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As a homeowner, you might look at your house’s exterior one day and feel that it does not look as nice as it should. You can improve it in various ways. For instance, you might contact a pressure washing company. That can improve the outside appearance of your house quite a bit if you have dirty siding that hasn’t been treated before.
You can contact a company that does this by Googling something like “pressure washing in Charleston, SC,” but for the town you live in. Pressure washing gets all the dirt and grime off of your home’s exterior walls.
Inside the house, you might also want to make some changes. However, you may not have much money to allocate to interior design. Let’s talk about a few possibilities to change your home’s look and feel that won’t leave you penniless.
Use Fabric to Upholster Old Chairs
You might feel like some plush, oversized chairs will make your living room or den more welcoming. However, you may look at the prices of brand-new ones at a furniture store and feel the cost is prohibitive.
You can get around this problem by buying used armchairs at Goodwill or a secondhand clothing store. The ones you find may not be in the best condition, though.
A solution might be to bring them home, position them in the appropriate place in a room, and then to use a brightly-colored fabric to upholster them. You can get fabric at a craft or hobby store and then cut pieces of it to fashion it into the proper size. Pins or a stapler can be used to apply the fabric to the old chair.
What you’ll end up with is a piece of furniture that’s bright and adds color to the room. The fabric will also conceal any flaws that are visible. There are bound to be a few since you’re buying used furniture instead of new pieces.
Add Some Interesting Light Fixtures
If you enter a room and turn on the overhead light, you probably don’t think about it very much. That’s because the overhead light fixtures most people have installed in their homes aren’t very interesting or unique. They are not designed to draw the eye or to be a centerpiece of the room.
It doesn’t have to be that way. You can use any element in a room as a centerpiece or something that attracts attention. The light fixture is a prime example of that, and you can often get very interesting-looking ones for not a whole lot of money.
You can go to Home Depot or Lowes and look at the various options they have available. You might get a decorative copper or bronze light fixture. You may also look at some choices you can find at secondhand home goods stores.
You can often remove the overhead light fixture you currently have in a room and install the new one by watching some YouTube videos. You don’t need to be a master electrician to remove one fixture and install a different one. You’ll end up with a new fixture that will be a conversation starter.
Add New Window Treatments
You might have a room like the living room or family room with windows that allow light to enter. That natural light probably feels good when the sun rises if you open the blinds and let it in. It also adds a nice warming effect if you have someone over for breakfast in the early part of the day.
You can also use these windows as decorative elements, though. Window treatments are the most logical and inexpensive way to do that.
Window treatments can be drapes, curtains, or anything else you hang around your windows to draw the eye. You might go with drapes or curtains in an eye-catching color, such as maroon or royal blue. If you get them in luxurious-looking material, that will also catch a visitor’s attention when they enter the room.
Get Inexpensive but Provocative Art Pieces
Some people feel intimidated by the prospect of purchasing art and installing it in their homes. They might not know very much about it, so they completely avoid buying and featuring any as part of their interior decorating efforts.
You do not need to feel intimidated by art, though. Even if you don’t know all that much about it, you still probably know what you like. Whatever kind of art gives you a good feeling when you look at it is likely the kind you want in your home.
You probably can’t afford original art pieces unless the artist is a virtual unknown. You can get reproductions of classic art pieces, though. You can buy them online or in an art gallery or museum gift shop.
You can always get paintings, but you can also look for sculptures or even unusual bookends that visitors will notice and want to discuss. You can get simple pieces that won’t get much of a reaction, but you should at least consider getting more provocative ones that invoke feelings from you and anyone else who looks at them.
You want to think about how the art you feature in your home makes you feel because you are going to be seeing it every day. Most people don’t think about art for mood regulation, but it can have that effect because it’s frequently in your view when you’re at home. If you want to feel calm and tranquil at home while you’re recharging your batteries, you might get art prints that feature pastoral scenes.
With some creativity, you can usually find ways to decorate your home that add color and noteworthy design elements, but that won’t require you to spend all of your money. You can also change your home’s aesthetic a bit at a time. Nothing says you have to do all of the things on this list at once if you can only afford one project at a time.