Now that the bathroom is finished, I’m moving on to other sprucing up projects around the house. As usual, I’m looking for ways to have a large impact without spending a lot of money. Our bedroom is average size for a smallish house. If we’re going to try to sell our house, anything we can do to make the room appear larger will be a plus. We don’t have a lot of furniture cluttering up the room (although sometimes when I get behind on laundry, the laundry basket takes on a life of its own), but I wanted to make more floor space available.
Our bed had a black metal headboard and foot board made of curving pipes. They didn’t look bad, but they did take up space. I knew that if we replaced the bed frame with one that just went under the bed, without a headboard or foot board, the bed would take up less space. Not the mention the fact that it’s a whole lot easier to make a bed when there’s no foot board. I wasn’t ready to revert to the college apartment look with a mattress on the floor, so I began my quest for a bed frame. I checked our local thrift stores a couple times, but didn’t have any luck. So I asked my parents to be on the lookout for one, since they go thrifting more often than I do. Within a week they brought us a bed frame that they found for $13. We replaced our old bed frame with the new one and the transformation is dramatic. The space between the foot of our bed and the shelves we made last year is about eight inches wider now. The bed looks great and is much less intrusive in the room. My next project is to sell our old frame on Craigs list. I think I’ll sell it for $25, which will be a bargain for someone else, and will mean that we come out $12 ahead on this bedframe swap.
I highly recommend an invisible bed frame (second hand, of course) if you’re trying to make a bedroom feel more spacious. And parents who like to scout around thrift stores looking for treasures are definitely a plus. A friend called when we were setting up our new bed frame; when I told her what we were doing, she commented on how we were helping the economy by buying a new bed frame. I laughed and reminded her that she knows me better than that! Unless we’re talking about the second-hand economy, in which case I’m all about giving it a boost.
Kelly says
I am trying to get my husband to take the headboard off our bed frame. I think it will make the room look bigger and it is a change that will cost nothing!
smartgirl says
If you want to have a nice “decor” look for your bed without sacraficing floor space, find a great piece of artwork to hang above your bed… Or, buy a couple of mirror and hang horizontally on the wall above the bed. Then use pillows of different colors for added drama and texture.
FrugalBabe says
Smartgirl – Great point. My plan is to blow up a photo into poster size, find a nice frame at a thrift store, and hang that over our bed. I had been thinking about it for a while, and it was part of my thought process with getting rid of the bed frame. We have some great pictures that we’ve taken over the years, and our local thrift store usually has a ton of big frames that don’t cost an arm and a leg. So we’ll see what I come up with…
Gizimmick says
Until recently there was so much waste in North America. I guess those folks are learning now. Anyway, second hand is best because it reduces the wasteful lifestyle that caused this recession. Also, many second hand stores help good causes.