Decorating your home can be so expensive, especially if you have a whole room or even a house that needs doing. It’s important to work out what you have available to spend from the start and work out anything that you can do more cheaply as well as what you are able to do yourself rather than hiring a costly professional to do it for you.
There are plenty of do-it-yourself hacks that you can use in your home to update and improve it without spending a ton of money. Of course, sometimes you will have to buy something new or get someone in to do it for you, but there are also lots of home improvements you can do without spending loads of money.
Here are some great ideas for how to save money on your home decor.
Save Money on Your Home Decor With These Clever DIY Hacks
Clear everywhere out and make some money
Not strictly a home decor hack, but having a big clearout before doing up your house is a great way to increase your budget as well as making more space and improving the look of your home.
Go through each room in turn and put anything you want to get rid of into different piles for charity or offer to people locally on Freecycle, stuff to throw, things to pass on to friends or family and anything you could sell.
Facebook selling pages, Gumtree, as well as eBay or Vinted, are great for making a bit of money during a clearout, that you can then add to your budget to spend elsewhere.
Local Facebook selling pages are fantastic if you need things gone quickly, regardless of whether you offer things for sale or give them away for free. It can often save you time and money hiring a skip to get rid of everything – even items that can be given away for free and used again by someone else, such as some bricks or old wood (for burning), can be put on there.
On these websites, keep an eye out for freebies or reasonably priced used stuff for yourself. You might be amazed at the things that some people will give away for free in order to get rid of them and it will save you some money. You can save a lot of money by purchasing something as simple as unused flooring or a pack of tiles that someone else wants out the way, that can be used in a small area like an understairs cupboard or small bathroom.
Your local tip can be very handy when doing a big clearout as you can make use of the recycling sections they have so things can be reused and you can be eco-friendly too!
Raise the ceiling by using visual tricks
If a room in your house feels quite small and you’d like to make it appear larger and the ceilings higher, then painting the walls and ceiling white can make it feel bigger and less cramped. These optical illusions can significantly increase the feeling of space in a room.
If you don’t fancy the idea of completely white walls, or just want to add some colour to a room, then just painting the bottom half of the walls can also make them appear higher too.
Ceiling-to-floor curtains
Along the same lines, to give the impression that the space is taller than it actually is, you can also hang curtains higher than the windows, even starting from the very top of the wall.
Replacing shorter curtains with full-length ones can often be done pretty cheaply and easily and will really improve the look of a room. Longer curtains will also help keep the heat in too!
Add DIY shutters
If long curtains don’t suit a room, or if you want a different look, then DIY shutters can be a great option and look really beautiful.
You may think that shutters are an expensive option, especially compared to curtains or blinds but they don’t have to be. By choosing do-it-yourself shutters you can save loads of money and installing them yourself isn’t as hard as you might think.
You can choose from full-length shutters, cafe-style ones which just cover half the window, shutter blinds which you can flip open to let lots of light in whilst still maintaining your privacy, solid shutters or tier-on-tier depending on what you need and like the look of.
California Shutters offer lots of easy-to-follow guides and how-to videos to help you through every step of ordering and fitting your shutters, making shutters an affordable option if you are doing up your house, and, in fact, comparable to getting new curtains or blinds.
Shutters will completely change the look of a room and you can choose from different styles that suit you and the room itself. They’re also great for keeping the heat in a room and the cold out (even better than curtains!), helping you to save more money.
Painting
A room can be given a breath of fresh air and made to feel more welcoming just by adding a fresh coat of paint, whether you’re entirely changing the colour or just touching up the current paint. When working on a budget, a fresh coat of paint can go a long way.
Paint actually costs quite a lot nowadays so it can quickly add up if you have lots of areas to paint.
Using a colour-match service will often enable you to save quite a bit of money if there is a colour you love from an expensive brand. If you take a sample or sometimes just the paint card then they can mix a custom colour for you, saving you a lot of money, especially for any bigger rooms you are painting.
Community Repaint is a brilliant initiative where you can donate old and unused paint you no longer need or want or and it might go to the local community or charities, but you can also sometimes get some free paint for yourself saving you even more money. So it’s worth checking in your area what is currently available.
Give furniture a makeover
Whether it’s furniture you already own, or you buy some second-hand, giving furniture a makeover yourself is a great way to save money and give something a new look.
Painting old furniture can make it look much more modern and in keeping with the rest of a room. I had a dark wood corner cabinet that used to be my Granny’s, but it just didn’t fit with the rest of our decor so I painted it cheaply and easily with a light neutral colour (I didn’t even bother sanding it down first!) and it looks brilliant and fits in so much better.
You can also paint old chairs and do them all mismatched (especially if they’re already different styles that you pick up second-hand) and it can look really modern and cool but hardly cost you anything.
A kitchen can be given a whole updated look on a budget just by painting the cupboards and drawers and changing the handles.
New hardware such as door handles and knobs on cupboards or a chest of drawers can make a big difference to a room.
DIY Wallpaper
You can make your own DIY ‘wallpaper’ and transform a plain wall by using a sponge or stencils and a different colour of paint to create your own designs. These can look really great and you only need a bit of paint compared to painting entire walls.
Some designs such as spots can be so simple to do even if you’re not at all arty and can really look fantastic.
Replace shower curtains with a glass door
You may think that a glass door for your shower will cost you a lot more than using cheap shower curtains. But whilst that is true of the initial outlay, it will save you money in the long run and will look 100% better and open up the bathroom too.
Cheap shower curtains get damp and mouldy after a while and so you often have to replace them, plus they take up more space in the shower and the bathroom.
A glass shower door looks way more modern and bright and they don’t have to cost loads to buy.
Add plants
Adding some plants to a room can make a huge difference, breathing life and colour into it.
Plants can be expensive so it can be worth seeing if your friends or family have any offshoots of plants or cuttings they would be willing to take so that you can grow your own!
If you have a garden you could take cuttings of different plants or flowers in the spring to make your own green bouquets and put them in a vase to display them.
Artificial plants and flowers can look pretty realistic nowadays so they are also an option if you don’t fancy looking after live plants.
Make over an empty fireplace
If you have an empty fireplace in your house, try adding some candles to it, whether you light them or they’re just for decoration.
You can group candles together and it will make the area look finished without spending much at all!
Update or add soft furnishings
Rugs, cushions and throws can play a significant part in any living space and can quickly make a room look cosier and more inviting. The beauty of cushions and throws is that, if you do some proper research and look in the right places you can find some incredible pieces at very affordable prices.
Have a look on Pinterest for some inspiration to see how you can introduce cushions, throws and blankets to your interiors.
Adding a big rug to a room can bring it all together as well as cover up an older carpet and the room will look more appealing and coordinated.
Hang mirrors for more light
Adding a mirror is one of the simplest and most powerful ways to change a room, especially when working with a smaller space.
Not only is having a mirror in the room convenient, but it also serves to reflect natural light, making the space appear more open, bright and welcoming.
Mirrors are excellent for instantly lighting up a room and making a smaller room appear larger.
General tips and ideas
See if there is anything you can do yourself or that you can learn to do when you are remodelling your home. Hiring individuals is quite expensive and can occasionally prevent you from finishing the task at all due to the expense of labour and the necessary supplies.
Also, think about whether you can hire any of the larger tools you will need or see if you can borrow them from friends or family rather than buying them.
Don’t forget to use cashback sites when buying anything for your home online! It’s literally free money when you online shop so make sure you sign up and then use them – especially before making any bigger purchases.
I use Quidco or TopCashback (if you join either of these with my link you’ll currently get £1 cashback free!) as not all of the same stores are on each one and sometimes one has better offers than the other. You can get add-ons for your browser that will remind you that cashback is available when on certain sites, which is really helpful so make sure you get them.
These websites can earn you extra cash that you can subsequently add to your overall renovation budget, especially when making significant purchases.
When looking for particularly expensive items for your home, have a look at online trade sites as many of them will sell to individuals at trade prices too.
There are lots of ways you can save money on your home decor, whether you’re starting from scratch, doing up one room or the entire house. Hopefully, these DIY tips and tricks gave you some ideas for your own home!
This is a collaborative post.
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