Home Decorating on a Tight Budget
Affordable and Easy Tips for Revitalizing Your Interior Design
If you're on a strict budget, but need to brighten up your personal space or want to change your home's look and feel, check out these easy tips with big impact.
Nothing inspires decorating like a new home or a new apartment. Maybe you just feel the spring cleaning urge and want to make some drastic changes to give your current place a makeover. There are a multitude of great places to shop, and online sites offering the newest trends in home decor. But honestly, who has the money for that sort of home rehabilitation? Here are a few simple steps to affordable decor that anyone can do themselves.
Evaluate the Items you Already Own
Simple changes can dramatically affect the way a room looks. Consider adding a fresh coat of paint to an old chair for a bright splash of color. Paint old picture frames in alternating hues. One technique, dry brushing, will liven up a favorite item and give it a contemporary look. To start, choose a picture frame, stool, lamp, or chair with some sort of texture to it. A lamp base engraved with shallow designs, or a chair with indentations and dings from wear and tear will work just fine.
Paint the item with a solid color of your choosing, and select a secondary color that pairs well with the base hue. Metallics, or lighter colors tend to work best for the secondary tone, but certainly be creative. After the base coat dries, grab a sponge, one of the craft store types attached to a stick works best and dip it in the secondary color. Gently brush the sponge over the item you're painting, so the lighter color only skims the top most parts. This will give the item an antique look, in the case of darker colors or metallics and a trendy chic look when using bright hues and jewel tones.
Shop for Bargains
Use online sites to find second-hand items that make great conversation pieces. Consider checking out yard sales, and local flea markets. Old paintings with ornate frames make great decorating pieces. Remove the picture and use the frame to place around a contemporary poster or some trendy print media, to mix old and new. Nondescript kitchen glasses in a variety of sizes can be purchased for nickels and dimes at a garage sale, grab a bottle of glass paint for a few bucks at a craft store and make an evening of creating original art.
You need not be talented or insightful to create masterpieces; simply squiggle the paint in a manner that you think looks nice, let the glass dry and use it for fresh flowers, or for cocktail hour. With a few careful tips and tricks, finding bargains on Ebay is as simple as knowing where to look. On eBay, look for "Lots", or groups of decor items or craft supplies that might mix with or enhance your current items for a different feel.
Quick Tricks for the Not So Crafty
A large, solid color sheet makes an excellent makeshift sofa cover. When done correctly, it looks like an expensive designer job. Changing the way the center piece of furniture in your living room looks will change the appearance of the entire room. Move your furniture around, and experiment with different lighting. Add a string of simple white Christmas lights in a silk tree, or around a wooden bookcase. It may not sound beautiful, but it has a surprising candlelight effect and can look quite nice.
Change your lamp shades out with some new ones. You probably don't notice the slight "off" color that comes from use, but picking up a few eight- or ten-dollar shades at the local discount store in bright white, or exotic black, can do wonders for a stagnant room.
Move items that have been out of sight from a guest room or bedroom into a well-used room. You may be used to looking at it, but move it to a new location and appreciate your "old" items as if they were new.
There are plenty of ways to refresh your environment. Take the time to evaluate your resources, your talent, and your budget and plan accordingly. With a little planning, and some creative risks, your living space can look like a magazine centerfold. And, if all else fails, there are always Pier One Credit Cards.
