Absolutely. It just takes a lot of bargain shopping and some ingenuity, experts say.
"It takes time, energy and taste buds that are more than usually
alert," Lucia van der Post writes about redecorating on a budget in her
book "Things I Wish My Mother Had Told Me: A Guide To Living with
Impeccable Grace and Style."
Post, a style columnist at The Times of London and the founding editor
of the Financial Times' "How To Spend It" magazine, warns, however: "If
you're short on money, the real pitfall is to avoid buying anything you
don't really, really love."
That means no "filling up" a room with cheap-looking stuff. Like fast
food, that stuff is often regretted longer than it is enjoyed.
With that in mind, we consulted some Connecticut decorators and
designers and asked what we could do — redo — on a budget of $500 or
less.
Here's the scoop:
Bathroom Makeover
Interior decorator Sharon McCormick has worked on homes with decorating
budgets in excess of $100,000. But the decorator also knows how to get
a high-end look with less money.
McCormick, owner of Sharon McCormick Design in Durham, recently bought a vanity with a white porcelain bowl at Home Depot. "At stores like Home Depot and Lowes, they have vanities that are kind of cool looking for only about $300," she says.
She painted the yellow cabinet of the vanity black and added brushed nickel knobs shaped like starfish.
"It just looked spectacular," she says. "You never would have known it was a $300 vanity."
She also added a new faucet and a light fixture in the bathroom, then repainted the walls. The total: less than $500.
Kitchen Backsplash
Another low-cost but high-impact idea from McCormick was perking up a kitchen with a new backsplash.
You can buy 30 square feet of tile made out of tumbled rock or porcelain for about $300, she says.
Installing a backsplash can be a DIY project, she says. "Take a [free]
seminar on how to install a backsplash at Home Depot," she says. "And
rent a tile cutter." (Paying someone to install a backsplash costs
upward of $200, depending on the intricacy of the design, she says.)
Using higher-priced tiles as accents in the pattern is another way to save money, she says.
A New Rug
To change the look of the living room and add color, get a rug,
suggests Gail Ingis, founder of Ingis Design Associates in Fairfield.
To keep the price under $500 for a quality rug, "you have to know how to shop," she says.
First, "set yourself a goal, say, an 8-by-10 rug for $400," she says. "Even a 5-by-7 looks great under a coffee table."
Then head out to discount stores such as HomeGoods, Pier 1 or TJ Maxx.
The best-quality and longest-wearing rugs are wool, but they also are the most expensive.
The long-time bargain hunter said shopping for a rug shouldn't be done
on the Internet because the thumbnail-size pictures online don't give a
true sense of the color or quality of a rug.
Kim Myles, host of the HGTV television program "Myles of Style," also suggests buying a new rug to change the look of a room.
She says she buys 9- by 12-foot wool rugs from Overstock.com for rooms featured in her television show. She also recently bought a rug at the website for $459 for her own living room.
"It's got a huge field of color — oranges, blues, greens," says Myles.
She put the rug over the beige shag rug in her apartment.
"Layering rugs is luxurious," she says. "And if you want visual impact, this is the item."
Let There Be Light
Another way to redecorate a room is to add light, says Myles.
"Most people under-light their spaces," she says. "Every single room
should have three sources of light" in addition to windows, she says.
"There are so many fantastic lamps out there; you can buy three for under $300," she says.
Table lamps and chandeliers should be oversized to make a bigger impact, she says.
"Go one to two sizes up from the size you think is right," she says,
even in a small room. "The larger scale gives space a sense of luxury. "
"Most people go too small," she says. "Always pop up the size. That's one of the tricks designers use to great effect."
Don't shy away from floor lamps, she adds, which are good for lighting corners."
And if a lamp you love looks dated, it probably needs a new shade.
Rearrange A Room
If you have a friend with a flair for design, this tip won't cost you
anything. But if you don't — and you have a room that doesn't feel
"right" — hire a designer à la carte.
"Just as I'm a fan of personal shoppers — they can winkle out a whole
new side of one's personality or show one ways of dressing that one
hadn't thought of — so I'm rather a fan of getting professional advice
on the interiors front," Post writes in her book.
Since hiring a full-service design service is not affordable on a small
budget, she suggests paying a decorator to give advice on how to
rearrange furniture and pick paint colors for one room in a house.
"I have found that buying bits of expertise pays hands down," she
writes. "They widen the scope, offering ideas and solutions that I'd
never had had on my own."
A niche industry has developed to provide one-day decorating and redesign services.
"So many times I come into people's homes, and they have nice things,
but they don't really help the room because they're not in the right
places where they would make the impact," says Frances Sloan, a
professional colorist who offers redesign services.
Sloan, of Sloan Design in Hartford, says "moving something out of a
room, or putting something that's already in the room in a different
position, just opens everything up."
"The problem is we're creatures of habit. We get so used to seeing
something in particular spot, we think its grounded in cement," says
Sloan, who charges $355 for two hours of her services, and $145 for
each additional hour.
Sloan says she recently had a customer who had a spinet piano in the back of the living room.
"Having that big, dark heavy piece at one end of the room made it have
no balance," she says. "The room felt like it was a see-saw, always
tipping toward the piano."
Sloan moved the piano so it was at an angle in the opposite corner, which changed the balance of the room dramatically.
"All of a sudden the room seemed to say, 'I'm a happy place,'" Sloan says.
