How to Refresh Your Living Room on a Tiny Budget

If you’re not up for taking walls out and adding in structural beams and RSJ’s, then we’ve got some simple ideas for you to help refresh and reclaim your living space.

Assess The Tone

Changing the tone of a room is like the difference between dressing in a shapeless jersey dress or wearing a stunning evening dress You’re not doing anything major like cosmetic surgery, but the result can be just as dramatic. Look at the tone of your room right now. Is it warm and inviting? Is it made by you, for you? Or is it lacking in personality and not personal enough?

Having a personalised print of you and your dog can add back in the personal touch and make a space somewhere you want to spend time – and they needn’t be expensive. Ours range from £18 to £25 and we ship worldwide.

Assess The Focus

What’s your favourite part of the room? Maybe it’s a fireplace or a wall of pictures. Is it standing out enough? Are there too many competing features meaning that it’s more of an overcrowded hot mess than a homely pad? Chances are that you have too much on show – most of us get that way over time.

Assess What You Hate

Gone are the days of obligation. If you don’t want your Partner’s Gran’s Friend’s old oil painting displayed, go pop it in the loft right now. You live here! Don’t feel obligated by gifts from the past, the old treasures of others or presents from well-meaning friends whose tastes are not your own. You have your own memories and your own treasures in life and surrounding yourself with those makes a room instantly more inviting, especially as they’ll all likely co-ordinate as they come from one source – you! Reclaim your room by getting rid of anything that you don’t love. As Marie Kondo would say – does it bring you joy?

Putting it All Together 

Once you’ve made your assessments, take everything out of the room. Everything that it’s practical to move. Take pictures off walls, remove all of the cushions, the vases, the trinkets and the rest of the clutter. Do a final assessment of the room and make sure you know where you want the focus to be – it might change once you’ve emptied the room out.

If you’ve taken a sudden (or a gradual) disliking to your wallpaper – paint over it!

Start by adding back in your favourite three items; a picture, a travel memento, a perfect blanket, a favourite candelabra … then slowly add in a couple of things that go with them. Move out anything that clashes or takes attention away and stop when it starts looking just full enough.

Fill your room with love, then it will feel like home. 

And to find out more about our surprisingly inexpensive, refreshing and heart-warming personalised portraits, click here.