Last year John’s younger sister Carrie moved to Philadelphia for work and settled into a cute high-rise apartment that needed some affordable updating. With under $200 and a quick trip to Ikea, we added art and accessories and refreshed her place in an afternoon (see the earlier Carrie apartment makeover). A year later she was transferred back to Northern Virginia—closer to family—but once again landed in a plain room that needed serious sprucing. So we took on the challenge again: transforming a sunroom-turned-bedroom on a tight budget.
The space is almost entirely glass: sliding doors that make the room feel like a fishbowl and five floor-to-ceiling windows forming an irregular five-sided back wall. That presented design challenges, but with a $200 budget and another Ikea run for curtains, accessories and a few simple furniture pieces, we had high hopes. Four hours later, the room had a completely new look.
We started by working with what Carrie already owned to stretch every dollar. From her previous apartment she brought two black Lack side tables, colorful pillows, and textured striped curtains. The black tables were too low to function as bedside tables, so we brainstormed how to reuse them. The solution: convert the Lack tables into a headboard.
Three tabletops matched the bed width almost exactly, so we added a fourth in a warm wood tone for visual interest. With a few dollars’ worth of metal brackets from Home Depot and a long 2×4 cut into three 26″ pieces, the assembly was simple:
Step 1: Unscrew the legs, flip the tabletops upside down and align them.
Step 2: Use heavy-duty metal brackets to connect adjacent tabletops in at least two places. Adding a 55″ 1×3 across the back increases durability.
Step 3: Flip the joined tabletops and admire the new headboard.
Step 4: Attach the pre-cut 2×4 legs to the joined tabletops with right-angled L-brackets for support.
The finished headboard cost under $20 in materials because we reused existing pieces. Functionally, it solved a real problem: the angled glass wall had been pushing Carrie’s pillows into the window crevice every night. The headboard created a solid back that keeps pillows in place and gives the bed a clean focal point.
One of the biggest decorating roadblocks was the wall of vertical blinds. We wanted billowy curtains to soften the room and make it cozy, but the glass wall couldn’t accept a traditional curtain install. Even the ceiling resisted screws and anchors—turns out it was a concrete-like material impervious to our drill—so hanging a full curtain rig was impossible in that spot. We managed to clip a single striped curtain panel over the bed’s blinds for a soft effect, but clipping it meant the blinds behind it no longer opened, a trade Carrie accepted for that one window. For the remaining windows we had to keep the verticals functional.
Despite the curtain challenge, we introduced other changes that made a big difference. We added new side tables shaped like rounded triangles to fit the triangular spaces beside the bed—perfect for a small room—and hung plug-in pendant lamps to free up surface space. Because the ceiling wouldn’t accept hardware, we used heavy-duty 3M ceiling hooks to swag the pendants and then plugged them in. The pendant shades added drama and drew the eye up without hardwiring.
To give the sliding glass doors privacy and texture without heavy curtains, we turned to grasscloth panels. They looked like wide rolls of grasscloth wallpaper and cost about $15 per roll. We measured and cut the panels to size, then used heavy-duty clear packaging tape to secure the edges to the metal door frames. The tape produced a clean, built-in privacy screen; as an alternative for renters wary of tape, strong magnets on either side of the glass would also hold the panels in place.
After applying the grasscloth, we added two breezy curtain panels on a simple wire run between perpendicular walls next to the sliders to achieve a layered look. The textured grasscloth paired with billowy striped curtains created a warm, layered effect without sacrificing the sliding door functionality.
We finished by styling the room with Carrie’s existing pillows and throws, a new gold-green accent pillow, some colorful books and a red canvas leaned against the wall for a pop of color. Small affordable choices—like the green pendant shades and glass-topped Ikea side tables—helped the nine-by-eleven-foot room feel cozy and intentional.
Budget breakdown (items purchased for this makeover; other pieces were existing):
- Striped curtain panels (two sets of two): $30
- Curtain clips and curtain wire: $20
- Hanging lamp shades and lighting kits: $26
- Heavy-duty 3M hooks for ceiling: $6
- Third Lack table for headboard: $8
- Wood and brackets from Home Depot for headboard: $12
- Gold-green accent pillow: $8
- Glass-topped side tables (two): $60 ($30 each)
- Grasscloth panels for sliders (two rolls): $30
- Grand total: $200
Small-space makeovers are all about creativity and reuse. By adapting existing pieces, choosing a few strategic purchases, and improvising when fixtures wouldn’t cooperate, we turned a glass-lined sunroom into a cozy, layered bedroom—all on a strict budget. If you’ve faced impenetrable ceilings, awkward glass walls or rental restrictions, the headboard and grasscloth tricks are easy, low-cost options to consider.