Redesigning My Bedroom for £200

My bedroom had been the room I never got around to. Everywhere else in the flat had been considered, slowly, over a couple of years — and the bedroom stayed exactly as it was when I moved in, mostly because I told myself it didn't matter since no one else saw it.

I gave myself a strict £200 and one weekend. The budget forced good decisions: I couldn't buy my way out of a bad layout, so I had to actually think about how the room worked. I moved the bed to the wall opposite the window, which took all of ten minutes and did more for the room than anything else I did that weekend.

Most of the money went on paint — a warm, chalky off-white for the walls that cost about £40 and changed the whole feel of the light in there. The rest went on a secondhand lamp I found for £15, a set of linen cushion covers, and a small rug to cover a patch of carpet I'd never liked.

The thing I didn't spend money on, and probably should have thought about sooner, was just clearing things out. Two boxes of stuff I didn't need went to a charity shop, and the room felt twice as big before I'd changed a single other thing.

It's not a finished room, and I still want a better headboard eventually. But it's now a room I actually enjoy being in, which is a strange thing to admit took me this long to prioritise. £200 well spent, and mostly on the version of myself who was willing to move the bed.