frugal zeitgeist

Cheap Home Decorating Ideas

Posted on 09. Apr, 2009 by Dragon Sue in Uncategorized

Like all life style choices, decorating your home, be it a rented apartment or a mansion, is a very personal thing to you, and I am not going to tell you to do this, that and the other, because it just won’t work for you.

However, on the other hand, if the ‘Credit Crisis’ is forcing you to take a scalpel to your decorating budget, there are a couple of ideas I can give you for decorating on a shoe-string.

The top number one tip for decorating on a budget is to make every room a blank canvas. Paint the walls a neutral colour, like off white, (not pure white, that is too glaring!).

To that you can add your own choice of fabrics, pictures and ornaments that will make the room your own. This is the reason rented apartments are normally painted a bland colour, it gives the renter the opportunity to make the apartment their own with their belongings, and saves the landlord the cost, and the mind boggling conundrum of what each tenant would like.

Living rooms and bedrooms often have a change of curtains with the seasons, heavier curtains during the winter, and lighter airy curtains during the warmer months. As the window is often the focal point of a room, you can take advantage of this by changing the pictures and ornaments with the curtains, move around the furniture, and without having to use a single lick of paint, (if the old paint is still in good condition), and you still get the feeling as if you have changed the whole décor! It will feel like a brand new room, which it will be, to all intents and purposes.

If you are thinking about decorating your kids room, don’t forget they grow, and so do their tastes, so a ‘blank canvas room’ leaves you with the option of removing all those Spiderman pictures when the child decides they prefer Zina! Try to remember that those lovely themed wall papers for children were designed by adults, to get other adults to buy them for their children! Having a Fairy Princess themed bedroom, with matching wall paper, bedspread, curtains and rug, will not make the child grow up any happier, spending quality time with their parents will do that, and it is free!

Paint can often be found on sale, if you find a colour that suits you, snap it up and pray you have enough to do the room you have in mind.

Forget about wall paper, unless the walls are in such bad condition they need the paper to hold them up, in which case you really need to sort the walls out before you think about decorating anyway! Sorry.

Fabrics for curtains are also often on sale, but don’t stop at just curtains, why not buy enough to whip up some covers or throws for the furniture, and shades for the lamps? There is a lot you can do with a swatch of material and a sewing machine….

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