Free Home Decorating Ideas - 5 Ways to Transform Your Home for Free
by: Renate Hering-Shepherd
It’s cool to be frugal. Not only does it save you money; it also tickles your creative talents and adds fun and a unique flair to your home. Here are some free home decorating ideas to get you started – you’ll be on a roll before you know it.
Free Home Decorating Idea #1
Mix, don’t match. Gone are the days of the three-piece suite and the co-ordinated cushions and curtains. It’s much more interesting to use what’s already there in your home and combine it in new, unexpected ways. Try an old-fashioned embroidered cushion on a simple modern chair. Or fill plain milk bottles with sweets in colorful wrappers and use them instead of flower vases. Take things and play them off against each other: serious and witty, dark and light, old and new, shiny and matte, antique and modern, sleek and rustic, finished and frayed. Take your time and experiment until things ‘click’; at some point it will look just right.
Free Home Decorating Idea #2
Pick some flowers. If there aren’t any in bloom, pick foliage and grasses instead. Make a green bouquet from the side of the road! If there isn’t any greenery, or the picking of it is strictly verboten, you could find some nice looking pebbles (or shells and driftwood from the beach) and arrange them into a still life or in tall glass vessels.
Free Home Decorating Idea #3
Decorate with food. Fruit makes wonderful displays (and you can still have the health benefits!). Apples and bananas, or oranges and lemons in a bowl look great and provide a boost of visual ‘sunshine’. Fruit preserves in glass containers make gorgeous decorating accents, too (and jellies look great against the light)!
Free Home Decorating Idea #4
Recycle. Take a small purse or bag that you’re not using any more, fill it with little pebbles and turn it into a doorstop. Cover tin cans in fabric or giftwrap and give them a new job in the storage department. Or turn simple drinking glasses into candleholders by filling them halfway up with sand - stick inexpensive white household candles into the sand, and line them up on a windowsill or mantelpiece or cluster them together on the table. The more, the merrier (well, okay, within reason!).
Free Home Decorating Idea #5
Make your own art. Some of those Picassos are so hard to live with! So why not arrange your own treasures in box frames: an antique mocha cup, a small heirloom, a letter from your great-grandmother to your great-grandfather. Make a background from old fabric or crumpled tissue paper. Add scrapbook-style hand-written tags, photos, and other nice things from your hidden treasure troves. The advantage of a shadowbox over a scrapbook is that you can really utilize the 3D to full effect, and you get to see your prized possessions every day!
There you are … once you start getting creative with what’s already in your home, you’ll find that you come up with more and more free home decorating ideas of your own. You can definitely have a gorgeous, stylish home on a shoestring!
Renate Hering-Shepherd is a London-based designer and the owner of DreamHomeDecorating.com, a website full of ideas and information about creating a home you love, no matter where you happen to live. Visit the site for some more inspiration on frugal home decorating!