Decorating on a budget? Do it bit by bit

Sometimes you look around your home and groan. Most people don’t have the luxury of making over a space all at once, much less hiring an interior designer to do so. When money is tight, you might have to upgrade your place bit by bit. Luckily, slowly adding pieces helps to create a collected, personalized look. We asked several designers what single item they would add to a living room or bedroom to create the most impact on a tight budget.

You can do more with US$20 than you think. For a bedroom upgrade, US designers Meghan Hackett Cassidy and Erin Hackett suggest buying small decorative items such as picture frames, boxes or dishes to spruce up bare dressers or bedside tables. These items add personality to a space for marginal cost and help tame all the odds and ends that might normally clutter surfaces.

Switching out boring or old hardware on dressers, nightstands and cabinets is another low-cost way to make used or inexpensive pieces look more high-end. This easy DIY project involves unscrewing the old knobs and securing the new hardware with nuts, bolts and washers.

You can find textiles such as soft throws to add comfort and texture to a space at almost any price point. “Cotton and chenille are soft and are good for every season,” Hackett Cassidy says. This is also a chance to play with textures, colours and patterns and an easy way to switch up the color scheme of a room seasonally.

Many people think a single source of light is enough in a room, but often one lamp isn’t sufficient. Lighting plays a crucial role in setting the tone of a room, and using multiple lights with varying levels of brightness creates dimension and flexibility for activities such as reading, cleaning or entertaining.

Hackett Cassidy suggests spending US$100 on a pair of lamps to create soft, low light in a room. She favors symmetry in her work and likes to station pairs of lamps on bedside tables or dressers to add polish and create a feeling of cohesiveness. At US$50 per lamp, she says it’s possible to find well-made pieces that are both appealing and functional. “The shade is half the battle because oftentimes you buy a really inexpensive lamp that comes with a shade you end up needing to replace,” she says.

“No matter what the environment is, lighting can totally transform a space,” says designer Mel Bean. Even if new lighting isn’t an option, a simple and affordable upgrade — a dimmer switch — can make your existing lighting scheme more versatile. Plug-in dimmers, which are usually controlled with a sliding button, can be easily added to table and floor lamps by plugging the lamp into the device. For a little more money, you can rewire wall switches to have dimming capabilities.

From an aesthetic standpoint, curtains and shades add warmth and softness, and they help with privacy and light control. “A window treatment can be one of the basic things you do that makes a space feel finished, even if it’s far from it,” Bean says. Custom panels can cost thousands of dollars, but Bean’s team has a hack: Buy basic lined curtains and take them to a local seamstress to be pleated. “You likely can’t even buy fabric for that cheap,” she says. “Take it as high as you can to accentuate the height of the ceiling and hang the rod wide so the drapes stack beside the window,” she says.

If you have a sewing machine, you could even add trim or embellishments. She likes the softness of drapes in living rooms but says Roman shades also provide a similar function, usually at a lower price. In some spaces, such as kids’ rooms or windows over the sink, it makes more sense to avoid the extra yardage of billowing material.

Because we spend so much time in our beds, a new set of high-quality bedding — bedsheets, a duvet cover or quilt, and shams — can have a huge impact. “It freshens up the room,” Hackett Cassidy says. She usually starts with white bedding and looks for comforters and duvet covers with colorful accents or fun details to create visual interest. “Figure out which pieces you want to start from, then base the other colors and textures off the rest of the room,” Hackett Cassidy says.

“Bed Bath & Beyond has very basic items for someone on a budget who wants that luxurious bed with a coverlet, duvet and shams,” Hackett Cassidy says. “That’s somewhere we would suggest shopping to achieve that overall look without blowing the budget.”

Your basic box spring or metal bed frame has major potential for an upgrade, Hackett Cassidy says: A headboard ties a room together. Choose a bright color, a rich fabric or an ornate pattern to create a focal point for the room, or stick with the same color scheme to anchor the other furnishings. Upholstered and tufted headboards are in style and can provide a little extra cushion for people who like to sit up and read in bed. “Headboards add dimension to the room and are practical and comfy,” Hackett Cassidy says.

- Washington Post