Really Cheap Decorating Thread!!

[granola_mom]

Hi Mamas,

I'm wondering if there's anyone else out there who has a very limited income but loves to decorate their home! I'm not talking about those of you who find good deals at pottery barn, this is a thread for people who have hardly any money to work with but make it work anyway! I often find myself browsing frugal home decorating blogs and when they brag about their cheap finds I think, "I could never ever afford that!" No, this is not a pity thread... let's share our positive stories, cheap decorating tips and dumpster finds!

I'll start!

I have very limited income to work with. It's taken me years to furnish my home- I hardly own any new furniture, everything was either given to me by family, found on a curb or in a dumpster, from a thrift store or from sites like craigslist. Sometimes it bums me out but honestly I'm quite proud of myself- my house feels like home and I accomplished that with hardly any money! So what if my couch is from the 80s- with some throw pillows, it works!

I love finding stuff on the curb on garbage day- free shopping and exercise! There's something in nearly every room of my house that I got for free from someone else's trash- a cabinet in DP's office, table and chairs in DD's room, our nightstand in the bedroom, patio table and chairs in our backyard. And just the other day I found a fairly new wooden cabinet but half the backing was missing and the doors were damaged. The doors came off, I removed the rest of the backing, cleaned it up, and now we have a perfect little cubby by our front door that fits our shoes on one shelf, bags and a basket holding hats, etc on another and on top we have a spot to put our incoming mail. For free!

Care to join?

[rachelmarie]

What a great idea for a thread! Almost all of our furniture has been given to us by family - everything except a bookshelf and our TV stand!

Our home desparately needs decorated but we have no money to do so. I've been trying to find ideas but everything I've seen online costs something - often more than I want to (or can) pay.

I'd love ideas for wall art to hang above our sage green couch. Anyone? I've been trying to think of something for months now, but I don't think I'm all that creative and I'm afraid it won't look right!

Anyway, I'm looking forward to reading everyone's ideas!!

[granola_mom]

Originally Posted by rachelmarie

I'd love ideas for wall art to hang above our sage green couch. Anyone? I've been trying to think of something for months now, but I don't think I'm all that creative and I'm afraid it won't look right!

How about you make something yourself? Look up some modern art, like stripes of colour that would go with your couch and imitate it. Or I've always wanted to do leaf prints and frame them! Find lots of different types of leaves, paint with earthy colours and stamp them onto paper. Ikea has some cheap frames. I have NO luck finding frames at thrift stores! Or if you can find a cool old quilt you could hang that up.

I also don't have any art yet though, I should get on that.

[SageR]

Ha, I was just thinking how everything in our house is handmade, a hand-me-down, or second hand. I love our house though. It is very comfy and unique. I don't have anything that is not useful and/or beautiful. I like the challenge of making things work. And I like all of the little stories that accompany each thing.

Those "frugal" tips/articles/shows make me laugh too. The only time I have more than $20 bucks at time to work with is if we get a good tax return! I could decorate an entire house for what they spend in one room!

We live in a small town so there isn't much opportunity for curb or dumpster gleaning. But I still manage to find good stuff at the thrift stores or yard sales. I made the throw pillows on my couch from old bed pillows cut down, with covers made from pillowcases or shams, curtains, even a men's shirt.
My bathroom curtain has this really pretty pintucking on the bottom, I made that from a skirt.

My diaper station is an old sofa table we got for free. Dh brought home a scrap of lumber from some job and added a shelf, and we use a towel wrapped in a cover made from another towel. So total cost was a couple dollars.

Last winter I bought 6 ladder back chairs from Craigslist for $25. I made new woven seats from some twill drapes I got at a flea market for $5. So $5 a chair and they look like Shaker antiques. It took a long time but I'm really proud of them!

[sniffmommy]

Girly Swap meet

My sister and I have girly swap meets where we invite friends to invite friends to bring over stuff that they are done with. Clothes, shoes, toiletries, and yes, decorations. We all trade and leave with "new" things.

My whole house is a thriftstore/garage sale find. It also really helps if you can sew.

[Delicateflower]

Originally Posted by granola_mom

So what if my couch is from the 80s- with some throw pillows, it works!

Mine is from the 60's It served for 30 years in the previous family, then was given to us. As a splurge I'm going to make new cushions next time I recover it.

I'd love ideas for wall art to hang above our sage green couch. Anyone? I've been trying to think of something for months now, but I don't think I'm all that creative and I'm afraid it won't look right!

At Michaels they have blank canvases (or you can make a frame from wood). Cover it in fabric. Half a yard should be enough, so even if you buy expensive fabric it's not that much.

[happyhats]

I love threads like this! Right now I'm turning a dresser into a cubbyhole shelf with baskets I already had and some shoe boxes. I'm giving my daughter's dresser a coat of paint I got free at a yardsale. I took the back off an old bookshelf to give it a more modern look. I'm also hotgluing some paint sample chips to the edges of the couch where my kitty ripped it to ribbons. I couldn't afford ribbon or lace right now. I also like to switch stuff from room to room for a new look.

[EmsMom]

I just bought an old love seat for $ 10. The person I bought it from also bought it at a yard sale and used it for quite a while. It is pretty faded but very comfortable and just exactly the right size for my tiny, tiny cottage. I will probably cover it with a quilt I bought at another yard sale that is getting too worn to be on the bed anymore. This weekend I bought a couple of pretty vases that I love. Actually most of the things I love best I bought at yard sales or someone gave me or I made them.

If you need throw pillows you can scrounge around yard sales or thrift stores for old pillows and just take the pillow form out and recover. Same thing for frames. Buy the frames cheap and just frame calendar prints or even some pretty fabric.

You know, it is kind of embarrassing - I have never actually thought about decorating any other way. Do people really go out and buy coordinated stuff?

[sabrinat]

I consider myself to have a phd. in this topic. My entire house is practically thrift and I'm tremendously proud of it. I helps that I love to thrift shop and I can usually see the potential in an item. I also can sew so that helps too.
I think thriftstores, craigslist and garage sales are a decorators dream. It just takes time and persistence, but you can usually find what you need at a good price. For example I made all the window treatments for my living room (12 panels total) from a roll of fabric I got at the thrift store for $50, it had 33 yds of fabric on it and I still have some leftover for pillows or whatever else I might decide to make with it. You'd be hard pressed to purchase curtains for less, let alone heavy weight fabric like these are. I made art work for the living room using blank canvases purchased on sale for maybe $5 for 2 and got fabric from the remenant/clearance bin to cover them. I purchased my couch which was brand new (still with the packing tags attached) for $89. It's a high end down cushion number that I just adore from a thrift store that seems to get a lot of great stuff and sale it very reasonably.
My latest score was at a new thrift store so that allowed some room to bargain. I picked up 2 midcentury chairs and recovered them. Each chair ended up costing me under $25, including the cost of new padding for the chairs. You can see one of them here. I think it came out pretty good.
http://mylilsliceofpie.blogspot.com/

[jtsmom]

I have found, for me, that the best way to decorate is to not decorate. I have the tendancy to overdo things, and not in a good way. And stuff ends up looking weird and cluttered and not good. I find that it is better for me to get rid of everything I don't love and leave things bare until I find something I do love. Right now, I don't have a rug on my living room floor or anything above my couch. Because I can't find the exact right thing that I love that I can afford. So those areas stay bare.

Also, I have removed everything from my home that brings bad memories. I make sure that anything I look at in my home makes me happy and brings good memories to my thoughts. A simple, clear home that is clean is all the decorating anyone really needs. That's where I started. And anything that gets added is well thought out and has to be: affordable, have some sort of personal meaning to me and my family, easy to clean....

I cut wildflowers and weeds in the summer to bring life into my home. I use canning jars and old cans with the labels removed to put them in. Or a drinking glass. Whatever works. Any kind of green growing thing can work.

For the pp who asked about something above her couch: how about a family photo? You can get a good looking frame pretty cheaply and put an important photo inside. It doesn't have to be of people, maybe an important place, or a flower that you saw on a hike, or a house that you grew up in. Don't spend any time or money on anything until you find just the perfect thing, though!

[PajamaMama]

Beautiful window coverings out of cheap mini blinds

http://littlegreennotebook.blogspot....ni-blinds.html

If you have mini blinds, no matter what kind of ugly crappy condition they are in you can make some beautiful window coverings for practically nothing and with no 'crafty' skills to speak of. I did this for my bathroom window and I love the way it turned out.

[ctdoula]

This is me!!

We just moved and I've spent the last month setting up our new house, and it amazes me that nearly everything we have has a "story" behind it. Our couches are from craigslist, beds/dressers are antique/hand-me-downs from my husbands family, we have a ton of stuff from our old dump (my favorite place ever... the "take it or leave it" building was the source for so many of our things.

My new love is auctions! We just got a new table and a really cute little cabinet a few weeks ago.

Here is a link to FB photos. We have bought a few things recently (area rugs, curtains), but in general nearly everything we have is either 2nd/3rd hand, free, salvaged, etc.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?ai...9&l=0e7185a61b

[JTA Mom]

I am sooooo glad I'm not the only one wondering how people afford all those 'looks' brand new!!!

My style is much more eclectic too. I love matchy-matchys but, well, life is too boring to have everything look the same!

For art, I cut apart a few old National Geographic mags (got them free from a teacher but they are sold dirt cheap at any used bookstore). I picked beautiful nature imagery. Then, I cut frames out of some old cardboard boxes. I painted the frames black, then hot glued those flat aquarium stones on some, glitter on others, wrapped & glued ribbon around others, so that the cardboard was covered. I then glued the image to the back of that 'frame' & hung it up. Very cute and cheap!

I've already bookmarked several links. I lurve decorating on the cheap!


Ami

[MamaFern]

: wow! thanks for the link!

quote=PajamaMama;13871738]http://littlegreennotebook.blogspot....ni-blinds.html

If you have mini blinds, no matter what kind of ugly crappy condition they are in you can make some beautiful window coverings for practically nothing and with no 'crafty' skills to speak of. I did this for my bathroom window and I love the way it turned out.[/quote]

[vm9799]

: LOVE this thread!

as an interior designer, this is near and dear to my heart. and honestly, the best rooms come together over time with a lovely mix of items!

i'm fortunate in that design is in my 'blood' so to speak, and i have a dh that does woodworking as a hobby. so when you combine those things, you get lots of 'custom' looks for practically no money!

my house is entirely made up of a mix of hand me downs, items given to us, and some new items, with a bunch of my dh's custom pieces sprinkled in. it makes for a very cozy home.

[vm9799]

Originally Posted by MamaFern

: wow! thanks for the link!

quote=PajamaMama;13871738]http://littlegreennotebook.blogspot....ni-blinds.html

If you have mini blinds, no matter what kind of ugly crappy condition they are in you can make some beautiful window coverings for practically nothing and with no 'crafty' skills to speak of. I did this for my bathroom window and I love the way it turned out.

[/QUOTE]

oh yes......that is a great blog! a great example of how design can be achieved with just a little creativity!

[mumkimum]

Originally Posted by sabrinat

I consider myself to have a phd. in this topic.

Love it! and Likewise.

I find the best thing to help me switch stuff around is my years of collected, colorful fabric accessories (cloth napkins, weird colored thrift knit throws, doilies, etc). I just switch stuff around & tah dah!, whole new look. And fabric stores pretty compactly so I don't really have tons of extra 'stuff' around.

As far as cheap wall stuff - I've been thrifting (though I probably just need to poke around my mom's attic) for an interesting semi-elaborate frame to paint and then fill with a piece of cloth-covered corkboard, mainly to showcase dd's drawings. I've already got one or two currently unused corkboards, so hoping for a correctly sized frame to fall into my hands.

And for cheap artwork - don't forget about painted boards. I save good quality scrap wood pieces from house repairs/projects and prime them with gesso to paint on (you could probably use latex primer if you had to) - masonite gets used alot this way for making simple paintings too (and is cheaper if you've got to purchase something). Paintings done on board have a nice presence and can get framed (and are often cheaper than doing it up with stretchers & canvas). You could just do a simple stencil type design if you don't feel particuarly creative or decoupage a cut out picture on a solid color.

[Norasmomma]

I cruise our local bulletin board and CL all the time looking for deals.

We are on a budget, but are remodeling a 100 year old farmhouse. Most of our labor is by trade(DH is an electrician). We have traded for our new toilet and all plumbing supplies, got our stamped, dyed concrete floor in our bathroom for the cost of the concrete. The heat cable in the floor for cost(from Dh's boss). I found the recessed lighting for $5 for the box of 4 at a yard sale(total score-they are $10 a piece DH's cost). I scored all our cabinets, sink and fixtures for $500-which is dirt cheap(all were brand new at new cost would be $500 for the sink alone). I also got a nearly new pellet stove for $400(new cost $3600). I can go on and on about my scores. I love nice things, but I hate to pay anywhere near full price.

[columbusmomma]

subbing

[Masel]

Above my sofa is a quilt hanger that my BIL made. I usually put a throw in it rather than a quilt. I can switch it out and create a different look in the room.