Today is Day 9 of a 31 day series on creating and cultivating an eclectic home.  For some crazy reason, I have accepted The Nester’s challenge to write on the same theme every day for the month of October.  This may end up killing me.  Or you.  But, I appreciate you reading and welcome your comments.

If you’ve been following along with this series over the last week or so, you have likely determined your eclectic style mix and have some general ideas about how you’d like your home to look.  But now, you are probably asking, “Where do I get this stuff I really want without spending a ton of money?”

I’m so glad you asked!  I have put together a list of some ways you can build an eclectic mix of furnishings.  Today, we’re going to talk about the freebies, and over the next few days, I’ll introduce some other methods of obtaining eclectic deliciousness.

Free (or Almost Free) Ways to Obtain an Eclectic Decor

1) Host a Virtual Furniture Swap for local friends – If you have a piece of furniture or two that serves a great function but is not necessarily your style (like pieces of a matching set), host a virtual furniture swap with your local friends.  Set up a private Facebook page that you could invite your friends to join (and they could invite their friends, and so on).  Take photos of the piece(s) you would like to trade, and post the photos and the measurements on the Facebook page.  You could either do direct trades with each other (i.e. Sally and Jane swap coffee tables) or you could have do a trade with several people (i.e. Sally takes Jane’s coffee table, Jane take’s Kelly’s dresser, Kelly takes Sally’s dresser). Obviously, you’ll only want to take pieces that fit (or can fit with a little elbow grease) into your style mix.

If you only want to swap smaller decor items, throw a party and have everyone bring something to trade.  Everyone leaves with the same number of items they brought.  It’s like free shopping!

2) Craigslist “Free” listings – I’ll talk more extensively about Craigslist during another post, but often times you can score some good pieces for free on CL that just need a little DIY.  Who could forget the infamous Kid Rock/Britney Spears coffee table?  Saturday afternoons are great times to check the free listings, because many people post what didn’t sell at the morning garage sales.

3) Put the word out – Often times, it takes just the small effort of putting the word out.  Alert local friends, family and neighbors that you are looking for a new dresser or end table.  Ask them that if they have any pieces they were planning on taking to Goodwill, please let you take a peek at them first and see if you can save them the hassle of transporting the furniture to the donation center.  😉

After all, that’s basically how the yellow Miss Matched dresser came into my life.

How have you scored free pieces of furniture for your home?

Today is Day 8 of a 31 day series on creating and cultivating an eclectic home.  For some crazy reason, I have accepted The Nester’s challenge to write on the same theme every day for the month of October.  This may end up killing me.  Or you.  But, I appreciate you reading and welcome your comments.

I have a love/hate relationship with wallpaper.  I love it, because it can transform the feel of a room in ways that paint cannot.  Although the wall stencils that are out there these days are amazing (and a far cry from the grapes that were stenciled around the kitchen of the first home we ever owned), they don’t replace the luxe richness of a delicious wallpaper.

So, why do I hate it?  Because it scares the bejesus out of me!  I can use a saw like nobody’s business or climb a ladder to the second story of our house without blinking an eye.  On the other hand, the thought of hanging wallpaper simply terrifies me!  I’m positive that I would somehow screw it up and not be able to fix my mistake.

If you aren’t scared, select a vibrant wallpaper that fits into your eclectic style mix for the biggest impact.  One word of caution on using wallpaper, though.  My opinion is that only one wall in a room should be wallpapered.  I know it seems contrary to my issue with only one accent wall, but wallpaper is far busier than a single color of paint on the wall.

One day, I will push myself to hang a nice wallpaper on one of my walls.  I’m sure that I will do it and then wonder why I made such a fuss about it.  Until then, I will admire other people’s walls, and gawk at how they can give a room such an eclectic vibe with a bit of paper.

What are your thoughts on wallpaper? Have you ever hung it yourself?  Are you scared like me or are you ready to make a statement?

Photos via Pinterest, Alkeme and HGTV.