My DIY and Frugal Tiny Romantic Bedroom

In honor of Valentines day, I wanted to share a post that I planned on sharing with you for a while already, but never got around to it because it was still a work in progress. But now, finally, with Valentines day looming, I got the push to get what I needed to get done (as much as I could anyhow) so I could share it with you today. Though we are in the process of getting divorced, I still don't think it diminishes from the fact that my bedroom is a romantic bedroom, even if there isn't currently romance happening there.

In our old apartment, our bedroom was the storage room for nearly the entire house. There was no storage space in my house, nor space period, so things were piled up higher and higher in our room and everywhere. Instead of my bedroom being a peaceful enjoyable place to be in, it was the room in my house I least liked, and I avoided being in it whenever possible.

Once we planned to move to our new house, I said that I'd make my bedroom a wonderful room, a room that is enjoyable to be in, my little haven. In addition to that, since Mike hated going away, I never really got to go on these romantic vacations to these honeymoon type suites that I'd seen in advertisements. I decided that it would be cheaper, and nicer, to just design my bedroom as if it were one of those romantic getaways, so I wouldn't need to "get away" to have that nice time, but have it in my day to day life. That way every day could be a romantic stay-cation.

The thing is, I had two very big issues to contend with.

Money.

We were on quite a tight budget for this.

And space.

The master bedroom in our house is literally the smallest room we have.

It is 85 square feet total.

I tried to figure out how to make this teeny space my dream bedroom, my haven, my romantic spot, a place where I'd want to spend time, and made me feel happy and smile and have nice dreams.


To get ideas, I perused Pinterest a lot. I looked at different bedrooms for ideas of what spoke to me. I thought about what colors made me happy and got me into a relaxed and peaceful mood. I thought about which things spoke romance to me.

And I came up with what we have in our room.

I have to say I love my room more than I thought would be possible. I love my house, and without a doubt, my bedroom is my favorite room in my house. That is saying a lot, because I adore my living room/dining room and kitchen, and I love so many things about my house. But my room is my favorite.

And because of how we designed it, you really can't feel how tiny it is. It seems decent sized, despite its ridiculously small proportions.

I tried to think of a color scheme that would also speak romance, but also would be calming, relaxing, and dreamy, all things I'd want in a bedroom. I knew then that I would be doing it in various shades of grey and white, with some blue as an accent. While I love orange, and use it to accent my house in different ways, I didn't want that vibrancy in my bedroom.

The first thing is I knew I wanted in my room was curtains. My bed was going to be a canopy type bed, because that was what spoke romance to me. I wanted something long and flowy, and I scoured Pinterest for ideas of DIY ideas that would work in small rooms, but in the end, chose something I saw at Ikea. I got these lace flower curtains, and got curtain rods that I then positioned around the bed, along the walls when possible, and along the ceiling when not. I thought it would be super complicated to do, but it actually was relatively easy, not to mention pretty cheap (though I don't remember exactly how much).

The complicated part for me was figuring out how to have curtains on my window and also curtains around the bed, without them interfering with each other. Eventually I figured to extend the curtain rod past the bed and to the end of the window, and have the curtains against the window. Since each corner of the bed has two lace curtains tied together, I was trying to figure out how to get that to work together with the regular curtains over the window in that corner, and in the end decided to sew the top of the lace curtain on top of the window's curtain... but never got around to it, and now lost that lace curtain, so that corner just has one lace curtain, and you know what? I'm ok with that. Maybe in the future I'll replace the windows with something special from Misty Window Solutions but for now I'm leaving them as is.

The next big thing was figuring out how the bed would be, vis a vis storage. We looked at lots of different Ikea hacks for beds with a lot of storage underneath, but the beds ended up being really high and didn't look like they'd end up being comfortable, nor would they have enough storage space. Another thing that was really important to me was I wanted the look of a headboard, but I also didn't waste space in my very small room with such a thing.

In the end, the solution we came up with was building our own bed, using wood that we had already had in the house. We got collapsible fabric boxes from Ikea, meant for their Kallax system, to be stored under the the bed to store clothing. We built the bed specifically so that the frame would be exactly high enough for the boxes to fit in, so they could be used in place of drawers. For the headboard, we used Ikea shoe boxes that fit together and became a whole unit, going across the length of the bed, and two up. This gives it a look of a cohesive headboard, and serves as that function, while also giving us more storage space. Most of the shoe boxes and all the fabric boxes under the bed were where I stored my clothes, and a few of the shoe boxes were for Mike.

Because the room was small enough that the bed went against the wall on one side, we needed to figure out an option for a night stand (for phones, glasses, etc) on that side, and because of the height of the headboard, that wasn't an option. I saw the idea to use Ikea picture shelves as a nightstand alternative in small bedrooms, and loved it, so we ended up putting two there.

The sheets were from Nextdirect.com, which offer free shipping to where I live, and great prices for decent quality. I ended up getting a few different sheet sets in various shades of gray, predominantly a charcoal type gray as well as a lighter gray and mix and match them on the bed. For personal comfort reasons (no hogging blankets) each side has its own single blanket, which I have one color, and a double blanket on top in another color.
I really wanted a fuzzy gray shaggy fur type throw to go at the foot of the bed, but didn't end up finding one like that, but did find a nice fuzzy animal print throw that ties together the various grays, and I absolutely love it. And then another darker gray fuzzy throw just in case.

Above the headboard is a picture that I bought from the local Family Dollar type store. I went to the store not knowing exactly what I was looking for, more looking for things of a specific color, but ended up settling on that one. Turns out the words are ones that speak to me a lot: "You can't stop the waves but you can learn how to surf." It cost about 10 dollars.
The light up Love sign was free from a swap, and the black glass bowl on the night stand that holds random odds and ends was also free from a swap.
The string and nail heart, vertical hanging love sign, lantern, and blue candle holder on the vanity were all from the Family Dollar type store and cost between 1 and 5 dollars each.

Above the bed hangs a light fixture that at first I wasn't in love with. I didn't know exactly what I was looking for when I was shopping, but found this one and felt that it was ok, but over time I've come to feel it was the perfect touch for the room.

I had a rug that I bought from Ikea, intending to put it in the living room, but then I realized shortly after that it wouldn't withstand the wear and tear in such a heavily trafficked room, so moved it so its partially under my bed, and I love the coziness it adds to my room.

At the foot of the bed in the corner of the room is a pedestal in a great gray that matches the room decor, that, surprisingly enough, was dumpster dived, and yet completely perfect for the room.
Mike used to store his odds and ends in there, now I've repurposed it for more clothes.

The flat screen TV was an addition by Mike, and will probably go to his house, as I don't watch tv and prefer watching things on my computer.

I don't remember where the full length mirror was from but it was cheap and also its reflection makes the room feel a lot bigger.

Originally we'd planned on putting a standing closet so it would be behind the door when opened. We even specifically had the doorway positioned there to make room for a closet. But we never got around to buying such a closet, and in the end just used a corner bookshelf that we had in our previous apartment. It was open and ended up looking very cluttered, so Mike and I used wood we had (actually, the pieces were part of our previous beds) and attached them to the shelving unit with hinges, and then painted them to match the rest of the cabinet. It's the one part of the room with a different color scheme, but since its in the corner, it doesn't actually bother me. I topped the cabinet with some Ikea grey pretty boxes, for storing odds and ends, so that kind of ties the color scheme into that corner. And we made the handles on the door be identical to those on my vanity. This is where Mike stored his clothes, and now has been repurposed into a linen closet.

Right next to the closet is a similarly colored clock with a pendulum, that in my mind, has a very romantic look to it. And you know where we got it? From the dumpster! It was perfect, never before used, still in its wrapping. I guess someone didn't like it, but their loss is my gain! 

Lastly is my vanity, which I already wrote about here, but in short, was made from something we got free and would have ended up in the garbage, but we figured out how to put it to use and now love it.

The mirror above is from Ikea, and I adore it, even if I accidentally hung the diamond shape a little skew.

Right next to that is the entrance to our beach themed bathroom, which I also adore and think is very cute and well put together and designed.

Overall, I think we did an amazing job with the bedroom, making it exactly how we wanted.

If I had to guess the entire cost for everything in the room.... Other than the flat screen TV... I'd guess that the entire thing cost $250 or less, which I think is pretty amazing for a room that is my dream room, other than the size.
But despite its smallness, I don't really feel cramped in it, and I think that's in large part due to how I designed it, especially because everything is closed behind doors and drawers, and there's as much floor space as possible in a room that size.
In fact, when we had the air conditioner guy come install it in the room, he assumed that the room was much bigger than it actually was, and didn't believe us how small the room was.

I love my room. It truly is my haven. I do feel like I am at a romantic getaway every day here.

Is your master bedroom romantic? Is that something you wanted? How is your room decorated? How much did it cost you to make it decorated that way?