Decorate Like an Interior Design Pro for Pennies

Affordable and Easy Ideas for a Facelift for Your Home

Mar 17, 2009

With a bit of imagination and time you can add interest, style, color and details that give your home an interior design lift without spending a fortune.

For a room devoid of architectural detail, build a mantelpiece from stock shelving and moldings. Add an old mirror to the spot where the firebox would be. (You can use the mirror trick to fill the “black hole” in a non-operating fireplace too.) Fill a large basket or urn with dried flowers, bare or berried branches and twisted vines and place on the floor in front of the mirror.

Here's a designer’s trick to make a small room look bigger: Choose furniture on legs so the floor shows through, and ask the furniture to do double duty, for example a small bureau next to the bed to act as a nightstand. Paint the walls a light color and then paint some of the furniture to match the walls. Add a large standing mirror in one corner of the room. Just be sure it reflects something worth looking at, such as the view out the window or the fireplace, or a wall of art.

Or you can stop trying to make that small room look larger and revel in its coziness instead. Paint the walls a rich gold or mango, layer rugs on the floor, drape the tables with fabric and trim the lampshades with narrow velvet ribbon to create a cozy retreat reminiscent of the inside of a jewel box.

Accent your headboard by painting the wall behind the bed a dramatic color, like pale gray, dark green, chocolate, cobalt or navy blue.

Paint the inside of an open corner cabinet or hutch apple green or plum. Move your prettiest china and serving pieces here.

Paint the upstairs hallway your favorite color, even if it’s red, peony pink, turquoise or terra cotta. It’s cheery but won’t overwhelm because it’s a space where you don’t spend much time.

Make skirted slipcovers for the dining room chairs. Or paint the table white and each chair a different pastel.

Dig out that old silver heirloom tray you have stashed away. Mass similar candleholders (silver or brass or mix either with clear glass). Fill with candles in different sizes and heights but stick to just one color. Ivory and white are timeless classics.

No silver tray? Paint an old scratched tray a rich Chinese red or gold (Use a sponge. It won’t leave telltale brush marks.) Or remove the hangers from an interestingly framed old fleamarket- find mirror and use it to hold candles. The mirror will double the effect of the light.

Use these ideas as they are, or consider them as inspiration for ideas of your own that will give your house a design lift without spending tons of money.

The copyright of the article Decorate Like an Interior Design Pro for Pennies in Interior Decorating is owned by Elaine Petrowski. Permission to republish Decorate Like an Interior Design Pro for Pennies in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.