Denise Sabia / The Painted Home
As a single mom of three renting her home in the suburbs of Philadelphia, interior designer Denise Sabia has to be budget conscious and strategic when it comes to creating a stylish and welcoming space. Luckily, she is also a DIY expert. As founder and owner of The Painted Home, she takes everyday items found in flea markets, in thrift shops, or by the side of the road and transforms them into gorgeously chic pieces.
In her master bedroom, for example, she created this calming private oasis with a little money and a lot of elbow grease. Here are a few of the design lessons we learned from Sabia's bedroom makeover you can use to create an equally special oasis in your own home.
1 Use subtle wall colors.
"I got really lucky in that [my landlord] painted the house this pale grey," Sabia says. "I like to do subtle walls because I like my pieces to be the thing that stands out. I'm always finding new things I want to try in a room, so I like the more muted walls."
One element that pops against the walls is the bed frame, a $20 thrift store find that Sabia transformed from brass to blue with two coats of Rust-Oleum spray paint. (No priming necessary, Sabia says: Just clean it, and let it dry and "cure" for a week.) "I like a room monochromatic to make it soothing, but I still want a lot of interest in it," Sabia says. "Robin's egg blue is a favorite of mine, but only as accents. Having it as a three-inch-diameter headboard is awesome. Having it as a whole upholstered headboard or as a wall would be too much."
Another cool detail in this bedroom: Framing the far window are pipe pieces fashioned as curtain rods, hung with grommet-topped grey panels from HomeGoods. "They don't physically close, they're really just accents."
While Sabia admits she is all about instant design gratification, she advises taking your time to let a room come together and not trying to do it all in one swoop. By mixing and matching and layering in pieces over time, you get a more curated look, she says; for example, the HomeGoods quilt was one she found years ago and then she added the striped and checked Ikea bedding to accent it later.
"If you find it over time and it's stuff you love, it'll all go together and work well," Sabia says. "I think it's more charming when it's found over time instead of one-stop shopping."
"I'm a single mom and on a totally limited budget, and I sourced a lot of this for free," says Sabia, who discovers great "trash" finds, including furniture to lamps to mirrors. "You have to go to the neighborhoods that you know are charming, and you have to go out the night before trash pick-up," she recommends. "I go out with girlfriends like it's girl's night out and all we do is drive around in the car and giggle and pick up trash." Certain times of year, like when people are focused on spring cleaning, are ideal, she adds.
Sabia says to always take anything that catches your eye that you think you can use or transform. "Get it—it's free! Never pass it by," she says. "All you have to do is put it back out in your trash if it doesn't turn out right."
Sabia collects old doors and found uses for them around the bedroom. "I feel like it adds to the room, and especially if you're a renter, it's a great idea to lean the doors up against the wall to hang things on so you don't have to make holes in the walls," she says.
A door propped up behind a bar cart (a trash find, of course) serves as a vanity area. While she painted the bar cart black and white, she left the door as-is: "I like them old and chippy and dirty," she says. "I just clean them up with Simple Green and a rag."
Though the door and bar cart are not attached to each other, they visually look like one piece. By hanging an old screen on the door and securing pinch-pleat curtain hooks on its netting, the top becomes a useful jewelry organizer. On the adjoining wall are two art pieces by artist Mary Gregory, a Country Living Fair vendor.
Another door use in the room: A solid white door behind the dresser to the left of the bed adds height and supports a propped mirror.
5 Layering makes everything better.
Adding a sitting area in the master bedroom gives Sabia a private place to unwind. A white slipcovered sofa adorned with plenty of pillows and a fuzzy throw provides a resting spot, while a unique coffee table draws attention to the space. Sabia added casters to a chicken carrier to create the rustic piece.
Because the chicken carrier has lots of open slats, Sabia topped it with a custom-made tray. "I kept the cabinet doors from a previous home I lived in when we redid our kitchen, and I made one into a tray," Sabia says. "I painted it that tealish blue and put handles on it."
A clear glass wine jug wrapped in rope—a hot-glue DIY by Sabia—and a little faux greenery courtesy of Ikea add more texture, interest, and color to the area, while a black cowhide rug from Ikea anchors the space. "The [wall-to-wall] carpet is nothing I would have ever picked but I'm like, hey, you can make it work," Sabia says. "By layering that other rug on the top, all of a sudden the sitting area is its own cute, little designated area."
Ellen Sturm Niz Ellen Sturm Niz is a New York City-based editor and writer who writes about women's lifestyle, home design, DIY projects, food & entertaining, and parenting.
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