Shop Your House

One thing we didn't do when sprucing up the basement was leave room in the budget for new accessories. I picked up two IKEA pillows for the couch and a spontaneous $5 rhinoceros, but that's it. Most of our Benjamins went into the floor and area rug--which is totally fine with me because I could stare them all day--but once we started putting the room back together, I realized we needed stuff for all of those shelves.

I couldn't go to the store, but luckily I'm turning into a hoarder and was able to do the next best thing: I shopped my house. Basically, I wandered around and dug out accessories from other rooms/closets/the credenza that would look good in the basement. We have a serious art-buying habit, and I'm that weird person who buys vintage dishes at GoodWill every other second, so we actually had a lot of great stuff that wasn't even displayed yet.

Literally, everything except the aforementioned rhino and couch pillows we already had in the house. And no, none of our other rooms are naked and sad now. About half of the knickknacks were already down here, mostly on the Expedit. It was those built-ins that needed some lovin'.

Here are some basic guidelines for doing the same thing in your house, because it really was fun and I think you should give it a shot:

>> Switch items from two different rooms. You might be surprised how well things like pillows can mix-and-match.

>> Display an item differently. We used to have a group of pictures on the wall downstairs, and now most of them are on the shelves. We'll hang some of our other artwork where they used to be.

>> Decorate with books and magazines. A few stacks of these are an easy way to add color. National Geographic is a favorite, plus some of them are fun to re-read.

>> Don't forget the kitchen. Nobody uses all of their dishes at once, so grab a few for easy organizing in the living room, or as a jewelry-holder next to your bed.

>> Frame a page from a book. You can also do this with a magazine or a calendar.

Have you ever done this? What's your favorite thing to switch up in a room? Do you also own an amount of decor items that rivals the inventory of an actual store? I probably don't need to buy anything until 2015.