You’ve just moved into a new home or apartment. Or maybe you watched HGTV for too long and now you want to redecorate your room. Decorating is expensive, but you don’t have to break the bank to come up with a beautiful design. According to Lorri Dyner Design, decorating a living room can fall into one of three budgets: budget, mid-range, and high. Budget is $2,000. Mid-range is $10,000. High-end is $33,000+.

However, I’m a budget queen — like shopping at Chanel on a Nordstrom budget. Not all of us have the money currently to do a high-end or even mid-range decoration of our rooms. We will have to settle for budget until we can eventually afford that interior designer. But, it’s fun to challenge yourself to get the best quality furniture for the lowest cost! So we’re going to go through each room and see how we can lower the cost of decorating while maintaining the beauty of the design.

We talked about the various living room budgets by an interior designer, but how much do people actually spend on average to furnish their apartments? (ForRent.com) We’re only going to look into the costs of furnishing your living room and bedroom because these are typically the first and most expensive spaces you need to decorate.

• Living Room: $2,200

• Bedroom: $3,586

  Total: $5,786

So let’s challenge ourselves. We don’t need to be average. We need to be below average (ha!).

Living Room Challenge – $1,500

• Sofa – $825

• Coffee table, end tables, TV stand – $350

• Area rug – $150

• Lighting – $100

• Miscellaneous Decorations – $75

  If you want to see how you can make this an even greater challenge, check out how I designed my studio bedroom for only $969 from scratch. Like literally bought all of the furniture and decorations.

  Bedroom Challenge – $1,500

• Mattress – $600

• Box spring – $100

• Bed frame – $250

• Duvet cover and duvet insert – $125

• Pillows and pillowcases – $85

• Bed sheets – $25

• Rug – $100

• Lighting – $100

• Tables – $115

I didn’t quite achieve this challenge in my own studio bedroom (it cost $1,784), but still check out the design because without my mattress splurge, it would have only cost $1,314.

Total: $3,000

We’ve basically cut our budget in half compared to the “average” person. And you know what? Our homes probably look better! Sometimes its not the women wearing the Chanel dress that looks the best, but its the women who has a mix of high and low pieces that truly shows that she has style.