How to Decorate Your House on a Shoestring Budget
We’d all like our homes to be a calm oasis that we can return to at the end of a long work day, a place that is stylishly decorated, current and reflective of our own unique personality and flair.
But how do you achieve this when you’re hoping to decorate your house on a budget and your space is looking more tired than trendy? Read on for some simple house decorating ideas for your home.
Simple House Decorating Ideas on a Budget
Use the Internet
Firstly, get an idea of how you want your home to look. The internet is awash with house decorating ideas and inspiration for people wanting to decorate their house on a budget.
Sites like Apartment Therapy and Pinterest offer ideas on simple craft projects you can do to add pizazz to your home, many of which are achievable even if you feel that crafting is not your forte!
Etsy is a great site that sells lovely, inexpensive artwork, and by shopping there not only will you find great pieces for your home, you’ll also be supporting up-and-coming artists. You can check out The Esty Art & Collectibles here.
For used furniture and other household items that people rehome, give Gumtree a go. The saying “one (wo)man’s trash is another (wo)man’s treasure” was never so true!
House Decorating Ideas for Lighting
The right lighting can make such a difference to a home. In most homes the lighting is either too harsh and bright or too dim. An easy way to get around this problem is to use dimmer switches so you can achieve the exact lighting you want.
Floor and table lamps are a great way to add a soft lighting effect to your room. If you don’t want to splash out on new lamps, consider creating your own stylish lamps by finding lamps with plain shades in a charity shop and decoupaging the shade.
To add an ethereal glow to a room, fashion your own lamps by filling pretty glass vases or mason jars with fairy lights. Plug them in and watch your room transform into a magical wonderland!
But if making a DIY lights is not your idea of fun, you can check out some these beautiful lightening options on Amazon.
House Decorating Ideas for Furniture
Buying new furniture can be expensive and not ideal when you’re trying to decorate your house on a budget.
So unless it is absolutely necessary have a look at what pieces you already have that are maybe a little worse for wear and consider giving them a facelift using some of the following ideas:
- Add new fancy handles to old cupboards or dressers and give them a whole new lease of life
- Cover tired-looking sofas with pretty quilts or throws to make them look comfy AND chic
- Paint a table or a bookshelf a new unexpected colour, such as cherry red or emerald green and turn it into a room’s focal point.
There are paints to decorate every surface in your home, checkout these awesome furniture paints on Amazon to get you started.
Also, consider buying used furniture and doing it up yourself. Gumtree is a great place to find inexpensive or free furniture.
An old table or dresser can be bought for a few pounds and be sanded, painted and transformed into a piece that looks like it came straight from the pages of a vintage home magazine. And it doesn’t require any fancy skills, just some sandpaper, a pot of paint and a lot of elbow grease!
Paint Your Walls
A fresh coat of paint will do wonders for your space, and paint can be used in creative ways that will help you to stick to your decorating budget.
One idea is to paint the back of your bookshelves in a colour that matches the rest of the décor in the room you are decorating.
Another is to paint an accent wall, rather than painting the whole room. If you can’t decide what colour to go for, try finding something else in the room that features a colour you love, whether it be in a pillow or a throw, and use that colour for your accent wall.
It will really help pull the room together and transform it into a more sophisticated space. Incidentally, June is thought to be the cheapest month to buy paint, so stock up in the summer!
Area Rugs and Flowers and Pictures
A simple area rug can add coziness and colour to an otherwise dreary room, so don’t worry if your carpets are looking a little more worn than you would like.
An easy way to fashion a large area rug on a budget is to find several smaller rugs and sew them together, or look at Gumtree and bag yourself a bargain.
Also, bring the outside inside by decorating your home with flowers and plants; not only do they add freshness and beauty, they also make your space look more alive and put-together.
Before you go and buy flowers, see if you have anything in your garden you can use. A simple stem in a slender vase can look amazing sitting atop a bookcase. Or make your own vase by taking a plain glass jar, coiling some rope around the middle of it and securing it with glue, then fill it with a few wild flowers.
Hanging pictures around your home is another wonderful way to add character and warmth, but picture frames can be expensive. Consider instead hanging pictures using wooden clothes hangers; this looks great with larger pictures or posters and is unexpectedly chic.
For smaller pictures or photos, simply drape a piece of string across a wall, adorn the string with small pegs and attach the pictures to the pegs for an instant wall makeover.
You can also make your own art by framing either a beautiful piece of wrapping paper or common household items such as keys or cutlery.
Your Turn…
Now we’d love to hear from you! Have you got house decorating ideas to share? What things have you done to decorate your house on a budget that have given your home a new lease of life?
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I think I have r-designed my dream home millions of times over thanks to Pinterest, such an invaluable tool x
Re-purposing is something I am trying out, painting and reusing are great money saving techniques
Lots of great ideas here. We’ve recently just upcycled an old bureau into a shabby chic style. We’re about to move house too so lots of decorating to plan.
Laura.x
Thank you for sharing this useful post. I have learned alot from it.