The $105 Living Room Redecoration

Our old couch left a bit to be desired. It was ok, I guess. It didn't have any stains or tears, but it was getting a little squishy and after several years of having our living room done up in blue, I was ready for a change.

We also had an antique bedroom suite we couldn't use any more. We wanted to sell it as a set, but no one seemed interested in it when we put it in our last garage sale. So we listed it on our local craigslist. There was interested, but only in individual pieces, so we finally decided to break up the set. We sold the vanity table for $75.

That same day, we started looking at craiglist for new-to-us living room furniture. I found a Heritage House couch, just 2 years old,. It had a neutral tan background with burgundy and green stripes. It stops just shy of being too much color, in our opinion. It was still firm and in very good condition, so we bought it.



Now our living room really clashed, so we found two nice La-Z-Boy recliners. They came from two different homes, and aren't identically, but each is a tan color that goes well with the couch we'd just bought.



By now the house was overflowing with furniture, we sold one of our blue recliners on craigslist. The other blue recliner is for sale, too, but so far, no takers. We gave our old couch to Kat's daycare for the kids to sit on.

We had a blue area rug in the living room. It went downstairs under our exercise machine and we bought a new, inexpensive area rug in burgundy.

Finally we needed to do something about our old lamps. They were clear blue glass ginger jar style with flowers painted on. I bought one of those two-step paint kits that give a special effect to whatever it is you're painting. I chose the "leather look" kit because the color was the closest to what I needed. It was so simple. I taped off the base and socket of the lamps and spray painted the ginger-jar part with the base color. Once it dried, I brushed on the darker glaze, pressed on wrinkled up plastic wrap, then peeled it back off. They turned out looking great.



All that I have left to do is cover the blue throw pillows we use. I'm working on knitted covers using knitting looms and yarn I already had.

Our tally:

Couch: $80
Recliner #1: $65
Recliner #2: $45
Area rug: $30
Paint for lamps: $10
Pillow covers: $0

Vanity sold: - $75
Recliner sold: - $50

Total cost at this point: $105

If we can sell the other recliner and either the dresser or bed from the antique set, we'll actually be ahead, both in terms of money and space in the house.

We aren't the only ones. The folks at Not Made of Money are going to do the same thing with their dining room.