At this time of year, I always start looking around my home and considering what decor projects I want to achieve during the coming year. The loft, the living room and a new conservatory are all on the list. And then I look at my budget and see what’s actually possible!
But having a budget to stick to doesn’t mean you can’t tackle those decorating projects: you just have to find a way to get the look you want for less. Don’t worry – this CAN be done!
Take my living room for example, I’m planning a revamp of the whole room, which hasn’t been decorated since we moved in 8 years ago. So here are some of the things I’m hoping to achieve this year and the ways in which I intend to save some money along the way…
Parquet wooden flooring
I love the idea of solid oak floors or gorgeous parquet flooring but it’s just not feasible in our living room. The square footage would make it really expensive to install and it’s a high-traffic area so I’m worried about the floor getting damaged.
When we moved in, we had to completely strip the room and start again. At the time, we had almost-zero budget for renovations so we just used cheap laminate flooring to get the room finished quickly so that we could move in. It was just whatever flooring was on sale in the DIY shop at the time.
To be honest, I didn’t care about the quality, I cared about the cost. And, after 8 years of using it, you can really tell it was cheap! It urgently needs replacing and I don’t want to make the same mistake again so that’s where affordable engineered wood flooring comes in.
It’s the way to get the same look and feel as real wood flooring but at a much more pocket-friendly price. I can even get the silky oak parquet effect that I truly adore. It’ll add an authentic mid-century modern vibe to my 1950s home and will look like it was always there – a real wow-factor floor!
The other good thing is that it’s easy to install so we’ll be able to lay the flooring ourselves, without needing to hire any professionals, which will save even more money. The floors can be ‘floating’ so there’s no need for nails or adhesive, which makes the job even easier and quicker.
Plus, it’s suitable for use with under-floor heating so that’s another possible project for my living room renovation. I’m going to research the options for under-floor heating so watch this space!
Mid-century wallpaper
When we moved in, we painted all the walls white, just to get a quick covering so that we could move into the property. While I do like a minimalist vibe sometimes, the white walls are just a bit plain compared to our mid-century modern furniture.
We’ve got Ladderax storage, Ercol sofas and a Jentique sideboard – all in gorgeous teak wood and over half a century old. As our house was built in 1950, the furniture from the era is the only furniture that really ‘fits’ into our home, both physically and design-wise.
So, our furniture deserves a suitable vintage-style backdrop and I’m thinking that green geometric wallpaper will be the perfect mid-century match. Plus, it will make the room more homely compared to the existing stark white walls.
We’ve used wallpaper in most of the other rooms of the house – my office, the guest room, our bedroom, so I think it’s about time to add a splash of pattern to the living space. And to make it even quicker and easier to install, it’s possible to get wallpaper that is peel and stick so you don’t need to deal with messy paste while hanging it.
This is really appealing to me because I don’t want to go back to the days of endless decorating, where everything takes ages to do – I just want an impressive result, really quickly! I think a feature wall behind the sideboard will do the trick in the living room and will make a big impact without me having to decorate every wall.
Design-led radiators
Again, going back to when we first renovated the house, we just got basic radiators for the whole house – all the same plain white – and updated the heating system so that we could be cosy in our new property. However, since decorating the walls and adding colour, they seem to really stand out and I’d prefer to have something more subtle.
Of course, we might go down the route of underfloor heating, in which case the radiators wouldn’t be necessary. BUT I also really like the idea of adding a radiator as a design feature. There are so many statement radiator options out there nowadays – tall, wide, vintage, antique and so on. Imagine a retro radiator in a vibrant contrasting colour. Love it.
I also like the idea of painting the existing radiators in a colour to match the walls – in which case I’d need to make sure that whatever wall paint I chose was also available in a formula that’s suitable for radiators. That would enable the radiators to fade into the background for a barely-there look. This would be a super low-cost option because I wouldn’t be buying anything new, just a small pot of paint.
Anyway, I hope my ideas for my living room makeover will inspire you to tackle a decorating project of your own, and perhaps save some money by getting the same look for less with these thrifty options available, whether that’s engineered wood flooring, peel and stick wallpaper or painting your existing radiators. Please share your decorating plans for this year in the comments below.
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