Please note: This article may contain affiliate links. All recommendations and styling advice are provided as helpful suggestions only, please always research thoroughly before making any major changes to your home.
If you've managed to save up and are ready to upgrade your living space, the worst idea is to increase your debt by splurging on furnishings. While having minimalist bare walls might suit those with simple tastes, it can quickly bring others down. It's better to spend your money wisely and make smart choices when making purchases.
Here are 5 tips for decorating your home on a budget.
1. Curtains or Drapes
Windows occupy a significant portion of wall space. Transform them into dreamy light displays by using sheer curtains. Light up a room by capturing and bouncing natural light off these curtains or semi-transparent drapes. Such fabrics add interesting focal points to any space.
Plain sheers break up and diffuse light, while patterned ones create pretty dapples. Achieve affordable privacy for your home, and when there's more decorating budget available, consider adding tails, frills, valances, and swags over the sheer curtains. Introduce a shine to your home with sheers made from silk, organdy, diaphanous synthetics, or plain cotton.
Textured sheers in cheesecloth, gauze, voile, and muslin bring a sense of busyness (useful for dressing up a bare room) and create a more dramatic effect with subtle shadowing. Once a window is adorned with sheers, the billowing, gossamer effect they create when the wind moves adds to the satisfaction of giving a room a lively touch.
2. Update Your Pendant Lights
Save money by swapping out bulbs and fittings in your pendant lights. Consider the impact of good lighting in hotels or restaurants— it's crucial.
According to the article in Lottoland blog, light does more than just create visual effects; it also has biological and psychological effects that influence your mood. It's a simple yet fundamental way to enhance the ambiance and give your space a thoughtful, comfortable look.
Additionally, changing the lamp shades with fabric can elevate the feeling, making you feel like a millionaire at home!
3. Shelves
A well-decorated room can lose its charm when it lacks order and neatness. Installing affordable storage space is a simple solution that reduces chaos in a busy household. Many people struggle to return items to their proper place, especially when they're buried under a pile of random objects.
Without designated spots for things, items tend to disappear, leading to endless searches when needed. Having designated places for belongings contributes to maintaining a sense of sanity in the home. Incorporating simple shelving, a couple of bookcases, and lidded chests can significantly create a calm environment.
If your family has a substantial collection of ceramic frogs or delicate figurines, consider using glass-fronted cabinets. This not only reduces the need for frequent dusting but also showcases what matters to you. Opting for ready-to-assemble units can help keep costs down.
For those with an extensive book collection, think about building shelves along a wall and integrating them with the windows. This design provides visual pleasure through a mix of different sizes and directs attention to the wall and the views outside.
Painting the shelves the same colour as the walls makes them blend in, emphasising the decorative aspect of the books.
4. Chair Rails and Mouldings
This stands out as a budget-friendly method to enhance the style and charm of a dull room. Various dado mouldings are readily available in the market and can be easily attached to the wall.
Originally used to delineate a separation between different wall fabrics and protect them from chair backs, dado rails, placed about one-third up the wall, now come in various designs, from simple to ornate. Once painted, dados create a notably decorative effect.
It's advisable to stick to a simpler rail design in smaller rooms. Dados play a role in visually expanding a room by drawing the eye downward, creating the illusion of more space between the walls.
Feel free to go all out with decorations for larger, grand rooms. In some homes with tall walls, you can add extra embellishments to the standard cornices. These mouldings can be painted contrasting or complementary to add an extra touch of flair.
5. Paint and Colour
Adaptable, cost-effective, and strategically applied, paint can deceive the eye. Spaces with low ceilings often evoke a sense of confinement, but through the clever use of optical illusions, a room can appear more expansive.
Introducing vertical stripes creates a visual effect that tricks the eye into perceiving a higher ceiling. Go for gentle contrasting colours and adjust the stripe width based on the room's proportions—broad or narrow as needed. While bold stripes can work with a keen sense of colour, caution is advised to avoid turning the room into a spectacle reminiscent of a circus tent.
Before starting the painting process, meticulously mark off the stripes, paying close attention to areas around windows and doors.
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