Affordable Interior Decorating

Affordable interior decorating for your home using paint, lighting, plants, mirrors, a little imagination and some effort.

Redecorating your home with furnishings and accessories without spending an arm and a leg is not an easy task. The good news is that small, affordable and inexpensive changes to the interior decorations can make a dramatic difference.

Here are some affordable and inexpensive ways to decorate your home, the way you want, without getting a second job to pay for the interior decorating.

Paint It

A fresh coat of paint will rejuvinate any old home. If you've never tried before, now is the time to experiment with some colour combinations. Visit some paint suppliers and have a look at the colour charts to get some ideas. Click on these links to visit the Plascon Paints and Dulux Pants web sites for some colour inspiration.

Tired kichen cupboards can get new life with a coat of paint. If you are sick of your old kitchen, speak to your local paint specialist about a paint treatment to transform your eyesore into an asset.

You don't simply have to brush paint on the walls. There are a miriad of decorative painting techniques, such as ragging and colour washes. Decorative painting techniques are a great way to add colour and texture.

Light Up Your Life

Believe it or not, just changing the lighting in your home can transform your entire house.

The placing of light sources, the direction of lighting, the intensity of the light, and the highlighted areas in a room all play a part in creating a room's atmosphere. Most people don't pay attention to the lighting in their home. They opt to use the fixtures that came with the house and miss out on the potential transformation of proper lighting could bring to their living spaces.

If you shy away from changing the overhead lighting fixtures in your home, you may want to place lamps intermittently throughout your home as an alternative source of lighting. Shining light from the side, rather than from above, will create a cozy and homely feel.

Paper lamps are relatively cheap and can give a warm look by diffusing and softening the light. Using a little imaginaton, you can find many ways to provide more atmosphere in your room.

Remember to make provision for reading, as the lighting used to create atmosphere is sometimes a little too dim to allow you to read comfortably.

Bathroom Revival

If your family is like mine, you probably spend way too much time in the bathroom. Seeing as though we almost live ther anyway, it may be worth taking some trouble to make the bathroom look good.

The first thing to do is to clear away those half-used soaps, shampoos and other toiletries perching everywherein the bathroom. You need some packing space in a bathroom. I find it amusing to see many modern bathroom designs that do away with the old basin cabinet without providing an alternative storage space. A pathroom without a cabinet better have no female bathers!

Replace the small bathroom accessories, such as toothbrush holders and cups, lotion dispensers and towel rairs with better quality bathroom accessories in a design that matches the rest of the bathroom. The small details can make the difference between a nice bathroom and an awesome bathroom.

The batroom is one room that doesn't really need atmosphere. An atmosphere of cleanliness and sterility should reign. A lot of the accessories used to create an atmosphere just aren't suited to the hot, moist conditions in a bathroom.

Oh, don't forget to get rid of that horrible black mould on the edge of the bath and in the tile grouting. Your local hardware store will be able to suggest a suitable cure for bathroom mold.

Picture Perfect

Mirrors can open up a room like nothing else can. Mirrors are the way to go if you need to make a bathroom or living room appear larger. Place an unusual mirror at the end of a short hallway to elongate it, or place a few conventional mirrors in a small room to make it appear larger.

Make your home feel like your haven by hanging your favourite prints and pictures on the wall. Create a display of your family photographs buy using quality frames and hanging them in small groups along your wall to make one large collage. You can also hang large, prominent pieces throughout your house and mix them up with smaller frames.

Whatever you do, don't fall in the trap of hanging mirrors or pictures at random throughout your home. Work with a plan. Lay a group of pictures out on the floor to get the layout right before hanging them perfectly on the wall.

Hanging pictures and mirrors without a plan may make it look as if you were trying to use up all your picture hooks before you ran out of energy. Your home can do without such an attempt.

Green House

Green plants literally brings life into your home. If you don't have a green thumb, try a low-maintenance plant such as a philodendron to add some colour to your home; it doesn't require much light or care, and thrives indoors. Any plant needs some water though, so write it in your schedule if you have to!

Small palm varieties can be placed next to chairs and windows to give a little hight variation in a room. Smaller plants will look great on tables, shelves and windowsills throughout your home.

Remember those hanging plants at granny's house? Yes, a hanging basket with cascading leaves will add dramatic flair to large hallways and living rooms.

If you don't know your begonias from your petunias and are stuck for choice, ask your local gardening centre for advice on which plants to use.

Furniture Shuffle

If you're really on a shoestring budget, try rearranging your furniture in a completely different way. Done properly, this will make it seem as if you've created a brand new home.