It’s hard to create beautiful spaces in your home when you struggle to find budget-friendly home decor or don’t know what you’re doing wrong with the space. These inexpensive ideas and changes in your home will help you find ways to have your home look and feel more expensive and more in style!
Sometimes you just don’t have the budget to do the projects around your home that you know will make it look updated and in style. Or maybe you just aren’t sure what you should be doing to make your home look updated.
I know we don’t have the budget to do every project we would ideally want to do in our house right away. So I’ve come up with ways that make us feel like our home is updated without breaking the bank.
Here are some fairly inexpensive and easy changes to help you have a home that looks more expensive and updated! We haven’t done all of these, some of them are still on our wish list or are in progress, but I hope they are helpful and give you inspiration for updates in your own home!
1. Neutral Wall Colors
Nothing says tacky like having bright wall colors. Maybe they do reflect your personality, but they’re also reflecting your lack of style. It’s not a bad thing to have colored walls, but be careful with your tones. Don’t go too vivid and try to stick with things that are easy to match.
2. Add White Into Your Home
Anything white! Furniture, throw pillows, throw blankets, vases… you name it! This is definitely a trend lately and not only does it make your home look more updated, it also can make rooms feel bigger and cleaner. Triple bonus!
3. Decorate Your Home With an Industrial or Modern Style
Having an industrial or modern style in your home gives your home a rich feeling. They’re both simple and structured styles creating a cleaner look and both styles are popular so items for your home should be fairly easy to find. Even if the furniture isn’t expensive, it still has an expensive look because of the style.
4. Keep Things Simple
When there’s a lot of clutter everywhere, things can get overwhelming and just make you look messy. When you’re decorating spaces, make sure you space things out and don’t put too much stuff in one spot. It doesn’t matter if they all go well together. If there are too many trinkets in one spot they no longer look nice together, they look messy and messy looks cheap.
5. Hang Your Curtains Correctly
Curtains should always reach the floor. Remember when you were a kid and people teased you when your pants couldn’t keep up with your growth spurt and they asked if you were waiting for a flood? No? Just me?
Well anyways, same goes for curtains! Make sure they touch the floor! For an even better look, hang them close to the ceiling. Having long curtains makes your windows look bigger.
6. Shop High-End Stores and Duplicate
For this one you have to get a little crafty. Go to those stores that you could never afford, look at some of the items they have and try to DIY similar pieces. I love to find inexpensive ways to create home decor items. Turn expensive finds into budget-friendly home decor!
7. Have a Style
Have one theme/style for your house and stick with it throughout the whole house. If your home has a bunch of random decor, some modern, some antiques, some farmhouse, you’re only confusing the people that walk into your home. If you stick with one style then your house will have a simple flow that is clear and classy.
8. Have Matching White Towels in Your Bathroom
I specify white because having white towels will make your bathroom feel cleaner. Plus, they’re neutral! If you don’t have all matching towels or just can’t afford that expense, just organize your towels by color and it will appear cleaner and more organized.
9. Blend Prints and Textures
It is nice to have a clean and neat look to your home, but having too many solids can appear dull or boring. Add in a few print or textures in throw pillows and blankets. Just be cautious to not overdo it and make sure the print actually go together.
10. Store Things Away that Aren’t Part of the Decor
Have kids toys lying around? Put them away! Anything that isn’t part of your home decor should not be seen. That includes movies. Create a storage spot for items that just lay around so they aren’t seen, but are still easy to get to if you have them out often.
11. Have a Backsplash
This one isn’t exactly inexpensive, but there are some really nice peel and stick tiles that you can use for a backsplash. It won’t add value to your home, but if you can’t afford an actual backsplash, then peel and stick is a great alternative and it will make the room more appealing.
12. Re-purpose Old Furniture to Make them Look Updated
You can go to thrift stores, yard sales or antique store to find great furniture pieces for your home. Or sometimes you already have the furniture in your home! Paint them, change their function, switch out hardware… there are endless ideas depending on what furniture you have but sometimes making little changes (like painting it white) will give it a whole new look.
13. Keep Your House Clean and Organized
This is not the easiest task! Things seem to always pile up, but having a clean and organized home will make your house feel more expensive because it looks like it’s more cared for. Again, messy looks cheap. Check out 7 Tips to Organize Your Home-And Stay Organized if you need tips on how to organize your home and keep it organized and functional.
14. Stainless Steel Appliances
It’s no secret that stainless steel looks and feels more expensive. If you can’t afford to update all your appliances (which is reasonable), there is a liquid stainless steel paint that you can use to make your appliances look updated. I haven’t tried this yet, but have seen a few other bloggers try it. It might be worth a shot!
15. Have Matching Furniture
When your furniture doesn’t match it sets off the whole look of the room. Try to stay consistent with the same color wood, style and get matching pieces if you can.
16. Update Light Fixtures
Just switching out lights that match your style or updated fixtures that are out of date can make a big difference in the whole look of a room.
17. Paint Cabinets
Remember, white is trendy right now. White everything. Almost every kitchen looks good with white cabinetry, but if you don’t want white, even just slapping on a fresh coat of paint will help.
18. Add Flowers or Plants
Flowers and plants bring life into your house and give you a rich, welcoming home. Place some on a table or incorporate them into your decor. However you choose, they will brighten up your home!
19. Incorporate Gold Into Your Decor
Gold never seems to go out of style and it definitely has a way a making things shine. You could even just add a few decor pieces to a room and it immediately gives it a classier look. Classy is fancy, fancy looks expensive.
20. Limit Family Pictures
An organized gallery wall is nice, but when you have a bunch of pictures with a variety of frames and sizes it can be a bit much. It’s not that we don’t want to see your family. We just don’t want to be overwhelmed by them.
Conclusion
I hope you found these budget-friendly home decor ideas to make your home look more expensive helpful! Let me know what you do for budget-friendly home decor!
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