7 Incredibly Simple and Inexpensive Design Tips to Refresh Your Home

Redecorating or redesigning your home doesn’t have to be expensive. Contrary to popular belief, there are ways to refresh your home without draining your bank account. The key is to identify areas that need to be dealt with and utilize cost-effective strategies.

Start by thinking about which rooms in your home serve as focal points. In most homes, the kitchen and living room see the most activity on a daily basis. As such, you'll want to start with these rooms. Other key areas to consider include bathrooms, the master bedroom, and porches or outdoor living spaces.

Cost-effective design requires you to focus on rooms that will deliver a maximum return on your investment while leaving low traffic rooms alone. Starting with the rooms mentioned above, consider some of the following tips:

1. Repaint the Walls

If you're looking to change the entire look of a room – or want to restore the room to its former glory – one of the most powerful things you can do is repaint. A fresh coat of paint can bring a room to life and totally transform the look of the space. This is especially true if you're going from one end of the color wheel to another. If you're unsure of what a certain color would like in a room, you can use one of the many virtual painting tools or apps online. This one from Benjamin Moore is helpful. Simply take a picture of the room, upload it to the site, and select your paint color.

2. Create a Gallery Wall

The walls in your home present a great opportunity to draw attention upwards and maximize the visual space in a given room. Unfortunately, many people underutilize wall space. For a cheap and effective redesign, focus on taking advantage of this area.

One incredibly simple idea is to create a gallery wall and make it the focal point of the living room. If you're unfamiliar with gallery walls, they are unique arrangements of different wall frames. The finished look is a collage of various shapes, sizes, and colors. If you live in a rented apartment where driving nails into the wall is not an option, consider using colourful washi tape to put up posters, photographs, etc.

3. Rearrange the Furniture

Sometimes you don't even have to bring anything new into the home to give your interior design a facelift. Something as simple as a furniture rearrangement can yield a fresh look.

This is especially easy to do if you have a modular sofa set that can be positioned in a variety of different ways. This flexibility allows you to change the feel and flow of a room to meet any need.

4. Reuse What You've Got

Sometimes the best accessories and design pieces are the ones you already have. Find ways to repurpose and reimagine elements that are hidden away in storage or currently being overpowered by other things.

"Reinvent a drab dresser in a guest bedroom as a dramatic dining room sideboard with a few coats of glossy black paint and sparkling new hardware," says designer Leah Hennen. "Makeover that old couch with a slipcover in a fabulous fabric. Turn plain pillows into eye-catching accents by stenciling simple designs on them. After all, there's no better budget stretcher than your imagination."

5. Transform a Room With Wall Decals

Over the past few years, wall decals have grown in popularity. And while they're incredibly versatile design elements, they're also very cost-effective. This makes them an ideal solution for refreshing your home on a budget.

Try combining different shapes and colors. If a room feels small and constricted, placing decals higher up on the walls can draw attention upwards. This elongates the room and makes it feel bigger. Speaking of making rooms feel bigger, you can also use large mirrors to add some depth to small spaces.

6. Throw Down an Area Rug

Use carpets or rugs to change the entire look of a room. The best part about these is that they aren't permanent. This means you can swap them out as frequently as you'd like for a new look.

"An area rug can help quiet a room's décor, or turn up its volume. Use neutral colours such as beige, ivory, taupe, or gray to put more focus on your furniture and any artwork," says real estate expert Ryan Gray. "Or step outside your decorating comfort zone and opt for a bold colour or striking pattern to make it the focal point of the room."

7. Tackle the Bathroom

While the bathroom may be one of the smallest rooms in the home, it also tends to be one of the most difficult spaces to decorate. One little element can change the entire look of the room and you have to be very careful that you don't go overboard.

One of the simplest and most effective things you can do is swap out that old, boring shower curtain for a new, brighter one. In fact, if you choose the right shower curtain, this may be all you need to give the bathroom a new appearance. Since the shower curtain essentially serves as one of the bathroom walls, this fresh update can produce a brand new look.

When it comes to redecorating your home without burning through your budget, you can rely on Urban Ladder. We offer an incredibly deep selection of living room furniture, sofa sets, beds, mattresses, kitchens, dining sets, stylish home decor, and more. Take a look around and see what appeals to you!