Be An Inspired Frugal Homemaker
By Frugal Decorating

Frugal decorating your home can seem quite a daunting prospect. You look around your home and desperately want to decorate it with all the latest styles and colours but you know this would cost a small fortune.

However don't despair, frugal home decorating can be easily achieved with a little imagination and planning.

The first steps in frugal decorating

Step 1 - Don't try to tackle the whole house at once. This is simply too big a task to take on. Instead make a plan, decide on an achievable time span, one that allows you time to save money for the projects and to plan each rooms décor.

Step 2 - Start a decorating saving jar. Make a commitment to putting a certain amount of money away each week and when the jar is full, place it in a separate bank account so that you won't be tempted to dip into it.

Step 3 - Start collecting ideas for each room. My two favourite places for seeking inspiration is from colour supplements which come with your daily newspaper (don't waste money on expensive home makeover magazines), and visiting home décor shops and looking at their displays.

I know I won't be able to afford exactly what they show but they are great for colour scheme ideas etc.

Step 4 - Pick up small decorative items when you see them, especially in the sales. This helps to spread the cost rather than to try and furnish a room in one go.

Step 5 - Ask at your local DIY Store if they sell off their rejected mixed paint that has been mixed wrongly and the colour wasn't exactly what the customer had wanted. Sometimes you will find some great colours and cheaply too.

Frugal Ideas for each room to spark the imagination for frugal decorating

Main Room

Your main living room is probably the room you use the most and may even be the largest room you have in your home. So this room takes centre stage and its décor needs to be thought out carefully as it is the one you will spend most of your time in.

Often all that is needed to change the décor is some rearranging of furniture and adding some extra touches to change the whole feel of the room.

Windows - Curtains and drapes can be expensive to replace. Unless you are a dab hand at sewing and can make your own drapes then the best advice is to keep it simple.

Blinds are a very modern and simple yet attractive way to cover your windows.They are a great frugal decorating tool as they suit most rooms and can be very cheap to buy if you shop around.

If you have existing drapes, you could give them a facelift by adding a layer of see through coloured fabric (Ikea have these very cheaply and are so easy to use), over the top of them to give them a layered look and which will change their colour and appearance.

Or you could add attractive tiebacks and tie them up high when open to give a very frugal elegant swish effect to the side of the window frames.

Floors and soft furnishings - replacing carpets etc is way too expensive, but to brighten up this area and add splashes of colour, lay some simple plain rugs.

Check out yard sales for old rugs, often all they need is a good clean. To compliment your new rugs, why not cover your furniture with some throws in a complementary colour. Plain throws and rugs will give your room very modern clean look.

Accessories - Often what gives a room its whole feel are the little touches you add. Cushions, flowers, mirrors and candles are great for this, but my favourite idea is to get some of your own photographs printed in black and white and put them in very simple plain frames. These will never go out of fashion and will look very expensive on your walls.

Kitchen

For a complete kitchen makeover without buying new cabinets and furniture simply paint the doors of your cupboards. The kitchen can be transformed using frugal decorating tricks like this and can turn a dark country style kitchen to a lighter modern kitchen or visa versa.

The main thing to keep in mind is not to rush and make sure you use quality hardwearing paint, as kitchen cabinets can take some serious knocks in use. It may cost a little more to buy the best paint but this is a fraction of the cost of replacing doors etc.

De-cluttering your kitchen will give it a whole new clean feel. This can be achieved by placing rails along walls to hold pots and pans or kitchen utensils, throwing out all those unused kitchen gadgets and keeping work surfaces clear.

Bedroom

The single largest thing in your bedroom is of course the bed and so as this dominates the room I always decide on my bedcovers first and then start my frugal decorating from there and base my other colours and themes from there.

Frugal decorating this room I find easy as it only takes a few simple touches to change the whole ambiance of the room.

For instance you could have a romantic cosy and warm room using dark reds and creams. This could be achieved by adding red scented candles around the room and strings of old bead necklaces bought from yard sales draped over the bed head and cupboards.

Cheap plain Christmas twinkle tights could be draped along the wall to add to that warm cosy feeling. Old cotton duvets could be spruced up by either dying them red or by sewing cut out shapes from old red and cream cloth, let your imagination and creativity go mad.

Bathroom

Changing the feel of your bathroom is the easiest room in the house for frugal decorating. This is because this room lends itself far more easily to being themed and accessorised.

Unless you are splashing out and buying a completely new bathroom suite the main areas to decorate will be the wall colour. Once your wall colour is chosen it is then a simple matter of hunting out those cheap little accessorise.

The secret to a beautiful bathroom is to keep it clutter free but with little added niknaks to emphasize the theme of the room. For instance two of my favourite bathroom themes are:

Seashore theme - with its hues of blue and white, little seashells (free from the beach) and fish and boat motifs.

We have a simple fish mobile hanging in our bathroom which can be made either using papier-mâché or thin plywood cut-outs which are brightly coloured with paint and varnished to protect them from the moist air. Then they are simply hung at different levels using fishing line to the ceiling. It really brightens the room up.

Orient theme - a cosier feel which can really warm up a cold bathroom. Use hues of dark red, gold and browns for the walls. Have scented candles dotted around and perhaps have a bowl of cinnamon sticks in the room for that oriental spicy scent. Gold and red Christmas tree balls can be strung around the room, which look great against the dark walls.

The secret to frugal decorating is not how much you spend on the large things in your home but how clever you are at using everyday items in an imaginative way. Just because something wasn't designed to be used in say the bathroom (Christmas tree balls), doesn't been you can't use it there.

As much as I like all those room designs in the showrooms I always feel that we are in danger of having identical homes to everyone else. So be frugal and wise and spend your creative juices lavishly and keep those pennies in your purse.

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