Decorating Your Room on a Budget

Whether it's your dorm room, your first apartment bedroom, or just your bedroom in your parents house if you're reading this then it's time to decorate. Most of the choices I'm going to describe will not go well with decorating a whole house primarily because of the ideas of theme, concept and design are different on decoration of that scale. You could however extrapolate from my concepts if you like.

Option 1: Posters

Posters are a classic option for bedroom decoration in that they are usually fairly sizeable, fairly cheap, and easy to acquire while occurring in nearly infinite options ranging from prints of classical paints to pop stars and movie scenes.

Why Posters:

Posters are cheap and light weight making themselves easy to be hung using either a small number of small pins, tape, or poster putty. This feature is critical in apartments and in dorm rooms where you may be charged a fee for excessive pin holes or nails.

Poster DO's:

Whether you're just using posters or posters and something else make sure the items match in at least one way. By this I simply mean don't use objects that have nothing in common such as one poster of a classical painting and another poster of a bikini model; unless of course you can find someway of tying those two options together such as a water theme.

Poster Don'ts:

If you have a roommate who lives in the same room as you, such as in a dorm room, check with that person before placing any posters that may be offensive. If nothing else a quick "Hey, do you mind if I hang this here?" will not only prevent you from pissing off your roommate but also make you look like a concerned person and they'll be more likely to consider your feelings later.

Option 2: Cling Art

Cling art is also cheap and comes in numerous varieties though not always as easy to acquire as posters. These items come in large sheets where items can be peeled off and stuck on plain, clean walls.

Why Cling Art?

Besides being cheap, cling art comes ready to be applied to a wall without any other item such as tape needed. They can also be removed easily and without making a big mess. Both of those are pluses if you either change the design of your room often or if you can't damage the walls.

Cling Art Do's

Just like with posters, think about the theme you are trying to go for placing the items. Do plant life clings and fireballs go together? Probably not.

Cling Art Don'ts:

Be very careful when removing the Cling Art from it's packing for if the art becomes tangled and stuck onto itself it will be extremely difficult to untangle.

Option 3: Sheets

Simple sheets of fabric hung on the walls or ceiling can be used to decorate quick and easily.

Why Sheets?

Sheets of fabric are cheap and very easy to use. Simply tack them up on the wall and you can instantly transform a dull white wall into any number of colors or patterns. You can find premade bed sheets that will work at nearly any department store or you could stop by a fabric shop to purchase large swatches of fabric with many more options to choose from.

Sheet Do's:

When attaching sheets to the wall, make sure the sheets lay flat and are sufficiently secured to the wall or ceiling. You wouldn't want the sheet to wrinkle or fall randomly.

Sheet Don'ts:

Unless you are going for a rainbow pattern, choose your colors wisely. Just because you can remove the sheets easily doesn't mean you should just throw up any color or pattern. Think about fabric color the same way you'd think about paint colors.

In the end:

I've provided you with three easy, cheap options for basic room decoration. You can choose to use one, two or all three items all at once for results that will truly display your sense of taste and style to anyone who enters your room.