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Paula Bowen

High Impact / Low Budget Bedroom Makeover

Renovations can be intimidating, costly, and time consuming. Sometimes all it takes to make a big impact are a few small changes. When our two boys left for their freshman year of college, we decided to take that opportunity to “upgrade” the room they share. The room is a second master so it is fairly large and has an en suite bathroom. It is basically a vanilla shell with virtually no character. It did have the requisite gigantic television for video games, twin beds, a bookshelf, and two dressers

We did not have a big budget nor lots of time to make significant changes, but we felt that we wanted to add some character and architectural interest to the room. We chose to do this by adding a board and batten accent wall. We looked at Pinterest for some inspiration and turned to YouTube for instruction in creating the wall.

one by four pine boards to building the “squares” of the board and batten

The project was not overly complicated. It did involve some math skills, but the carpentry skills needed were pretty basic. We used one by four pine boards to building the “squares” of the board and batten. We debated whether or not to take the board and batten fro floor to ceiling or only up two-thirds of the wall. In the end, we chose to go from floor to ceiling.


Our board and batten pattern consisted of smaller panels at the floor and ceiling levels and larger panels in the middle. Starting in the center of the wall we worked our way out from side to side, creating panels that were evenly spaced. It was not mathematically perfect and the panels that butt up against the corners on each side of the room are not exactly the same width as the other panels, but it is not evident to the naked eye.


accent wall, we chose Rockport Grey by Benjamin Moore

After nailing the one by fours to the wall and caulking the seams, we had to decide on a paint color. For the accent wall, we chose Rockport Grey by Benjamin Moore. It is a greenish-brown grey. For the remaining walls we chose Grey Owl also by Benjamin Moore. These colors matched the existing bed linens perfectly.


matching wall colors with bed linens

We finished off the room by adding thrifted accents. These included two vintage luggage racks at the foot of each bed found at a local Goodwill, a thrifted brass lamp, and vintage suitcases found at a yard sale. Oil paintings and a hunting print found at a local charity thrift store completed the look.


goodwill vintage luggage

All in all, the cost of this room renovation was less than $500! We think that these small changes certainly had a big impact! What do you think?

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