Easy Ways to Change Your Home On A Budget

What does your home say about you? A recent survey in the UK suggested that 7 in 10 people aren’t happy with their homes and that given a chance, they would change something about their homes. If you have ever watched Phil and Kirsty as they find homes for the seemingly impossible to buy for on Location, Location, Location, this notion doesn’t seem as inflated as you might have once thought.

Home renovations typically are expensive; everyone knows this and making drastic changes will usually involve saving for long periods of time or plunging yourself further into debt just for the satisfaction of living in a home that is designed exactly to your tastes. But is it worth it?

Investment wise, home improvements, when done correctly, will always give you a good ROI. The most popular home renovations being a new kitchen or bathroom with trends indicate that more and more people are choosing to extend their homes over buying a bigger property, especially during the current housing boom, which has seen house prices rise by around 10%, with houses in one area seeing an increase of £24,000 on their asking price. With this in mind, and the current average for house prices in London being £492,000, it is little wonder that people are putting up with homes they aren’t quite happy with to avoid having to take on bigger mortgages.

Approaching home updates and decor changes can seem like a big task. However, even if you can’t afford to move home or even pay for major renovation work, that doesn’t mean you can’t update your home and make it a more appealing place to live, even on a budget. Still, if you put a plan into place before you start, you can work to avoid the cost associated with replacing furniture and accessories around your home.

Tips for Changing Your Home Style on a Budget

• Start by looking for inspiration online from your favourite home decor accounts or Pinterest, where you can create a mood board with your ideas and products to help you create an image of what you want your home to look like.
• Once you have put together your perfect style, you can start pricing up home much it will cost to achieve this look and start recreating it in your own home.
• Search charity shops, car boot sales and reduced sections to help you source your items cheaper to help you save money.
• Take your time and only change what you can afford when you have the money to keep costs down.
• Upcycle or create alternatives that work to pull your ook and theme together to use items you already own and give them a new lease of life.

Easy Ways to Change Your Home on a Budget

When looking at cost-effective ways of changing up your home for less, you need to get creative and think outside of the box to maximise the impact and make the most of the room and the items in it. Sometimes, less is more, and you can do a lot with a little if you have the vision to help you pull a style together.

Decorate

Everyone knows a lot of paint can help you freshen up your home and give it a new look. Popular trends for home decor palettes include;

• Deep jewel colours
• Pinks and deep greens combined
• Monochrome
• Stone and natural hues
• Natural looks and colours

Try pairing bold wallpaper prints with softer walls to balance out the look and invoke maturity in your decor to help you bring it to life.

Another popular trend is wall panelling and padding. Having this installed can be expensive, but you can buy panel effect wallpaper or padding to replicate the effect for less.

Make sure to prep properly and thoroughly to ensure you get the best finish possible. Clean walls and remove any bits of debris that might be stuck to them and use masking tape to help you create clean lines and give you a neat and tidy finish.

You could also consider investing in major home improvements – yes they can be expensive – but when you consider how much value they can add to your home, it makes complete sense. 

You can also finance home refurbishments relatively easy through you bank, who are typically quite happy to approve such financing.

Pictures, Shelves and Wall Hangings

A great inexpensive way of brightening your home is to look at how you utilise the wall space you have. When you change the decor of a room, chances are you will change the colour of your picture frames and the style of your shelves anyway. But if you don’t already have any, you can completely change the look of a room or space by putting shelves up or creating a picture wall.

Picture walls are easy to create and can help you cover up a manner of issues in your walls too to hide imperfections you cannot get fixed. Look for picture frames online to help you bring prints or images to life in your home. Add in images of yourself, family or friends to create a memory collage or frame graphics and prints that can help you to tell a story within your home. Can’t find the colour you want? Why not spray paint alternative frames to make sure they are the perfect colour.

Use your shelves to help you create extra storage and use them to free up space in your home. Tie in your choice of shelving to compliment your chosen design. From a natural wooden shelf that gives you an instant industrial feel to minimalist white floating shelves. Or how about adding statement shelving such as a wireframe ladder shelving unit that can be wall-mounted and serve as a piece of art as well as a functioning item to dress up your walls.

Lighting

The type of lighting you use in your home can really help to create a look and feel even if you change nothing else. Demand has grown in recent years for dramatic, statement lighting that really adds the wow factor to a room. For larger, grander rooms with high ceilings, “spider” ceiling lights allow for multiple lightbulbs to hang from separate wires or threads and can be repositioned in a manner of different ways to decorate your ceilings.

Chandeliers are still a statement feature to add to many rooms, especially if you carry a light and airy feel into a room. Choose pendant lighting for breakfast bars or kitchen islands to draw attention to this feature in your home or add under-cabinet or stair lighting for added light in darker spaces.

New Flooring

What type of flooring do you have down in your house, and can you restore the original flooring? Changing the flooring in your home can have a massive impact, and depending on the flooring you have, there are a few options you can choose from.

Rip up old carpets and take a look at the floorboards underneath. If they can be restored, it might be worth checking out a youtube tutorial on restoring wooden flooring for a chapter alternative to laying new carpet, especially in larger rooms. It might take some time and patience, but the results will be worth it. 

Shop in budget high street stores to source vinyl floor tiles to lay over existing vinyl flooring or similar floor coverings for an easy refresh that is simple to lay and replace when you are tired of the look. How about painting tiled or hard floors in a hardwearing floor paint for a cheaper alternative to finding a new floor covering. This works both inside and outside and can really add charm and personality to a room.

The key to updating your home on a budget is actually to give yourself a budget and stick to it. Planning your style carefully before you go shopping will help you to source the products you want at lower prices and enable you to recreate your chosen look for less in a way that looks good and makes you happy too.