready to add more to the new place we were calling home. One aspect of it we were not intrigued by was carrying the (what felt like 100 pounds) table up three flights of stairs.

Finally, it was brought up the stairs and placed in its designated location, it was a little under whelming but it was going to work for what we were needing. Again, let me tell you $15.

After walking past it everyday for a week, I realized the area needs a little TLC, to not be so under whelming and become an area where I am proud to show guests when they come over.

This is the part where I’m going to explain to you how to get a designer look without the designer price.

This table (like any furniture piece) needed texture, color, and dimension. Instead of searching through target’s very beautiful, yet very expensive home decor, I started by searching through my moms’ Home Goods of a basement. This is always a great place to start when accessorizing any area in your home; with things you or a family member may already have, reuse and recycle. Luckily, I have a mom with excellent taste and likes to change up her home decor often to have many things lying around looking for a new home.

Texture - Adding a cloth table runner in a neutral color pallet to extend across the entire table. Don’t have a table runner laying around, or one you like? Run to Joann Fabrics and look through their clearance section for a fabric that sparks your creative interest. Take it up to the cutting counter to have the professional cut it to the size you want. Don’t forget to measure your table :)
-Wood grain from the trey, any color or type of wood grain would look nice. Natural wood with strong grain lines are very in right now. Metal is a great texture to add as well, especially if you like more of the industrial aesthetic.
-Greenery is another great type of texture to add, weather it be live succulents or a fake wreath.
Color - As you will come to find, I am not always drawn towards a lot of color, but muted tones are very in right now and is something I can get on board with using in the spaces I design. Colors can be brought in subtle ways, like not shown in pictures, but the table runner has a small red detail at the ends that tie in with our red couches. Another color is brought in by the greenery. Add a candle for not only color but also a cute label to tie things together. Try to keep colors and items used in sets of three, that is a number that is appealing to the eye without even knowing.
Dimension - With any area you accessorize you need to have dimension to keep your eye moving and engaged. Play with different heights, lengths and item thicknesses to achieve this look.

Three frames with wallpaper as the focal point.

The wall was looking a little bare above the table and needed some love. If you remember from my last blog post (https://skylershielddesign.com/blog/2019/8/29/learning-how-to-restore-furniture), this is the same stick and peel wallpaper that I installed in the hutch. I had a small amount leftover, and instead of tossing it I decided to recycle it and use in picture frames we were not using.

If you do not have the resources or like or your used items great home decor stores with amazing prices are Hobby Lobby, Home Goods, and Tj Maxx. Remember to check the clearance first for the best deals!

Happy Shopping!! And, drop your recycled and reused styled spaces in the comments.

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