Pinterest Apartment Décor Tips for the Lazy and the Cheap

No matter how cheap they are, candles really class up a room. If placed in a container that is filled with something like marbles or shells, the effect is even better. You can either buy the containers and fillers cheap, or you might be able to find things that work around your apartment, like mason jars and your seashell collection or coffee beans. A clean bedroom with a decorative candle on the nightstand appears nicer than you might expect (even before lighting them and enjoying their smell!) My favorite place to put candles is in the bathrooms. I went to the dollar store, bought three or four candles, and tucked them in baskets and empty spaces in my bedroom and two bathrooms. Putting a big group of candles together is also stylish right now.

Believe it or not, baskets work wonders in any room. Storing things in a beautiful, woven piece of art makes the place look cleaner and homier. I have a round fruit basket for my kitchen table. Every time I go grocery shopping, I fill it with bananas, apples, and oranges. Who doesn't like décor you can eat? I got that basket from the dollar store, and loved it so much that I went online to buy baskets for my bathrooms. In my bathrooms, I use baskets to store toilet paper, candles, knick knacks that I pretend are décor, etc. You can even use the baskets to hold things like jars with makeup brushes and bags of toiletries. You can put baskets on the toilet, on shelves, or nail them to the wall yourself. I display all my nailpolish in tiny white baskets that I pinned to my bathroom wall with push pins. The website I found and loved is called The Lucky Clover Trading Company. There are tons of baskets that are dirt-cheap. The prices do go up a lot with shipping, but it's a lot better than buying baskets at somewhere like Target. Make sure you know your measurements--mine were all a bit smaller than I expected from just looking at the photos.

Finally--a pin that looks just as beautiful in my apartment as it does on Pinterest! The photo collage in the living room or bedroom is a popular trend right now, and it is easy to reproduce. You don't have to measure anything or be an artist to make it look good. You probably have accumulated a bunch of frames, clocks, mirrors, and other knick knacks you can nail to the wall, but if you want to add more, you can find cheap frames at your dollar store or Walmart. All you have to do is pull out the hammer and nails. People also use washi tape for frames or leave the frames out altogether. Do anything that pulls together an interesting and full shape. The best part about this project is that nothing has to be perfect--it will come together looking cute either way. My photo collage is very simple and took me about ten minutes, but I get lots of compliments on it every time someone new walks in the door.

On a related note, I saw a lot of people using clipboards as frames on Pinterest, and was pleased with the results when I tried it out. You might have old clipboards lying around that can finally be put to use. You can change out the photos or artwork frequently to display whatever you like on any given day. They're easy to hang, too--any double-sided wall tape or Command products will work to hang this light piece of décor wherever you want it.

If you're living in an apartment as small and as old as mine is, you probably have trouble making your crowded kitchen looking the least bit classy. I've found that using various canisters to store food cleans it up a lot. We used to have giant bags of cereal and half-empty boxes of pasta lining the shelves, but now our food is out on display in different sizes of pretty clear canisters. We got ours from Target, and they weren't that expensive, but there are plenty of places to find them. You can also re-purpose any kind of old container. Some people even label them with letter stickers, which is always cute and very easy.

This is one of my favorite tricks for tiny apartments. Our bathrooms do not have any counter space, and I like my makeup out on display better than down in the moldy sink cupboard. Some people have a lot of fun with this project--they decorate the boards with paper, fabric, and stickers. If you're crafty, you might have fun doing that. It wouldn't be expensive. Personally, I left my magnetic boards plain (well, to be fair, I bought decently cute ones from Target to begin with), and then bought a roll of "magnet tape" (use Amazon--much cheaper than Google) to turn all of my makeup into magnets. You can put them on the counter if you have room, but nailing them up on the walls looks great. I'm a lot happier with the accessibility of my tools and I think it makes the bathroom look cute, too.