If you have an older home that you need to turn from drab to fab, or your new home is just looking a little dated and needs spruce, here are some ways to do it.
Budget-Friendly Tips to Transform Your Old Home
Plan ahead
You’ll want to plan when it comes to decorating your home. Little updates here and there in different rooms can leave your home feeling mismatched. To create a cohesive design throughout your old house, you’ll need to take some time to plan your look.
After planning your decorating, the first step should be to give your home a serious deep clean. No matter how much time you spend each week cleaning and maintaining your home, there are probably many areas that you don’t pay much attention to. Give everything a thorough clean.
Paint everything white
You may or may not be sick of the white trend now, but this trend isn’t going to go away when it comes to making an old home look new. Painting the walls, ceiling, and trim all one color is the easiest, cheapest, and most practical way to hide imperfections and uneven walls. Similarly to the wallpaper tip below, you now have a blank canvas to add your own art to however you like. You can hang up all of your favorite film and movie posters without having to worry about them clashing with that bright orange paint that used to be in the kitchen, and you can hang up your family photos without worrying about that sickly yellow paint that used to be in the living room. There are so many options for how you can fill your now beautifully white walls, whether that’s with a poster or a wall art painting.
Highlight doors and other features
Many old homes have amazing doors and features like ornate cornices that many newer homes lack. It’s a great idea to highlight these features of your home by painting them differently. Paint your external doors a bold color to make them stand out. You can also add a glossy paint to your cornices to help them stand out on the white. Compliment your internal doors by painting them a cool grey or other neutral shade.
Clean or replace carpets and rugs
If your home is carpeted throughout, you’ll want to give it spruce either by replacing it for a genuinely new look or getting it professionally cleaned. Of course, getting is cleaned professionally is going to be much cheaper, so if you’re on a tight budget for your decorating, this is the way to go. If you have wood floors and use rugs, you can also get them cleaned for a newer look.
Ditch the wallpaper
If your home has wallpaper, as many older homes do, now is the time to get rid of it. Old wallpaper is often peeling already, and it can get seriously grimy. If your wallpaper is ancient, there is a good chance that you’ll find some areas of mold underneath, so the sooner you remove, the better. Hire a wallpaper remover/steamer from your local hardware store. This is not a job you want to do without one, even if there’s not too much to get rid of.
Add some wall art to make your blank walls look alive. You can use your favorite personalized family art and hang it in your living room.
Add lighting and replace electrics
Nothing will brighten up space more than adding some lighting. Opt for table lamps and floor lamps in the lounge and upgrade your bedside by adding some new shades. Adding light is a great way to brighten up your living areas. Consider replacing your overhead lighting in the living areas, kitchen, and bathroom if they’re outdated. An older house will also typically have outdated, inefficient electrics that often fail, resulting in you constantly having to go and check the fuse box to turn everything back on. To save yourself the hassle, get your fuse box repaired or replaced by visiting a site such as xpertelectricnwa.com/electrical/electrical-panel-services/, and have a look at what you might need to update your old service panel.
Conclusion
With just a few simple tricks, you can transform your home almost entirely by yourself. Many of the ideas on this list are doable even if you have zero previous DIY expertise, and you should have great fun doing it all too! The end result will make your home almost unrecognizable, and you’ll be satisfied with a job well done. Time for a sit-down and cup of tea I think!