My experience with decorating military base housing

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My family has lived in military base housing for about nine years in my husband’s military career. I thought  I would share with you some tips I discovered to help make our base housing feel more cozy and home like.

For those of you that are not familiar with military base housing let me tell you that is is probably not as bad as you think. Depending on what base you are at and the size of your family you are given either an apartment, duplex or sometimes a stand alone single family home to live in while you are stationed at that base. We have lived in some that were 70 years old and also some that they were putting the sod in the yard as we were moving in they were so brand new. It is all in the timing of when you arrive and where. Quite honestly you learn to make do.

I tried very hard to look at each new base as a great experience and remind my kids that not every child has the chance to experience so many different places. I looked at it as a blessing. Being raised in rural Missouri I never got the opportunity to do things like learn how to Snow Shoe in P.E. or go on a field trip to one of the country’s largest amusement parks!

Okay back on track to the decorating: the key thing to remember with military base housing is whatever you decide to do to your home it has to be in exactly the same condition when you leave. So if you decide to paint a wall you will have to paint it back to the color it was before you leave. All of those decorating shows that say painting is cheap – they lie. It is NOT cheap one gallon of paint is $30! So I learned to think temporary what can I put up that will come down easily? Here are some of the things I found:

Wallies – these are cut outs of wall paper pieces. It only takes water as the paste is already on the back to apply them to the wall. Then when you are ready to move you just reapply water to them again and they peel back off.

Vinyl artwork (thanks to Vinyl Attractions for the image)- unlike the Wallies above these have no paste involved and require you to apply pressure with something like a credit card to them and they will adhere to the wall. They easily peel off as well when you are ready to move.

The other thing I try to do is stay with a color scheme such as earth tones in my living room. That way chances are my curtains will work from one house to the next. I actually used the same valances in five different homes we lived in.

We have also lived in a couple base housing that had wall to wall tile floors. Now I am not talking about the pretty tiles like you might find in a Southwest home. I am talking about cafeteria tile floors. Yes think COLD feet! In this situation I went to a local carpet store and asked if they had any remnants. Remnants are pieces of carpet that are left over from a job that they will be willing to sell at a discount. This is the perfect opportunity to put your haggling skills to work.

Remember when you haggle use terms such as “If I give you this would you be willing to give me this?” Give them a reason to want to give you a discount.

Things to avoid doing:

-buying furniture that fits one nook just perfect (this may work for this home but you may never be able to make it work in another base housing again)

-getting custom made drapes (same reason for the furniture it may work for this house but chances are you won’t be able to make it work again)

-buying a unique sized area rug

-I would also highly caution against painting unless your heart is just set on it. The reason why is that the moving process is so stressful in itself that is just one less thing you will have to worry about when it is time to move out not having to repaint all of the walls.

Okay all of you military wives out there I would love to hear your advice and thoughts on Decorating on a Budget base housing!