Photo: House Beautiful

Your home is a sanctuary, a place away from the outside world where you can relax and just be yourself, and for this reason you should make it as attractive and comfortable as possible. However, it is not necessary to spend a fortune on making your home unique. Many upgrades can be achieved quite cheaply. Keep reading! 

Spruce Up the Most Used Spaces

Focus on which spaces in your home are used the most and try to make these rooms as cozy as possible. The living and dining room need to look and feel welcoming to others since these are the places where you take your visitors, and you always want to make a good impression.

Photo: Elle Decor

For many, that means making these spaces look sophisticated. There are several ways of achieving this. The first is to pay attention to the details of the room, the areas that you may think go unnoticed, but that actually have a huge impact.

[otw_shortcode_quote border_style=”bordered” background_color_class=”otw-pink-background” background_color=”#fa5f74″ color=”#ffffff”]A great way to begin sprucing up your space is using molding! While plain moldings are a good and safe choice, you can make more of an impact if you install detailed molding, such as those decorated with curlicues or dentils.[/otw_shortcode_quote]

Then there are also the skirting boards. Unlike ceiling moldings and cornices, the plainer these are the better. You can make either more or less of a statement depending on whether you choose standard or high skirting boards. If you want more of a period look, high skirting boards are the way to go when decorating your home.

Windows

Windows can often be a last thought, but this is a mistake as a dressing up your windows can have a huge impact on the look of a room. They also provide a good opportunity to “up” the elegance stakes, depending on how you dress them. For example, a blind or a roller at your windows makes a minimalist statement, but they can easily be enhanced by the addition of curtains, even if the curtains are only used for framing and are not meant to be drawn.

Photo: Elle Decor

However, you may want more flexibility when it comes to your window dressing, in which case, shutters may be a better choice. A very fashionable choice, shutters allow you to regulate airflow and offer different levels of privacy – for example, slats can be shut for complete privacy, or opened for less. You can also split these in two with the different types of shutters available, such as café style shutters or tier-on-tier shutters, which mean that you can have privacy with the lower tier but open the upper tier for airflow.

Furniture

If you want to stick to a budget but still make some creative changes to your home, then consider how you can upcycle existing furniture to suit your current taste. For example, do you have a chest of drawers that is still perfectly serviceable but that is looking a little tired? If so, you could sand it down and give it a fresh coat of paint in a different color, or perhaps even paint on a design of your own creation, such as a leaf motif or a geometric pattern.

Photo: Elle Decor

Kitchen

If you have plain tiles for your kitchen splashback that are a little boring to look at, then instead of the labor and expense of removing and replacing with colored patterned tiles, take the easier route and simply stick on patterned decals. In this way, and with very little effort and expense, you can change the entire look of your kitchen.

Free up Space

Most of us are constantly looking for ways to store what we own, but we can become too familiar with our spaces to see their potential. Need space for a computer desk? Then how about that space underneath the stairs? Clear this area out and you may be surprised by how much room you free up – at least enough for you to do your monthly accounts or the kids their homework. Not enough shelving? Make the shelving you do have do double duty by fixing jar lids to their undersides so that you can screw in storage containers.

A Splash of color

There are tons of ways to mix and match with color in your home. You can create splashes of color with your bookcases. If you have a lot of different-colored books, rearrange them so that you have all the same colors together. This will help you create a focal point.

[perfectpullquote align=”full” cite=”” link=”” color=”#fc234f” class=”” size=””]Tip: If your bookcases contain more ornaments than books, then you can still add color by painting or wallpapering the back panel. This could also help to set off your ornaments to better effect.[/perfectpullquote]

Photo: Elle Decor

There are many ways that you can jazz up your home without spending a fortune. All you need to do is try looking at your fixtures, space, and furniture from a different perspective and consider how they can be enhanced or repurposed.

Achieving a luxurious, high-end look at home can be easily done a budget – there are really no secrets! Being a mastermind of budget-chic, I’m here to share a few of my tried and true techniques that can easily turnaround a tacky looking home into a high-glam model home!

Frame Expensive Wallpaper

Love the look of that bedazzling velvet damask wallpaper? Covering a whole wall in something pricey will set you back hundreds of dollars, so purchase a small roll and frame it with a thin wall molding! This is a easy way to get a high-end look without having to splurge on ceiling to floor wallpaper.

BFB Architect

Cover a Wall with Mirror Tiles

Not only do they make your space look twice as big, mirror tiles are also a great way to lighten up a dark room. Choose a section of your room and cover it in mirror tiles. For example, over your fireplace or behind your bed frame are popular ways of doing this trend. Even in the entrance, mirror tiles are a smart way to bring in more natural light and bounce it around your whole hallway! To make it look even better Google some tutorials for aging mirrors – this gives them an expensive antique effect, making them look like they’ve been there for ages.

Dillar Pierce

Add Inexpensive Tassels to Your Drawer Handles

Tassels have been around for AGES and are always a fun way of sprucing up your furniture. Use fun, colorful tassels in bright vivid colors and hang them on your drawer handles and even doorknobs. How cute does that look?

Add a Fireplace Screen

If you aren’t using your fireplace a glamorous way to dress it up is with a pretty fireplace screen. Choose something that amps it up like a fancy gold screen or even a mirrored one! This quick accessory will really make a big difference and bring all eyes to your fireplace, making it the perfect focal point. I purchased a pretty ornate one from Balsam Hill Reviews and it really dressed up my fireplace after the cold season!

A.S.D Interiors

Gold Spray-paint Goes a Long Way

Give old furniture a little TLC with GOLD SPRAY PAINT! I’ve use this trick for years and it really glams a lot of things up. If you have old rusty metal furniture give it a good sanding down and spray away! Even spray painting a few rocks from your garden gold, makes a nice decorative object to place on the coffee table. Old flowerpots, plastic figurines, and even drawer pulls look instantly refreshed and expensive!

Katie Rosenfield

Add a Mirrored Backsplash

I fell in LOVE with mirrored back-splashes when I first saw them on Keeping up with the Kardashians, in Kris Jenner’s kitchen. I don’t usually watch the show, but her kitchen is gorgeous! This designer used a similar tile technique that makes this kitchen look WOW!

Bella Spazio