No Frills Home Decorating
Bedrooms And Bathrooms

No frills decorating on a budget part two - bedrooms and bathrooms.

Bedrooms

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.

picture by Billerr

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.

picture by Macinate

No Frills Bathrooms

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 with some no frills home decorating.