Guest Post: How to Change the Look of your Room without Breaking the Bank

A change is as good as a rest, right? Adding a few little touches to rooms in your house can make all the difference when you feel like you need a little refresher in your home life.   

A Simple Touch
If you can’t afford to give your room a full make-over then think about making some smaller changes that can have a big impact. If you choose some new curtains that are bright and colourful, they can serve to change the atmosphere of the room, without the hassle of repainting and replacing all furniture. How about adding a rug to match? This gives your living space an extra element of warmth.

Reinvent Your Trash
Look on local free recycling sites. My friend purchased a comfy L-shaped sofa that felt like lying on a sumptuous cloud. Then she upholstered it with a deep velvet material and took a strand of that colour and matched it with another African print that she found online. She covered some plump cushions in alternate fabrics to accessorise.

Source old crates and discarded furniture from supermarkets and junk shops, use old wood to make chairs and tables, sand them down to give them a distressed vintage feel.

Ask local shops if they have any display items that will become redundant when the season ends. Repaint them, dress with coloured fairy-lights to change the mood of the room, or buy some indoor plants that will serve to refresh and invigorate.

Shelf Life
One of my favourite things about walking into a room is the atmosphere created with a bookshelf. I love all the sizes, shapes, textures of old classics in hardbound, fabric cases to the modern sans-serif in bold font.

In unused alcoves in your home, where space is wasted, resurrect shelves and this can create a place for other treasured items, this also creates a visual effect of heightening the room, without cluttering floor space.

If your last DIY adventure ended in disaster look for a reliable, trusted handyman such as The Handy People that can erect your shelves without everything sliding down the side.

Mounting shelves on the walls is a great use of dead space, it raises the eye-level when you walk into the room and takes the attention away from things you may want to hide.

Biog: Lucy Dobson is a lifestyle blogger; she is especially interested in home and garden improvements.

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