How to Decorate A Small Room Without Making It Look Cluttered

As some of you may already know, I've been busy training to be a Graduate Associate (a.k.a. a graduate student who is a Residential Advisor in an undergraduate dorm). But with great responsibility... comes a beautiful one bedroom apartment (and a fulfilling job of course)! While I'll be discussing the rest of the apartment in another blog post, today I'll be focusing on the bedroom, which happens to be on the small side. Therefore, I had to think of some creative ways to decorate the place without making it look too cluttered. Basically what it boiled down to was me honing in on my minimalist skills and using already-necessary-bedroom-pieces as decorations.

1. The Clothing Rack

I have so much clothing that I knew it wouldn't all fit into the wardrobe that came with the room. And so I enlisted the help of this sleek clothing rack, by Metal Works, to store my clothing, but to also make for a stylish decor piece! This rack has the minimalist design that I was looking for, with a white finish that would contrast nicely with my black hangers and colorful clothing. Not to mention, the rack was really easy to put together as there aren't many separate pieces to it!

2. The Pillow

I love my queen-sized bed! But unfortunately, it takes up a lot of space. Therefore, with the help of a throw pillow, I decided to use some of that space to display a beautiful print. I chose to go with the Palm Leaf Pillow Cover, by A Piece Of Bella! If you couldn't tell, I'm pretty obsessed with the whole tropical leaf theme. In fact, I used the same pillow covers in my living room to tie the apartment together. These covers are made with durable linen blend fabric which is quite smooth to the touch! You can never have too many pillows am I right?

3. On-Wall Shelving

The bedroom came with this shelving unit, but it's definitely something you can do yourself. Shelves give you an opportunity to display decorative pieces, like my many candles, as well as accessories, like purses, sunglasses, and jewelry, without taking up too much space.

4. The Nightstand

Instead of buying a plain old nightstand, I decided to use two wine crates as make-shift, minimalist nightstand. Plus, it serves as more shelving to display decorations! But again, I used every-day items as decor, like my Fujifilm Instax Mini 9 (more about this camera to come)!

Basically, it's about working with the space you have and making ordinary home items into decorations!