One of the wonderful things about moving into a new home is the fact that you will be able to put your ‘personal touch’ on it.

You have the ability to decorate it to your heart’s content.

The problem is that you probably just put a lot of cash down on in order to obtain the property.

You most likely do not have that much more to spend.

This means that you’ll need to decorate on a budget.

Thankfully, it is easier than you may think. 

Budgeting For Your Home Renovation

Before you begin work, it is important that you have a budget in place for your renovation.

A helpful guide to home renovation can be found on Houzz.

If you are painting your rooms, then this will be a rough guide as to how much each room will cost.

Obviously, this will be dependent on the size, and whether you are using a painter or decorator.

You could, effectively, halve this cost if you decorate on your own:

Prioritize your rooms

It is important that you prioritize your rooms in the order they should be decorated.

If you are working on a budget, it is unlikely that you will be able to furnish everything in ‘one go’.

Most people will tend to focus on decorating rooms which get the most visitors.

This is a good order to go by, but you may want something else:

• Living room
• Kitchen
• Bathroom
• Bedrooms

Never feel rushed to complete your new home decorating project.

Let it takes a month if it has to.

This will allow you to save up some extra cash to spend on the project.

If you feel rushed, you will also be more likely to do a ‘poor job.’

This graph gives average usage for each room in your home.

You can use this to prioritize:

Accepting Hand-Me-Downs

If somebody is offering you furniture to place in your home, then try to accept it if you can.

However, before you accept the furniture, make sure it meets a couple of requirements.

First, is it going to be usable?

You should only accept furniture if you can mix it into your overall décor.

Do not obtain something which is going to end up looking out of place.

Yes, it is nice that somebody is offering you a piece of furniture to go into your new home, but if you can’t make it ‘work’ then it just will be pointless to accept it.

If you can’t think of the exact area in your home where the piece of furniture will go, then do not accept it.

This does not mean the exact room the furniture will go in, but the exact location in that room that you will place it.

If you can’t answer positively to any of those questions, then you will need to turn down the piece of furniture.

There is no sense in you obtaining something which you can’t use, particularly if the person that gave it to you visits a lot.

They will just ask you to have it on display, and you won’t be able to do that!

Craigslist

This is a fantastic resource for those that know what they are looking for.

You will be surprised at just how much cash you will be able to save when you shop on Craigslist.

However, do make sure that you have your wits when you are looking to purchase ‘used’ furniture.

You do not want to spend cash on something which is useless.

An excellent guide to buying used furniture can be found on freshome.

These are some of the highlights from that list:

• Try out the furniture before you buy it (if you can)
• Trust your sixth sense. A deal is probably good, if it seems too good to be true.
• Never buy second-hand mattresses.
• Hardwood furniture is a brilliant buy if you can obtain it cheaply. Hardwood furniture can last years if you treat it properly.

Are you buying new?

If you are buying new, and a lot of items, then feel free to ask for a discount.

The worst that the company can say is no.

However, you will be surprised at just how many of them are willing to give a substantial discount to secure your order.

There are some pieces of furniture that you should always purchase new.

One of these is a sofa, because old sofas tend to provide less support for their users.

The other is a mattress.

Look at this chart below.

You will see just how short the average lifespan for a mattress actually is.

If you purchase a mattress ‘used’, then much of its lifespan will already have been used up.
 

Conclusion

Remember, you should always check prices before you commit yourself to purchasing an item of furniture.

If you make comparisons, then you will be able to save a significant amount of cash off of the cost of home decorating.

The last thing you want to do is to go into credit card debt after purchasing your new home.