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Renovations can be expensive. Unless you are clever about the way you approach them that is. Discover all the ways you can effectively renovate your living room, without breaking your budget or the bank, below.
Walls – Don’t repaper – Do re-paint
With some high-end wallpapers £50 or over a roll, papering your entire living room is often one of the most expensive aspects of decorating. The good news is that it’s much cheaper and less labour-intensive to repaint your living room instead. You can also get some very effective looks from just paint as we’ll discuss in the next section.
Bright and bold colours
If you choose paint over paper but are still looking for a look with maximum impact it’s best to choose and contrast bright and bold hues. For example, a very popular colourway right now is a pastel peach alongside an orangey-red. You could paint your walls in the peach colour, and then paint your skirting board and /or coving in the orangey-red for a very modern and invigorating look at half the price of fancy wallpaper.
Another option that you can easily and cheaply achieve with paint is patterned walls. The best way to approach this is to choose a base colour and then pick either a single or multiple complementary colours and use these to paint shapes either organic or geometric. Indeed, organic shapes are a little more forgiving because they don’t form a regular pattern, and mistakes will be harder to spot!
Cover your furniture
However, to stop yourself from incurring additional and unexpected costs when painting your living room walls you will need to make sure you cover it properly. Now you may think to do this you need to invest in new protective plastic sheets. However, a much better option is to use an old sheet, or even get some from the charity shop. Also instead of taping the sheets to your furniture items which can leave a mark that is expensive to repair, collect rubber bands and use those to affix the sheet to each piece of furniture to protect it.
Shelves – Don’t Buy New – Do by preloved or DIY
Shelving is a popular item in most living rooms whether you choose to use it to display decoration, artwork, books, or a mixture of all three. Unfortunately buying new shelving can be an extra and unwanted expense to your living room renovation, especially if you want something that is robust and built with quality and that will last.
Happily, there are several options you can consider here instead of buying new shelving. The first is to check out your local charity shops, especially the ones that sell larger homeware items for shelves that would fit in your space. Remember, the most important thing to look for here is the sturdiness of the overall construction, as minor dings can be covered over with wood stain, or you could paint the entire piece to give it a new lease of life and ensure it better fits in with your design scheme.
If opting for pre-loved shelves isn’t for you, then there is another option you may wish to consider, and this is building your own shelving unit. The good news is that this task isn’t as hard as it may first seem. Indeed, as you can see from the video below you don’t need to be a master of carpentry to put together a great-looking pipe shelf from scratch. Instead, all you will need are the proper materials such as powder-coated pipes, and items like this floor flange so you can fix your creation to the floor in a stable manner. Then you can craft a wonderful unit, with industrial chic vibes for much less than one you buy brand new.
Floors – Don’t re-carpet – Do Polish and add a rug
Often one thing that lets a living room space down is an old, shabby, and worn carpet. Of course, this means that the temptation to rip up the old carpet and lay a new one down as you renovate your living room is strong. Unfortunately, new carpet, even the most basic thin, and bare stuff is not cheap, and depending on the size of your room, you might end up needing a whole lot to complete the job.
That is why it’s a much better idea to skip the carpet altogether and work with the floor you have underneath. Indeed, many people pull up old carpets to find a perfectly serviceable wooden floor that only needs a buff and a polish. The even better news is that you can hire a machine to complete the buffing and polishing for around £30 a day! It’s not even unreasonable to get a single room’s floor completed in a day!
Once you have buffed the wooden floor underneath you can opt to add extra insulation and comfort by using an area rug. Again you can opt for a preloved rug off of sites like eBay to save money, although you can also get some brand new ones that aren’t too expensive these days as well.
Seating – Don’t replace your sofa and armchair – Do give them a makeover
Most people believe that they have to get new sofas and armchairs when they renovate their living room. The thinking behind this is that it’s hard to create a new and updated look when you are still using the same old pieces of furniture which are often worn down and shabby-looking.
However, it is worth noting that there are other options for your old sofa that you may like to explore, and that can save you money. The first is to get elasticated sofa covers and use those to refresh your suit. Avoid the somewhat retro ones that go over the entire sofa and opt for a set where you get a cover for every cushion instead, as this will help you preserve the shape of your sofa, as well as give you a better finish.
Another option that you may wish to consider is deep cleaning and then dying your old sofa and chair covers. However, this may be a bit more risky as covers can shrink when there’s water involved, and that might mean you could struggle to get them back on again!
Wall Art – Don’t spend a fortune on new – Do DIY your own
Finally, when it comes to wall art for your living room renovation, you can save a fortune by making your own instead of buying it ready-made. Indeed, there are two choices you can pursue here – a gallery wall and canvas art.
DIY Gallery walls
When it comes to creating a gallery wall in your home you can do so without breaking the bank if you follow the advice below:
- Buy frames from charity shops and repaint them
- Add your own images such as photos
- Use low-cost digital art downloads and print them yourself
- Map out your gallery wall before you start to put it up
- Use picture hanging strips instead of nails to minimise the damage and make it easy to reposition them if necessary.
DIY Canvas Art
Your second option is to make your own canvas art. Although unless you are an accomplished artist is best not to draw your own piece. Instead, utilise painting tutorials or painting techniques such as acrylic pour which will allow you to make a beautiful abstract piece in colours matching your scheme.
You can even get Acrylic art pour kits that come with pre-primed canvases, the paint and all the equipment you’ll need to create a beautiful piece of original art for your home. All for under £50 which is well below the price for a single piece that most galleries charge.
