Interior Design: Tips For Those On a Budget

Decorating your home is an extension of yourself. An expression of your personality. Even for those people who don’t think they have much of an interest in interior design, deciding how you want your house to look is an important decision.

Unfortunately, getting your house to look the way you want it to look can be an expensive proposition. Unless you have unlimited funds, you may feel yourself getting frustrated as you encounter roadblock after roadblock. If this describes your situation, here are some tips that can help you transform your house without breaking the bank.

If you want to do interior design on the cheap, you have to start with a good plan. Going about it haphazardly might work if you have a big bank account and you are fine with spending a lot of extra money as you find things that you like and discard things you decide against once they are in your home. But for those working with a budget, it is essential to find the most direct route to completion.

Take a tour through your house and come up with some ideas. Write them down as they occur to you. Formulate a complete plan, but don’t be afraid to stray away from it. Keep alternatives in mind and be prepared to be flexible should you encounter solutions that approximate the look you were going for.

Go beyond the typical retail stores. You can find good deals at the biggest of the big box stores, but you don’t want to limit yourself to Wal-Mart. Shopping at the usual furniture stores is going to deplete your funds in a hurry. Instead, try flea markets and yard sales.

You can find gems using these resources and you can be sure you won’t pay top dollar for them. Haggling is the name of the game in these situations, so make sure you put your bargaining hat on before you leave the house. You may also want to check out the online auction sites for deals. Be careful, however, not to get taken for a ride on hidden shipping charges.

If you feel lost when it comes to interior design, you might want to consider hiring a designer. You may think that hiring such a professional is the exclusive province of the rich, but that doesn’t have to be the case. Look for college students at local design schools. They may be interested in doing a project for free or for very little.