Does your home need a makeover? Don’t want to spend weeks (and shed loads of cash) renovating? Here are 3 simple, fast yet effective ways to give your space a new lease of life.
Frame Pages from Books or Frame Fabric for Artwork
We all know that artwork can be one of the most effective ways to transform any space. But you don’t really need to spend a fortune on original works to have a collection of interest in your house, or color and style on your walls. Art can be found all around you – you just need to think outside of the box a bit.
Frame Pages from Books
A super easy and instant piece of artwork can come from book pages. You know that coffee table book that you love to browse through, or even your old magazines stacked in a corner? They can have some gems to display. Take those pages you find appealing, and either frame them individually, or create a large collage for a single large frame.
The frames and your choices of photo pages will make all of the difference for that particular look in your room. If you want to bring color in where it’s lacking, choose brightly colored frames, or take some old ones you already have, and paint them some fabulous color that will pop off of your wall, and accent or contrast to polish your room’s look.
If you want to go more classic and distinctive, choose black frames and black and white photo pages, or go with white frames for the same effect. If your walls have color, black or white can soothe the eye, and if your walls are white, you can consider adding the color through your framed artwork ideas.
Frame Fabric
Some of us have a fabric addiction, and buy fabric at the fabric store for no reason really…but just to have it. It tends to sit, folded in a drawer or closet…tucked away for that project you had in mind, but never get to.
Why not take that lifeless fabric and just frame it and hang it?
Play with the sizing, color and pattern as much as you want. It can be your masterpiece over an oil or water color painting, and it can tie together a desired theme you’d like to present.
You can use the same principles as the book pages of choosing color or black and white frames, but remember that a fabric piece can perform for you as an art piece all on its own. You are just taking it, and telling everyone by framing it, that it is special and designated. It’s also unexpected, and can have the most style influence and effect over any other item in your room, because a framed piece of fabric is memorable, and creates that bookmark in the mind of the viewer.
Hang Curtains
Hanging a pair of curtains brings instant personality into any space. Curtains can be a punch of color or needed pattern, or can blend calmly in a décor theme. They are a bolder, large item choice for a significant impact. If you want more of a statement in your space, a pair of curtains will succeed as a single, bigger purchase over many small accessory purchases.
You may spend more money on curtains, but they will end up doing so much for you when it comes to the design impact of a room.
Curtains Solve Problems
Do you have an awkwardly sized window in your space or is the window placed oddly? Curtains can fix these unbalances by their size and cut, and the way you hang them.
For example, if you have an off-centered window on a wall, you simply extend your curtain width in fabric, and hang your curtain bar in the center of the wall. You could also run a curtain along the entire wall, letting an extra sheer panel piece gently stream the light through while hiding the off-center placement of the light source.
Running a curtain on an entire wall from ceiling to floor can fix most odd window placement, and also allows you to control the light coming into your room. If it is too bright or to exposing to the public, a curtain is your solution.
Curtains also muffle and absorb sound, so if your room has wood or tile floors, those louder sounds from those harder surfaces can be absorbed in the curtain fabric on the walls.
Curtain Personality
Curtains don’t have to be simple single panels anymore. Sure, you can always bring in bold color and pattern on a simple panel, but you can also spruce up the design and cut of the fabric.
Go for striping, ruffles, ribbon or layering for something more unique. Curtain designers are offering much more these days in a curtain cut, so explore your curtain personality options before making that bolder purchase.
Paint
Paint color can be done by anyone. It is so easy and so affordable, and if you are hesitant about design and décor ideas for your space, paint should be the first place you start, because it is forgiving and changeable.
Choose just one wall, just one ceiling, an old piece of furniture, a door, a staircase or a floor…the things you can paint, and they way you paint them are endless!
Paint can also manipulate the eye, so by painting a small room a dark color, you can make it seem bigger. Conversely, if you don’t have a lot of light coming into a room, a lighter paint color, or making mostly everything in your room white can create that light for you.
If you have a problem area of your house, or something that is an eye sore to you, first think of how paint can change it. Be creative, like striping or using a sponge technique. You can also paint a mural anywhere, or paint a frame around anything—window, picture or door.
You can even make a pattern on some poster board, cut out the desired shapes, and create a repeat pattern filling in the paint anywhere—walls or furniture
If anything looks dingy, give it a fresh coat of paint. You’ll be surprised at the changes and freshness from spending very little money.
They really great part about paint, is that it can be changed if you don’t like it just be re-painting. Sometimes a paint color at the store doesn’t look the same at home on your surface. Always try a sample spot first, but you may still not get the big picture until finished.
If the color isn’t quite right, think first about just using a glaze over a color to soften it. You can blend colors to get a more worn and natural look or change the hue for your lighting. You can also use different techniques to blend your colors, like rotating spray paint cans over the same swath or patch, using a paint brush to get a feathered look or sponging two colors together, and massaging them in as one.
