How to Redo a Teen Bedroom for Less

Paint the bedroom. Paint offers you an inexpensive way to change the look of the whole room for not a lot of money. Choose two colors, making one the primary color and the other one the accent color. Paint a focal wall using a vibrant color of paint, such as cobalt blue or forest green. Adorn the walls around it with a lighter contrasting color.

Show off some of your child's old sports gear by creating a shelf display. Frame team jerseys. Make inexpensive shelves for trophies painted in school colors. Create a photo collage board of the highlights from sporting events. Vary this theme to fit other school activities, such as theater or chess club.

Hang up your child's artwork on the wall. If your son draws beautiful renditions of his favorite video game characters, frame those in simple frames and create a gallery. Hang your daughter's found object collages on the walls in frames or have her create shadowboxes from the objects she finds.

Decorate an old dresser set with decoupage. Decoupage craft projects require only some glue mixture along with your child's favorite images, which get pasted onto furniture pieces, old boxes or photo frames. Find pictures that fit with the activities and interests that appeal to your child. Use these as the images for your decoupage creations. Additionally, decoupage allows you to recycle items like old wooden boxes and turn them into a night table or storage bin for your child's room.

Make mismatched furniture match by adding a coat of the same color of paint to all the pieces in your child's room.

Buy a duvet to cover an old bedspread; the duvet is less expensive than a new comforter. If you're really adept at sewing, make one from your old sheets and scraps of fabrics. Have your child decorate them with T-shirt paints, old buttons or sequin trim to personalize.

Look for baskets or plastic containers at the dollar store. Use these to store items such as pencils, paperclips, socks, jewelry and other small items. Find ones that match your child's decorating them or paint them so that they do match it.