Brief story time to kick off this DIY process: I lived in this apartment alone before Chris and I got married. I slept in a twin bed that was shoved into the corner of the room so as to gain as large a footprint as I could to do my furniture refinishing side-hustle in the rest of the space. After getting married, moving in together, and being generously gifted a queen-sized bed for our wedding: that floor plan was not gonna fly anymore.
My first attempt to make the space feel semi-homey (pictured above, left) meant incorporating a secondhand IKEA bed frame; $30 white cotton bedding; a couple of nightstands that I scored off Facebook Marketplace (thrift-flip here); and a narrow macrame wall hanging. Certainly improvements, but very simple and minimal. After living together in the space for a few months, the room felt lacking in three specific areas: beauty, functionality, and general coziness.
If your bedroom is also feeling bleak, utilitarian, and tired; these three easy projects will guaranteed cozy up your space too. Keep reading to find out what we did!
For Beauty: A Long Shelf Above The Bed
The perfect solution to fill such a tall and wide blank is a shelf. It adds personality, draws the eye up and out, and opens up opportunity to add beauty. My vision for ours was to house a bunch of cool thrifted items, essential oils, artwork, albums, dried florals, and taper candles. Mission accomplished, if I do say so myself. A shelf is the ultimate opportunity for styling and visual interest. (Check out my post on Pinterest-perfect shelf styling here!)
We used 2 cedar boards for our shelf (10x6x1) from Home Depot, cut to about 8ft9. This was long enough to extend past our nightstands in order to achieve our second easy DIY project. Use whatever stain colour you prefer (we used this) followed by 2-3 coats of protective finish (we used this). The shelf got secured to the wall using these super strong L brackets from Canadian Tire. (We spray painted them matte black for a more industrial look before installing.)
For Practicality: DIY Hanging Pendant Lights
Bedside lighting: an essential. However, using up half of the space on our bedside tables for a lamp; or drilling hardwired lights directly into the rental walls — were not options for us. Conveniently, we each each have outlets on either side of our bed. So, the plan was to hang a shelf that extends past the outside edges of each of our nightstands. This way, these Edison bulbs would hang centred over our nightstands from cup hooks in the underside of the shelf. This easy project provides us with ambient lighting while keeping our nightstands free of bulky table lamps.
These pendant lights are dimmable (a non-negotiable for nighttime lighting) and have black cables, amber bulbs, and brass accents. This perfectly ties them in with the warmth of the rest of the room. They’re industrial-looking, budget-friendly at about $30 each, and perfectly functional for what we needed!
For Comfort: Linen Bedding
A change in bedding is arguably be the most impactful change in this bedroom makeover. The DIY version of this plan was to dye the $30 white cotton IKEA bedding with onion skin dye in the summer (a DIY I still plan to do!) but time got away from me. Mid-fall was upon us, which meant that also upon us was Boxing Day. SOCCO Living has some of my favourite bedding and they had a sale on… So we went for it. We made the investment.
SOCCO Living has their own line of stonewashed linen bedding. Let me tell you that it is the lightest and softest bedding I have ever touched. It is stonewashed, meaning there is no need to break in this linen bedding. It is luxuriously soft upon purchasing, not scratchy at all. This bedding is lightweight enough to keep us cool in the summer, but insulating enough to keep us warm in the winter. Plus, we adore the rich colour and the lived-in wrinkles these sheets get after every sleep. My husband is an early-riser and even he has trouble getting out of bed when these sheets are in rotation. We got the full bedding bundle in the colour Camel. Do yourself a favour and check out their bedding here!
These three upgrades completely transformed our bedroom into a more functional, beautiful, cozy space. It went from being completely utilitarian to being a retreat to settle down in each night, and a warm awakening every morning.
Which one of these DIYs would you implement first? I’d love to know in the comments!
