Home Decorating Ideas on a Budget

Want to make your house look great, but don’t have a lot of money on hand? You’re not alone. Many people think that they need to spend a lot of money to get a beautiful, well-decorated home, but with a little imagination and creativity, you can do a lot with just a little. These home decorating ideas on a budget can help.

Start By Being Realistic

Being realistic about your home means two things. First, take an honest look at your home’s size, the size of each room, and where you spend a lot of your time. There’s no value in creating a separate reading nook if you know that you’ll spend all of your time in front of the TV. Maybe that space could be used more effectively in a different way.

Second, be realistic about your budget. You probably aren’t going to be able to replace all of your furniture with the latest trends, no matter how much you’d like to. Set yourself an honest budget and consider what you have that can be reused. One of the most common home decorating tips is to use recycled items, such as using old jars for vases.

Take a Look at What You Already Have

Do you have a sofa that you love? Maybe that’s the perfect piece to build your design around. The best home decorating ideas on a budget are the ones that take what you have and integrates it into the design plan. Choose
items with personal meaning to you to put on display. Keep the couch that you love and add a few new pillows or a throw to change up the look. Instead of going out and buying new things that don’t have any history for you, why not get some inexpensive matching frames (or paint the frames that you have all the same color) and set out several family photographs. Be careful not to fill the room with random mementos, but adding a few meaningful items will give your home more personality and charm.

Another great home decorating tip is to think outside of the room. Don’t limit yourself to where things supposedly belong. After a good cleaning, that garden bench might look amazing as extra seating in your living room. Maybe that china cabinet is crowding the dining room, but would be a perfect place for displaying your collectables in the den. Just because we call it a bookshelf doesn’t mean that you can only put books on it!

Edit Yourself

OK, so your Aunt Mildred gave you that lamp, but if it doesn’t go with anything, it’s not right for your home. One of the easiest cheap home decorating ideas is to simply not keep pieces that look out of place or that take up space without adding something to a room. Rooms that are crowded or cluttered often make people feel uncomfortable. What’s more, a lot of clutter – especially clutter that doesn’t go with your style – only serves to hide the pieces that you really want to show off.

As part of this, make sure that you have “white space” in your room where the eye can rest. This easy home decorating idea simply involves a blank wall or a piece of furniture in a solid, neutral color. This space will help make those parts of the room that you do want to draw attention to stand out more, and make the room feel less cluttered overall.

Let Your Furniture Multitask

Although this is especially important in smaller rooms, any room can be given a new look by limiting the amount of furniture. Try to redecorate by taking things out rather than adding them in. Instead of a coffee table and a separate cabinet, why not try a storage trunk in the living room? Place some small lamps on your sideboard or a sofa table to create a different lighting pattern without cluttering the space. A few large, colorful pillows can give the room a new look, and also be used to sit on the floor.

Think Focal Point

One of the easiest home decorating ideas on a budget is to rearrange what you have to put the focus on one piece. If you have a fireplace or other architectural feature, arrange the room so that it is the first thing your eye is drawn to in the room. You could buy a new bed for your bedroom, but why not add colorful new bedding or paint the wall behind the headboard as the focus. Put a striking painting on the wall and orient the room around it. Adding a few simple items that bring color and pattern into your room and that draw your focus can give the space a fresh new look without a lot of redecorating.

In the living room, most people make the television the focal point. This is natural, since a lot of families like to watch TV together, and arranging the furniture in a way that gives everyone a good view is one easy home decorating idea. Many people find that an attractive TV stand or entertainment center can be a good focal point and add more interest to the room.

Try to Stick to One Style

Often, we end up buying furniture one or two pieces at a time. Most of us have that dresser from our first apartment, the living room set that we bought for our first home, a new club chair that replaced the one that was damaged, and maybe a new entertainment center that we bought when the new TV was too big for the old one. When you do buy a new piece of furniture, try to get it in the same or a similar style as what you already have. An elaborate, highly decorated Traditional sofa is probably going to look odd next to a very Modern chair.

Some styles – like Modern and Mid-Century – have enough similarities to allow pieces to be mixed and matched. Look for the specific characteristics that attract you, such as clean lines, overstuffed cushions, or elaborate scroll details. When you shop, look for furniture that has these similar details, as well as the color and the tone of the wood or metal. A couch and a chair that share clean lines, gentle curves, and thin, dark wood legs will look like they go together, even if they don’t match.

Think About Traffic

One of the home decorating tips that people don’t think about is traffic. People have to be able to move through your home on a regular basis, so rearrange your furniture to make sure they can get from point A to point B easily. You may even want to make a sketch before you start rearranging to see where things might look best in each room without blocking traffic. Don’t be afraid to move furniture to a different room if it works better there. That narrow drop leaf table taking up space in your kitchen might work better against the wall of the living room, where it’s out of the way and provides a surface for a lamp or framed photographs.

Do It Yourself

Of course, decorating your home often means painting or wallpapering the walls, but there’s more that you can do yourself. Have an old dresser that doesn’t go with your new bedroom set? Repaint it to be a better match. Trying sewing new pillow covers yourself; it costs a lot less than buying new pillows, and you can get exactly the look that you want. DIY can be a bit risky if you’re not experienced, so you should make sure that the chair that you’re painting isn’t an antique.

Other home decorating ideas on a budget include adding simple unique touches and adding emphasis where you wouldn’t expect it. Try attaching a ribbon around a lampshade in the bedroom for a new look. In the kitchen, try taking off the cabinet doors and painting the cabinets a new color, both inside and out. Using pattered wallpaper inside a bookcase or display cabinet can give it a stunning new look.

While you may not have the budget to decorate your home from scratch, there are many cheap home decorating ideas that can help. Simply rethinking the furniture you currently have and doing some rearranging is the perfect way to start getting the look you want without the excess cost. You can also choose a few accessories to add color and pattern without breaking the bank, especially if you repurpose items that you already have or do it yourself with paint or fabric.