Your home is where you relax and enjoy down time with your family. You may look upon it as your sanctuary, a place where you can express your personality and feel at your most comfortable. Considering this, the home can be a blank slate for you to get creative with your interior design to express your personality to the world.
However, with a hectic modern life it’s all too easy to neglect to give your house some TLC, causing it to look drab and untidy. Read on to discover six ways you can give your home a designer makeover while still sticking to a budget.
1. Create a design scheme
Coming up with a design scheme before beginning any home improvements can help you to stick to a budget. If you have a clear plan of exactly how you want your home to look, you are less likely to give in to impulse buys that don’t go with the rest of your décor – for example, you won’t have to struggle to find a place for the ornate Victorian carriage clock in your minimalist and modern living room. A design scheme can also help you to decide what exactly you need for your renovations, which can give you a clear idea of what to look for while shopping and preventing any mistake purchases.
2. Search out bargains
If you are carrying out a home makeover, you have probably made up a list of various items that you want to purchase as part of your renovations. A new suite and the perfect vintage closet can quickly eat into your renovation budget, sometimes costing you thousands of dollars to purchase.
Rather than buying brand-new, you could keep the costs down by searching for top-quality second-hand bargains. Thrift shops and antique malls are good places to start, but you could also have a look at eBay and Craigslist for some real bargains. House clearances and estate sales can be particularly fruitful if you are following a particular renovation theme. For instance, this could include searching for an original cast iron mantelpiece for your Victorian house.
3. Decorate the walls yourself
If you are particularly skilled at DIY you might want to consider decorating your walls yourself. Simply buy the paint that you want and the accompanying brushes and get painting! Don’t be afraid to be experimental with your wall painting, either. Wall stencils, for example, enable you to neatly hand paint attractive patterns on your walls. Applying wall paper is more complicated – as well as applying base layers there is also pattern matching to consider – and as such, you might prefer to hire a professional painter and decorator to ensure that you are happy with the finish.
4. Explore budget floor options
There’s nothing quite like the feel of a thick carpet underfoot, especially when you’re getting up in the cold winter months. However, carpeting your entire house can quickly become expensive, and you might want to explore other options.
You could, for instance, use cheaper and more durable linoleum or vinyl flooring in your kitchen and bathrooms. As these rooms regularly become damp and dirty, the wipeable nature of this flooring will enable you to clean them with ease. You could strip back your hallway and living room to the floorboards, using a specialist floorboard wax and varnish to keep it looking its best, perhaps adding a few vintage rugs for comfort and style. If you can’t resist the luxury feel of carpeting, keep it to the bedrooms where you will appreciate its cozy feel.
5. Sew your own curtains
A beautiful pair of curtains can really provide a stunning centerpiece to a room, as well as being a form of insulation against the cold and outside noise. However, they can be very expensive to buy, particularly if you want them to be customized to the dimensions of the room and window.
If you are handy on the sewing machine, you could also make your own curtains. To do this you will have to choose thick curtain fabric – brocade, velvet or thick cotton would be ideal – and a thinner lining fabric such as cotton muslin. You could even sew up some matching cushions if you have any leftover curtain fabric.
6. Use reclaimed materials
Using reclaimed materials in your renovation is a great way of adding individuality to your home while also being friendly to the environment. Reclaimed wood and tiles from other renovations can easily be reused and recycled and they will provide your home with a sense of history and a great talking point. Keep your eyes open for discarded mantelpieces and decorative light fixtures, too. As the saying goes, one person’s trash is another’s treasure, and you might discover a favorite centerpiece for your home.
