Creating Your Dream Space On A Small Budget | Step By Step Guide

hey guys welcome back to another video i am really excited about this one today i have my laptop right here that I'm looking at as I talk to you so if I keep looking over here that is why but this topic has been very highly requested over the years as I was doing renovations in my old home lots of people just asking like what is the process of you designing a space so really what the thought process is behind it how do you stick to such a tight budget because I think that's another thing that I've always really tried to do is do things at a ridiculously low budget but ultimately what is the whole process of going from an idea to having the room complete so what I'm going to do today is I'm going to use an example of I had somebody send me an idea of a room that they wanted so they got this image off of Pinterest i'm going to share it right here and this is a family room slash maybe this could also be like a library it actually looks very similar to my old family room i mean even like the pitch the beams the ship up on the ceiling that's where our fireplace was so it looks pretty similar um the style is different but it looks pretty similar to the layout of my old family room so I had somebody send me this image and she said "This is what I want my living room to look like right now it looks nothing like that just everything's blank walls blank ceiling." And so her question was "How would I go from this room to this room?" So what I'm going to do in this video today is walk you through let's say that you hired me to come and help you with this room this is exactly the process that I would go through with you there are two main questions I would first have and one of them is what is your budget for this room because that will really determine pretty much everything all of the materials that we use really that's number one what's your budget for this room and the other question is to really focus on what exactly is it about this space that you like for example maybe you are just like I have to have shiplap on the ceiling like it's the shiplap on the ceiling with the beams like that is the thing that is drawing my eye that's what I want the most or maybe it's the color of paint maybe it's like that dark tone up against that stone fireplace maybe that's what it is maybe it's literally everything like you just want it to look identical to this image and if that's the case then we would just really work around whatever your budget is so for example let's say that you have a very low budget let's say your budget is $2,000 okay and you love everything about this room but maybe like the trim all of the trim that you see all over the room maybe you're like I don't really care for that that would save you a lot of money maybe you're just going to be painting it that's one way you can cut costs another way is looking at the ship up on the ceiling there is a really inexpensive way to do this you can get on Facebook Marketplace and look for old fencing people usually are just getting rid of it and we have actually used material like that in our home so we've used free fencing before and did an entire wall with it and it was really cool i'll try to find a picture and show you guys right here but that is something you could do you could get all of that shiplap technically for free and if you wanted it to be white you could just paint it and slap it up on the ceiling now it wouldn't look as seamless as this shiplap does this is shiplap that you just would buy at either Home Depot or at Lowe's but again if you need to cut cost that would be just one example of a way you could do that let me just give you a quick tip when it comes to paint color because I swear to you I always mess this up if you guys had any idea how many times I've repainted a room I think every room in my house was painted like three times before I decided that's the color that I want but here is a suggestion for you when it comes to paint color I went and grabbed the closest paint that I could to this color so this is the color that I found this is Benjamin Moore 1575 Rainy Afternoon so what I did is I got a couple paint samples there's six of six of them here i taped them together and then what I would suggest is tape it on the wall that you are going to be painting it on pay attention to it all throughout the day and just see if that is a color that you could stand on your wall because once you get it in your actual space you might think that is way too dark like I can't do that so my suggestion is you know get a big enough piece that you can have an idea cuz I think just like one little square is kind of hard to tell stick it on the actual wall that you are going to be painting and you might be surprised maybe get a couple a little bit lighter shade and just see like all right you know what i think I'm going to go with a lighter version or maybe this one is perfect another way you can do this is get actual paint samples and just paint a few streaks of different colors on the wall that you're painting and then you can make your decision from there another question that she had is once you like know exactly what you're doing what's the order that you would do this in i always start with the ceiling then the walls then the floor i would have her start with doing the shiplap then the beams and if she has a really tight budget I would recommend wrapping beams so just getting like a 2x4 or a 2x6 you get that up on the ceiling after you do the shiplap and then you wrap it i have a couple videos actually that I can link below of how to do that how to use inexpensive wood and turn it into a beam so that is what I would suggest for the ceiling now let's talk about the fireplace okay one example would be if I'm talking to you and you don't even have let's say you don't even have a fireplace you love the look of this fireplace maybe you just like you love the stone look of this fireplace i have a video that I could share you with this too because if you are on a really really tight budget and you don't have an existing fireplace and maybe you don't have a place in your room where you could even have a real fireplace I will show you an example of where we did this in our last house the total cost was I think around $300 or less to from building out the fireplace with the insert and everything but it was it looked like a real stone fireplace there are really inexpensive materials you can use so I just got this it was actually plastic these little pieces that I ordered off of Amazon and then you just puzzle them together and then I grouted over the top of it to give it that overgrouded look but it made the stones look realistic the stones are 3D i mean when people would see this in my bedroom they would feel it and think it was real i mean it looked so realistic so if it's a budget thing that's what I would recommend is going with you know there are inexpensive materials you guys you can find so I'm going to be linking by the way I will be linking everything that I talk about in this video i will have links for everything everything that I'm showing you on the screen right now I will do my best to link what I can that is a way you could do a really inexpensive fireplace as far as if you wanted like an actual real fireplace what I would do from there is I would send her links of stones or or locations that are around her where she could go find this exact kind of stone it looks to me like the beam across like the mantle right here would be very similar to the way that you would you know if you were wrapping beams you were doing it that way i would just do it the same way here flooring you know this is another thing if you are on a really really tight budget I would be going with LVP something you know not real hardwood maybe she already has hardwood in fact I think she does they were just ripping up their carpet and they had wood so then it would just be a matter of staining it now let's zoom over here to these bookshelves what I would recommend for these is I would get pre-made cabinets you can find these at Lowe's or Home Depot again I will have these linked and depending on the depth right there you would either get upper cabinets or bottom cabinets upper cabinets are a lot thinner and in fact when we did our space that looks pretty similar to this we used upper cabinets because the depth there wasn't much right there to work with so we went ahead with upper cabinets but then we just built a base so we built something for them to sit on so that they would be taller so that's really the difference between an upper cabinet and a lower cabinet also there's a pretty big price difference as well in this case I would probably assume these are upper cabinets i'm just going to assume that I would have them build out the base add the upper cabinets there so that it's tall enough and then with the bookshelves you you really can just get some from IKEA you could even find some maybe at the thrift store i would be searching on Facebook Marketplace for bookshelves in fact I found some pretty similar to that the other day somebody was selling like five bookshelves for $50 you could really get this whole look for a very small budget you even could go as far as setting some bookshelves right here and then kind of building out the cabinets around it if you have if you know someone that's pretty handy that could do this work for you that's another way you could do that that you could save some money as far as these bookshelves go what I would do is if you're getting some bookshelves from IKEA or maybe you found some on Facebook Marketplace the key to making this look like built-ins is just adding trim around it so I would be just getting some thicker pieces of trim you can see here they ran it up the sides and then on the top do some crown molding that will really give it a seamless look and make it look like it's a true built-in and then you can also see up here they have some lights and this will really finish off the look this is a way to avoid any electrical work is they have battery operated sconces lights that you could put on your bookshelves i've used these on a wall i will show you an example right here where they're just battery operated you can click on them or they'll have like a little remote if you want that's the way that I would do this plus they are so dang cheap they're so inexpensive that's the smartest way I think that I would do that and then you can also see they have a little bit of shape here so you can either get some corbals and insert them there it kind of looks like they're just using pieces of trim i do think that those little trim pieces do add to it and I like the look of the little scallops there on the side so it would just really be you can either trim it in or get some corbals and just pinel them in so as far as the room design that's the way that I would do this i would start again let's start with the ceiling we're going to do the shiplap we're going to do the beams if that's something that they want then we're going to do the walls if they want to do the trim pieces that's that's what that is just shooting some trim pieces on the wall obviously the fireplace too if that's something that they want i do think that's a pretty big statement piece here so I would definitely recommend that and then I would be working on the floors from there this is where the fun part is because you take away all of the decorations it's just not the same so when it comes to filling up the space with furniture and decorations again we're going to just pretend she wants it literally identical to this space so let's start here in the bookshelves what I do when it comes to decorating is I try to just grab things from around the house that I already have chances are you already have a bunch of books laying around so you probably don't need to go buy any books if you do I recommend the thrift store i'm going to recommend the thrift store honestly first for anything even as far as the containers for the plants if you want a bunch of plants check your thrift store they have a ton of baskets there too that's where I always find baskets for a really really inexpensive price and then as far as furniture pieces go right here this desk I'm going to have some linked below that are affordable i actually have this one it's a Martha Stewart one that's really I think it's $2.99 and it's from Amazon it looks really similar to this that I would suggest but if you wanted to even find one for cheaper I always start looking on Facebook Marketplace because you can be really specific about what you're looking for that would be the way that I would first thrift everything so get on Facebook Marketplace type in what you're looking for so you're just going to be searching for like an office desk wooden office desk a few months ago I actually wanted to finish this area right here in my room and the depth of the space that I had right here I knew an actual desk would be too wide so I was actually searching on Facebook Marketplace for an entryway table and that's actually what fit perfectly right here so that's something else you know you can be looking up entryway table an office desk to find something then you can also make it exactly how you want it so maybe you find something that is a little bit orange you can just sand it down and make it this exact color so thrifting is number one that's probably the best way for you to stay on budget but as far as furniture pieces go I would say the most affordable ones I ever find are Wayfair and Amazon that is usually the places I will search for first when it comes to furniture and for these pieces you can see like a little office chair i will have everything that I could find for a very small budget linked below oh and let's not forget the rug i'll have a few rug options too all right so this is how in the past I have designed my own spaces i always start with okay here's our budget these are the first things that we're going to do and I do it in a certain order so that I know okay we're on budget i don't obviously get everything at once we'll start with the ceiling and let's see what's left in our budget right as you are going you'll kind of see all right well my budget's getting really tight now i really don't have much room in my budget for furniture and that is why I always recommend thrifting cuz you can find what you're looking for on really the smallest budget okay so now what I wanted to do was I wanted to make some kind of way for me to be able to do this for any of you guys if you have a space in your house that you would like some help with for example let's say your bedroom it's just super plain you don't love it but you have some design inspiration what I would like you to do is send me an email i will have an email linked right here send me an email with the before picture and then your inspiration picture so what you want your room to look like and then also what your budget is and I'm going to be picking some people where I will do a video similar to this i will link everything for you and I will kind of walk you through the process and then I will just make a YouTube video out of it if you want just a personal one-on-one you can send me an email and we can discuss that but if you are okay with me just turning this into a YouTube video then we can do that as well so I will have my email linked here you can just shoot me an email and I will do my best to respond to every single one of you but I just think that this will be a really fun series on my channel and it will just be a way for me to get my creative juices flowing i'm dying here you guys it is so hard for me to not just be designing and remodeling i mean that was just something I was doing on a daily basis for the most part for like the past eight years anyway that's it for this video thank you guys so much for watching and I'll see you guys in the next one [Music]