Making Your Rented Room a Vintage Haven

Oh hello everyone! It's been a while and for that I can only apologise. But it's been super busy at LouLou HQ! But I'm back with lots of vintage ramblings for your wardrobe and home. 

Now we've all been there, blue curtains, blue carpet, MFI furniture, white walls. The standard student bedroom has never been the cool kooky haven we envisaged in our daydreams. But what can you do when you're skint and let's say, well, prioritising your funds for other things?! We've got a few ideas for you to style up your bedroom vintage style without running too far into yopur overdraft!

Photos
Now instead of plastering your walls with photos from last Saturday night, how about pegging them up on a long piece of string? They could drape across the entire width of a wall or criss cross down and alcove or across your door. Not all of us have polaroid camera, but lots of us do have Instagram! You can get these printed off fairly cheaply, have a look here. They look so much more decorative.

Tailors Dummy

Now, it took me quite a while to not get scared in the middle of the night, but my tailor's dummy has a different outfit on all the time, and I get to display my favourite vintage dresses and accessories! Usually it's because I can't quite fit into them...! But at around £35-£30 you can get on off eBay and it makes a big statement in a blank room. Look at this example from A Harem of Peacocks.

Bed Linen
A tidying your room cheat I learnt at Uni, is that if your bed is made, it makes the room look ten times neater! You can have that one for free. But if the linen is pretty and vintage inspired, it'll look even better! We love french toile prints, (it's even the wallpaper in our office) and this Ikea set is on eBay for a cheapy cheap £24.95.

Tins and Teacups
Vintage tins and mismatched teacups are simply everywhere at the minute. Nip to your local vintage fair, antiques centre, charity shop or even on ebay and you'll be sure to stumble upon a wide range of them. They do so much more than just look pretty. Teacups make for lovely little dressing table ornaments that can hold your earrings and rings, loose change etc and tins can hide so much mess on your desk! Pop all your stationary in them. Plus, they're dead cheap.

Suitcases and Trunks
You may consider them a little overdone, but vintage suitcases and trunks are fantastic DIY projects for the home. We even did a blog post on all the uses we could think of, take a look here! But if you just need a quick and easy storage solution, stacking a few of these in the corner of your room for files, shoes, or just junk is a great and affordable space saver. Get searching in charity shops, flea markets and car boots.

Door Knobs
If you have a little time on your hands, it's worth rummaging at car boots, markets and hunting online for pretty vintage drawer and door knobs. If your landlord's furniture is a little, um, crap then a new set of screw on door knobs is a lovely little way of putting your own stamp on your room. Plus you can keep the original ones and replace them when you move out. No damage done.

Lampshade Mobile
This idea came to me when I was out on a charity shop spree. I saw a little pile of mini tasseled lampshades, you know the ones, Nannan definitely has a fair few! If you simply attach string to the centre of the lightbulb fitting inside, you can then hang them from the ceiling with a bit of tape or a thumb tack as they;re ever so light. Hang between 3 and 5 at differing heights to create a quirky feature to your room over your bed perhaps. Obviously, there are no lightbulbs in our little idea, but here's a bit of inspiration to give you an idea.

Flower Garlands

Not only did they look superb in your hair at Latitude fest, they look very pretty draped over your bedhead, on your wardrobe, fireplace or round your window. eBay have lots to choose from but Live Laugh Love have a great selection of other vintage inspired decor too. If you struggle to find any, search for wedding garlands as they're often used for these too. You could mix them up with fairy lights too!

Mismatched Walls

Now, before you tell me that your landlord doesn't let you hang things on the wall, I know, it's rubbish. But do ask! If you're super lovely about it, there's no harm in asking. Because who doesn't want a feature wall, such as your chimney breast, full of random bits and pieces! Clocks, taxidermy, photos, postcards, mirrors etc look so cool all bundled together. I love what Lereese from GIRL STOLE VINTAGE has done with one of her walls. I love the orange 70s clock.

(If you really can't use a hammer and nails, use posters, vintage postcards and magazine cuttings. You could even cut our paper picture frames to put them in - use your imagination.)

So there you have it, lots of little, affordable ideas to help get you stylin' it up in your first rented room. We'd love to see who can rise to the challenge! Send us your pics of your kitsch decoration ideas and we'll feature them on our page!

Love

Gina

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