Five Easy Ways to Upgrade your Home on a Budget!

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!  Ours is still going strong thanks to Canada’s 150th birthday! (Now to get my birthday declared a national holiday…) 😉

Recently I was asked to pen my thoughts on how to upgrade your home on a budget so let’s get to it!  Here are my top 5 ways to get’er done without having to empty out your bank account:

1) Paint: This is by far, the easiest, most effective and budget friendly way to up the chic factor in your home without breaking the bank. I recently participated in the “One Room Challenge” this spring and I worked on transforming our powder room from blah and ordinary to a more modern look. The paint alone (and my inexpensive wallpaper find!) made all the difference!

2) De-cluttering/Organizing: De-cluttering is a cheap and easy way to make your home feel like new – and if you’re like me, you’ll uncover all sorts of space that you thought you never had thanks to getting rid of your unwanted and unused stuff!  Plus a good de-clutter leads to a deep desire to organize all the stuff you intend on keeping.  Take my closet for example:

It had all sorts of stuff piled on top of each other that I had no clue what was actually in it! Add to that the number of items I kept re-buying because I didn’t know I had them. But once I got it all sorted and I got rid of all of the things I knew I wouldn’t need or use, I uncovered a sizeable walk-in closet again! You don’t need anything fancy to de-clutter. In fact I used garbage bags to get rid of the stuff I no longer wanted or needed so that I couldn’t see what was inside later on and pull it back out! Same goes for organizing – I reused all of the baskets I already had in that closet (and I even remade some of the basket liners!) Don’t forget that the dollar store has many basket and storage solutions for, well, a$1!

3) Curtains: If you think about it, windows generally use the largest amounts of fabric in a room. Because of that, they provide a huge impact! Changing them out to something bold and graphic or subdued and refined can make all the difference in making your home feel more you.

Photos courtesy of Pottery Barn and West Elm

Ready-made or DIY-ing them yourself, either way, you’ll notice a big change in how the room looks and feels!

4) Tile Grout: I know this sounds odd but I recently found a tile grout paint that worked wonders on my dingy grouted floors:

The difference was unbelievable and the refresh factor was through the roof! It’s called “Polyblend Grout Renew” and it is a little miracle in a bottle (I used “Snow White” for my black marble floors)

It is a time consuming process as you basically take a fine artist brush and paint each grout line while making sure it doesn’t dry on your tile (it’s a pain to get out!) but for less than $20 a bottle, your floors (or wherever you have grout) will look like new!

5) Mirrors: DON’T UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF MIRRORS!  (Yes I’m shouting!) Mirrors can be an inexpensive and easy way to add drama to a room with the added effect of making the space feel bigger! My favourite sources are HomeSense (HomeGoods in the US), Target and Home Depot (you read that right!)

To prove it to you, I created this entire mirror gallery wall completely from mirrors I found at HomeSense/HomeGoods and the grand total for all of these mirrors? $200!

Mirrors found at HomeSense (HomeGoods)

I found these circle mirrors at Home Depot for a whopping $24! They are super light so hanging them with 3M Command Strips made it really easy (and it saved my walls from 5 extra holes!)

Mirrors found at Home Depot

I found a mirror for our front entrance at Target for $40 and it originally was unstained. It felt too light for the space so after a little DIY stain project, I got the darker raw wood look I was going for:

Mirror found at Target

I hope these ideas have inspired (and convinced you!) that it doesn’t take a lot of money to upgrade to your home – in fact, it’s amazing how a few products can make a space feel completely new! If you have any other tips, please share!

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