A Room of One’s Own

Inspired by a pair of original 1950s architectural renderings for my childhood home, I set out to create a room that was more mature, more organized, and more inviting.

Virginia Woolf famously argued that creative genius needs space to inhabit, private space where the artist can live and work and observe free from constant interruptions and the meddling expectations of society. I agree with Woolf’s premise, though I am certainly no genius and could only be called an artist in the amateur sense. But as someone who has shared a room with others for the majority of my life, I can say that having a room of one’s own is truly wonderful. And there is also something very special about creating a room of one’s own—taking an empty shell and transforming it into a space with character and meaning.

For a long time, my room was just cluttered square-footage that held a bed, a dresser, a growing pile of boxes, and too many pairs of shoes. This would have been deeply disappointing to young Derek, who dreamed of the day he would finally have his own space to curate. But I didn’t have enough storage for my things, and I knew that even if I managed to organize better, the room would still be an uninspiring gray box—empty walls, cold floor, terrible lighting. And so, it languished for many moons in bachelor purgatory.

The impetus for change was a gift from total strangers. There are few places as precious to me as the home I grew up in, and when my parents moved to South Africa and the house was sold, it felt like a death. Longing for some sort of tangible connection to that place and all the wonderful memories it holds, I thought of the creased, yellowed blueprints I had seen as a child. Sadly, they had been transferred with the house, and there seemed to be little hope of getting them back. But at the encouragement of my friend Natalie, I wrote a letter to the new owners, asking if they’d part with the renderings. They responded with a very kind letter of their own and generously mailed me the blueprints. I had them framed and eagerly set about creating a room worthy of displaying them. The result is a space I am proud of and a place I’m always eager to retreat to at the end of the day. I’m so happy to share the final product with you and to offer a few tips and tricks I learned along the way!

Identify Problems, Settle on Solutions

Makeovers can easily get out of hand as one change inspires another. To keep them from becoming costly and overwhelming, it helps to give yourself some guidelines. Identifying specific problems and settling on specific solutions helped me focus this makeover and keep it from stretching on indefinitely (which my creative endeavors tend to do).

Problem: The surface of my dresser was constantly cluttered, and I was always losing important pieces of mail in the stacks of paper, socks, and ephemera.

Solution: My important documents are now organized in a small filing cabinet that doubles as my nightstand; all other mail now goes in the kitchen. A vintage jewelry box from Etsy holds outfit accessories, and vintage bookends from eBay corral my books and round out the vignette.

Problem: The reading lamp took up too much space on the top of my nightstand. My books and my phone were always falling off the table.

Solution: A wall-mounted reading light allowed me to remove my old lamp and create more space on the nightstand.

Problem: My clothes were always collecting on top of these boxes and shams. It looked messy, and it made it hard to find clothing items later.

Solution: Wall hooks and a hamper mean that worn clothes now have a place to go even if I don’t feel like putting them away or taking them to the laundry room.

Problem: The hardwood floors looked nice, but they weren’t very comfortable underfoot, and there was nothing to visually anchor the scattered elements of the room.

Solution: The new rug makes the room so much more inviting and visually unifies the space.

Make It Easy on Yourself

Living in a rented house, I’m always brainstorming home improvements that won’t break the terms of my lease or create lots of work for me later. For this makeover, I also concentrated on creating a space that is easy to maintain. These tips will make your life much easier whether you’re a renter or a harried homeowner.

The Lighting on the Wall

If you’re looking to supplement the overhead lighting in your space, or if you don’t have room for lamps, consider a wall-mounted reading light. They save space, require no wiring, and leave behind only a couple screw holes. They also come in many styles. This one swivels to make reading in bed easy.

One-Hit Wonder

Instead of a series of hooks, consider a hook rack. It’s easier to ensure a rack is level, and it will leave far fewer nail holes to patch later. This streamlined rack I ordered online holds hats, coats, bags, and pretty much anything else I need it to.

Get Over Your (Lack of) Shelves

If you don’t have room to hang a shelf or don’t want to deal with drywall anchors and heavy-duty screws, find a neat way to display items on a surface you already have. I created my own “bookshelf” on my dresser with free-standing books and a pair of onyx bookends.  

Know When To Stop

Don’t add things you don’t need. The top of my dresser is admittedly a bit spare, and it wouldn’t suffer from a couple other decorative items. But this isn’t one of the primary living spaces in the house, and I don’t need more objects to dust.

Tassels Equal Hassles

Choose a rug without tassels to make vacuuming and mopping easier. This will also give your room a more streamlined appearance overall.

Corner Concerns

In an ideal world, no bed is ever put in a corner. Corner beds are a pain to make, and they immediately set a room off balance. But I needed to maximize the functionality of this small space. When I first moved in, I insisted on the bed coming off the largest wall and acting as the focal point of the room. But after months of feeling cramped, I acquiesced and pushed it into the corner. The room instantly felt more spacious and breathable. Light bedding keeps this corner from feeling too heavy, and a rug that fills the room acts as a counterbalance to this large piece of furniture.

Choose Variety, Find Balance

One thing I’ve learned from following professional designers and taking notes on my favorite spaces is that the most interesting rooms have variety. Mixing scales, shapes, patterns, textures, and finishes gives a space its character and creates a sense of balance that is still multi-dimensional. Here’s how this strategy applies in my room.

It Takes All Kinds

Many different materials create a well-rounded vignette—wooden credenza, brass lamp, leather jewelry box, stone bookends. These harder elements also play off the softer elements in the room to create a space that’s masculine but not austere.

Make Connections

Repeated elements keep the variety from feeling chaotic. The bedding, rug, nightstand, and hamper all belong to the same color family. The black reading light references the black hook rack and the black elements of my clothing rack. The wooden picture frames reference the credenza. The brass clasp on the jewelry box references the lamp. The bookends may seem like an outlier, but the colors in the stone reference the yellowed blueprints and the orange throw on the bed.

Contrast Is Key

The dark, large-scale pattern of the rug contrasts with the light, small scale-pattern of the comforter and anchors an otherwise light-colored room.

Break Up the Boxes

The rounded dome of the lamp, the curve of the bookends, the circular profile of the reading light, and the oval shape of the hamper keep the room from feeling too linear or boxy.

Prioritize Investments

None of us have unlimited resources, and none of us want to spend frivolously. Deciding ahead of time where you will invest and where you will save will keep you from frustration or bankruptcy later. Here are some investments that always add great value to a space.

Check Your Foundation

Invest in a rug that is the appropriate size for your room. A properly scaled rug helps to visually unify a room and group furniture. On the other hand, a rug that is too small makes a room feel cluttered and disjointed. Think of the rug as the foundation rather than an accessory.

A Personal Matter

Invest in artwork and wall decor that has sentimental value. Pieces that have a personal connection or evoke an emotional response from you will always be more interesting than stock art you can find online or at home décor chains. These architectural renderings of my childhood home flood me with nostalgia every time I look at them. Plus, I got to support a friend of mine who works part time as a custom framer.

Rooms Are Related

Invest in spaces connected to other spaces. Create a vignette in one room that provides a vista for an adjoining room. This doubles the value of your investment as it can be enjoyed in both spaces. When the door is open, my room is visible from the moment you walk in the house. I wanted it to look warm and inviting from all the way down the hall.

The Takeaways

This makeover was a learning experience for me, not only in terms of execution but also in regard to spatial theory. I realize most people don’t think about their spaces on a theoretical level, but whether we’re aware of it or not, we all relate to our surroundings in a way that goes beyond our aesthetic preferences. I’ve been working for quite some time to develop a personal approach to space that reflects values like hospitality, functionality, comfort, and contentment. These are some of the lessons this project taught me.

Organization: Contained Chaos

Here, I must give credit to one of my favorite YouTubers, Caroline Winkler. Her video on home organization was revolutionary for me and became the catalyst for some of the specific changes I made in this makeover. One groundbreaking principle I learned from Caroline is this: organization is about managing your habits more than it is about managing your stuff (though a good declutter is always a good idea). For example, most nights I refuse to rehang my dress clothes or fold lightly worn t-shirts and put them back in their drawer. For whatever reason, I find this task unbearable. So, all these clothes used to wind up in a (neat) pile at the foot of my bed. But this was unsightly and dysfunctional.  The question became, How can I keep my room tidy without putting away every article of clothing every night? Enter wall hooks and a hamper. The hooks keep clothes off the floor, and the hamper saves me daily trips to the laundry room. I found a way to work around my habits to maintain an organized space.

Unfinished Is Not Unenjoyable

I struggle to be satisfied with things I deem incomplete. I hate long, incremental projects, and I’d rather avoid a project entirely if the results won’t live up to my vision. But homes are dynamic spaces that defy completion, and I am learning that rooms can be enjoyable even if they are not “finished.” I brought this makeover to a point of closure, but there are many things I’d still change if I weren’t renting and if I had unlimited resources. I’d love to add window coverings and a headboard. I’d love to replace my $15 Target clothing rack with a deco armoire. I’d love to have an actual bedside table instead of a miniature filing cabinet. And I’d love to paint. But I like my room even without these things. It is warm and inviting, well-organized, and sentimental in the right ways. Will it ever grace the pages of a magazine or a coffee table book? Probably not. But it makes me happy just the same.

Better Rooms for Better People?

As I mentioned before, the spaces we occupy have a greater impact on us than we often realize. They can help us develop and maintain healthy habits, or they can leave us trapped in cycles of inefficiency, disorder, and procrastination. They can help us focus and rest, or they can cause distraction and stress. They can lift our spirits and boost our motivation, or they can bring us down and impede productivity. It’s all in what we make of them. This makeover taught me that we can leverage the spaces we have to help ourselves grow. I’m working to be a more organized person, and the small organizational changes I made in my room are pushing me toward that goal. I’m also working to fight my materialistic impulses. Purging unnecessary stuff from my room and limiting the scope of my makeover helped me to reject the idea that more is always better. I’m not trying to remove the element of human responsibility or overstate the power of a physical space, but I do believe that our homes, offices, and gathering places have more potential than we imagine. Try it! Create a grown-up room for a child trying to practice more maturity and responsibility. Carve out an inspiring space for a friend trying to lean into their creativity. Declutter your office to eliminate distractions and help yourself focus. I think you’ll be surprised by the results!

A New Way to Think about Space

All this discussion prompts me to ask the question, What makes a good space? I used to think it was about nailing a certain aesthetic or achieving a “finished product.” But that’s just not the case. Put simply, a good space is one that begs people to return. A good space is personal—an original expression of the people who live there rather than an embodiment of trends. A good space invites the curiosity of guests by telling a story and having a unique point of view. A good space evolves and can be experienced in new ways over time. A good space makes people feel welcome and comfortable. Social media and home improvement shows tend to reinforce the idea that design is a superficial art because that message encourages people to spend money. But remember, it’s about crafting an experience, not curating a look. You’re inviting people into your home, not a showroom. Our spaces are ultimately about the intention behind them rather than the things in them.