Budget ways to spruce up your space

[Quincy]

Hello everyone!

Sprucing up your home is a great feeling, it allows you to give your home just that little finishing touch. It can be something as simple as moving around some furniture or hanging your favourite painting on a wall.

There are many ways to spruce up your home on a budget, as there are many useful tips & tutorials online.

However, I have been wondering whether you have any good tips to share on sprucing up your home on a budget? Perhaps, you might even have good tips to share on how to DIY certain items?

It would be great to hear about your experiences and maybe even about some projects you've worked on 🙂.

I'm looking forward to hearing your answers!

(p.s. I've moved into a new house, and I'm very keen on hearing about any tips that you might have.)

[Natalie294]

PAINT! Makes the biggest difference in lightening the space up and making it look fresh and sharp. Scrape outdated popcorn ceilings and always paint ceilings in a FLAT finish. Repaint or stain cabinets and swap out cabinet hardware!

[Quincy]

I agree! Paint does help a lot 🙂 @Natalie294 

Have you done any other DIY projects? 

[Fiza1]

HAHA I actually kept the popcorn ceilings in my higher end rental. Couldn't afford the extra $3k for it with all the other expenses. Guests haven't said anything about it so far 🙂

[Debra300]

@Quincy 

Adding wall art/decor is another good method to spruce up a space.  Personally, I don't like a lot of nick-nacks on display, because they can make a place look cluttered and get dusty.

[Quincy]

I agree @Debra300. I'm yet to hang some art on the walls here, but I won't be hanging too many things around the house. 

Where do you usually get your art/decor from? 

[Debra300]

@Quincy,

Since I am pretty much homebound these days, I buy my wall art from Amazon and Amazon Warehousedeals.  I have done all of the tips that others have shared here.  We scraped off the popcorn ceiling and repainted the apartment to a lighter neutral color.  I bought some returned pieces of furniture from Warehousedeals and some Ikea kitchen cabinets, and used chaulk and milk paints on them to freshen them up and add color to the space.  I've laid down rugs to different areas to help define them, and enhance the decor of the space.

I want to add live plants, but am hesitant to trust them in the care of guests and my property manager (when I'm not around).  So, I am thinking about getting some "hard-to-kill" or "I won't feel sad if they die" plants like mini-succulants and herbs.  

@Nick @Kath9 @Natalie294 

[Quincy]

Those are some good tips! I bought some plants from IKEA a while back. I've also bought some small cactuses which I have put near a window in the Kitchen @Debra300. 

[Debra300]

@Quincy,

What have been Milky's suggestions?  Did he say incorporate a colorfully decorated tree/condo?  Or possibly putting up some pictures of brightly colored birds that he can dream about catching?

Who needs a hat when you can rock a fro like this?

[Quincy]

Milky has been bothering the plants by chewing on them! I guess that I will have to take your advice and consult him! Love the pics of the birds😂 @Debra300 

[Ann72]

@Quincy  Your cactii are adorable! 

[Nick]

Plants used to play this role for me also @Debra300 while I was living there and was able to look after them. The balcony was full of flowers and had several plants inside which I moved around in different parts of the house (which is a pretty big open space), but the company I have now doing the check-ins and management wouldn't take care of them, so I gave everything to friends who I knew would, before moving in the UK. 

[Yadira22]

@Debra300 There are products in the market which allow for self watering (including actual pots), meaning that you really only need to refill these every 2 weeks or so. 

Eg. https://tinyurl.com/y5m2rhtz

[Fiza1]

Currently really into these fake plants from target

[Kath9]

@Quincy, I think I'm a pretty good bargain hunter because I've never had the money to buy new furniture, and I find that older antique or retro stuff is generally more interesting anyway. There's a lot you can do to upcycle old things. For example, I recently bought a secondhand dining table and chairs that were quite good quality but were painted with a horrible high-gloss redwood-lookalike stain. I used chalk paint, which can go over anything, and painted right over the top of it - the table in a duck egg blue and the chairs in a mustard yellow. They turned out great! My next job is to find some nice retro fabric and cover the black leather upholstery on the chairs.

Like @Natalie294, paint is one of my favourite ways to spruce up a room - it's quick, cheap and easy and gives rooms an instant facelift.

Artwork can be found in op shops or auctions (although I never go 'looking' as such because I know I won't find anything - it's more a matter of stumbling across pieces you like along the way). I also like keeping things minimal and uncluttered but with splashes of colour or texture like cushions or throws.

Best of luck with your new place!