When we first moved into this apartment in small town Covington, Louisiana, my biggest gripe with the place was the lack of character. Character and charm are massively important to us in our home decor. Because it was a brand new building, this home had none at first. I’ve seen a bowl of corn flakes in soy milk with more charm.

Before we moved into Lack-Of-Character-Apartment, we lived in Plenty-Of-Character-Home, a bright pink historic shotgun double that was truly falling apart but looked so good doing it. A lot of our design inspiration came from the way the battered original wood floors looked in the morning light and how the worn-down floor to ceiling windows made the outside world looked warped like a day dream. The massively high ceilings brought inspiration for starting our hanging plant hustle, and the bright color of the exterior quickly worked its way inside. In short, the home itself was one of the biggest sources of inspiration. But now in this sterile new build we had to look inward and do some soul searching to bring some soul searching to give the place some character.

The dining room decor was easy because we always require a pink dining room so immediately knew that was the direction to go, and the living room came together with some pops of color in the white window-filled blank slate of a room, but the bedroom was a challenge. We knew we wanted to do something relaxing, and we knew we wanted to repaint the stark white walls, but we didn’t really know where to start.

Whenever we’re stumped on what to do, we like to go out to some of our favorite vintage and consignment shops to look at pieces with real history. We spent hours and hours over the course of several weeks just walking around different shops filled with vintage goods, going all “oOooOoh” and “ahhhh” and “ewwww.” And then it happened. In the back corner of a back hall of one of our favorite consignment shops, I saw an arched headboard. At first I thought it was just a headboard and so I didn’t get that excited, but as I got closer I saw all the other pieces of a complete vintage bamboo canopy bed. A VINTAGE KING SIZED CANOPY BED. FOR $125. I pretty much lost my entire mind.

This piece looked so much like a slightly worn down version of the looping rattan bed from Anthropologie that’s made me drool on more than one occasion, but at a twentieth of the price. I was floored. Then I showed it to Matt, and he was floored too. So we had a bed!

We actually weren’t even looking for a bed, because we already had one in storage, but now we had the bed, and more importantly, the direction of the room. Vintage, old school charm—our favorite way to add a lived-in feeling, which the room desperately needed. After finding such a cool bed for so cheap, we were inspired to hunt for the rest of the room’s pieces in vintage and consignment shops as well. In part because we wanted pieces that could match the vibe of the bed, and in part because we’ve been trying to be really good about money and this seemed liked a great way to do so.

The thing about shopping vintage and secondhand is that it takes time and patience. There’s no inventory of multiple items in these stores, and most of the local shops around us don’t have great or up-to-date online stores or social media posts, so it takes going in person every couple weeks to see what they’ve got.

We scored a vintage waterfall dresser with a gorgeous circular mirror for $225. Done, yes. We also scored a pair of vintage woven pendants for $32. Those became the bedside lights.

Side note: we love hanging shit from the ceiling because it adds that “ooh ah ah” sensation to a room’s design, plus frees up space on your nightstand for books and little decorative items. Highly recommend.

When it came to actual nightstands, we had a rough search. For a very long time we slept with no nightstands, placing our phones and glasses of water and books on the floor on the side of the bed, which was fine—we were determined to find the perfect pieces and not spend the money on anything we didn’t absolutely love. After weeks of consignment hunting in person, we checked out the vintage gold mines that are eBay and Chairish, and one day came across these vintage Baumritter nightstands. They were a little lighter in color than we’d hoped, but their uniquely tall shape was so cool, we had to have them. $350 for the pair… it was honestly more than I normally would’ve wanted to spend on old nightstands, but given that we got our bed for so cheap, it felt worth it. $732 later we had furnished the room.

And now it was time to figure out a paint color. Yes, ideally you paint an empty room and not a fully furnished one, but since we didn’t have a concrete direction for the room design until we started furnishing it piece by piece, we we had to just wait to paint until the end.

When it came to picking out a paint color, keeping in mind we wanted something calming, all we had to do was look outside the window. That forested view that convinced us to move in in the first place? We wanted to bring a sprinkle of it into the room, so decided that green was the way to go. Not forest green, but something soothing, like sage. And, well, you can read all about that journey here and how we ended up picking out a color by combining two separate colors because we’re hard to please.

And along the way, we picked out decor. A rug to lighten things up, an ivory arched mirror to add flow and contrast, a green pillow scheme for a somewhat monochromatic moment. We’re honestly still adding and subtracting as we go along (and likely always will be!) but below I’ve got some of our favorite decor items—with clickable links if any tickle your fancy.

Thanks for stopping by the blog, and happy homemaking!