How to restyle your living room on a budget. My 10 cheap tips

Restyling and home décor can be quite pricey, especially under the spell of magazines’ ‘shopping suggestions’. How to find the time to redecorate your living room if you’d rather spend it doing a complete face makeover? I make restyling easy and on a budget with my 10 cheap tips. It’s possible with some essential purchases and pre-owned scraps too!

 

It may be the lockdown effect, but I find tips and ideas on home decorating everywhere. These stylish readings can be quite overwhelming in one or all of these scenarios: financial restriction, small spaces, and contract bonds with your landlord. You may have no room for your books (I’ve been there); you may have not enough money for a design piece, or you cannot repaint your walls because your supreme (land)lord says so.

Redecorating isn’t impossible with some imagination, my 10 cheap styling tips and Photowall.

Here are my 10 cheap tips and tricks:

• #1 Pick a style mood or a topic and plan from this point. It’s easier to build your personal style when you’ve got a basic idea about what you’d like for your living room! My partner and I chose ‘travelling’ so…
  
• #2 Create your ‘travel memory frames’. We all keep tickets, flyers and postcards, especially if they remind of an enjoyable escape! Select those you like the most or those dearest to you and create a collage. A travel frame is super cheap: Wilko frames are just a couple of pounds (i.e. £2.50 for a 20×25 cm frame). You can flip and reuse the inside paper as a blank base for your collage. Add some blue tack for more stability and move the pieces until you’re happy with the result!

• #3 Spotlights on souvenirs? Most of the times souvenirs are tacky replicas of some extraordinary masterpieces. But if your travel memento is really peculiar, it deserves its own space! A side table, a shelf, a mantelpiece or… an unusual spot. We put some gifts from Greece on the side of our fireplace. While a bust of Dante and a pyramid from my Egyptian friend look from above.

• #4 Green fingers (for dummies). If you have bad luck with indoor plants, you’re not alone. Start with a small succulent, a fuss-free plant which needs almost no attention. Succulents look perfect in a tiny ceramic pot or a terrarium. Remember… the tinier the cuter!

• #5 Smell good, look good. Candle jars are a staple in any wannabe influencers’ house. That typical country-chic look is their main factor of attraction. Yankee Candle has maybe the vastest selection of fragrances on the market, but competitors are great as well and with an unbeatable price. A scent is personal, and it fills the room, effortlessly. (All the lemon candles I have been sniffing remind me of granita syrups)

• #6 Got too many books? Brilliant! You may have already found a solution to this bookish issue with some Ikea bookcases. They are probably the cheapest and lighter solution (Kallax units are £29). But – sparse here and there in the living room – they will clutter your vital space. Solution: a library wall. Put all your bookshelves together along one wall and have a unique space for your books with a classy look! Think outside the box, pile up books and shelves too.

• #7 Light up your room. Like your hair, your living room may need just a fresh new colour. Repaint your entire room or only one block. If you’re impatient with drying time, opt for some wallpaper instead or…

• #8 Frame a picture. (Because the landlord said ‘NO’ #1). Add a big, bright frame! Your contract may include points to exclude any unwanted retouch to the original property. If so, you have to live with what you have – like my flattering old yellow sponged walls – or adapt to it. This big Photowall frame – just white and gradient of gray – has changed my living room by radiating light. It fits perfectly into our original travel mood board and reminds me of a Dominican convent in my Italian home town. It’s like travelling, somehow!

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• #9 Unconventional places for your frames. Your contract may say ‘No’ to paint, pets and… nails. If you cannot hang your frames, get ingenious. Frames look great on the top of a shelf, (again) a mantlepiece and … I would dare a floor too.

• #10 Travel windows, mini size. Serial collectors of postcards will love this idea, and your landlord won’t know this either! Your postcards will look lovely on an empty corner. Grab your blue tack and enjoy the view.

It’s your time to enjoy your lockdown (and the time after) in a cosy cocoon just for you and made by you! Trust me when I tell with little effort and little money, you will feel as revitalised as your living room.

 

Valentina Chirico aka Valens

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