If you’re willing to perform a few easy clean-ups and fix-ups, refurbishing, a charity shop or garage sale find can make your decorating budget go a lot further.
Make a Table
If you have a solid foundation piece, it isn’t hard to make a table out of it. Wood, glass and acrylic tabletops can be attached to unique bases to create cool effects. You can even find inexpensive, quirky candidates for the price of a set of table legs.
How about a glass-topped table on a stone birdbath base? You might also consider using a discarded wooden cable spool as a table base or even use a wooden door as a tabletop.
Prefab tops and turned table legs are available at most home improvement and some craft stores. They’re easy to install and pretty cheap considering the cost of tables these days.
Reuse Sheets
Sheets are a useful all-purpose fabric resource. After they’re done in the bedroom, you can cut them up for curtains, tablecloths, placemats, napkins, couch covers and even rag rugs.
Sheets have the advantage of being large and tightly woven, which makes them sturdy and versatile. As budget décor materials go, they’re a winner. One hundred per cent cotton sheets work best, and if the thread count is under 200, multiple layers will be easier to sew together.
Reuse pillows
Use old pillows to make a secret bed! Secret Projects are craft items including homewares, pillows and clothing made by women in India who face social and economic challenges. The money they earn through the making and selling them enables them to pay for their child’s education, food, medicine and other essentials. The women are affiliated to a charity who provide a safe space in which they come together to receive training, support, and materials to produce their crafts. The secret bed is perfect for children having friends over to sleep or just to relax on. It folds up to not take up space and also make a comfy chair. Just slide in some old pillows and you are sorted.
Craft a Lamp from a Kit
You can make a lamp out of almost anything that you can drill two holes into or wrap an electrical cord around. That includes glass, ceramic, wood and even metal. All it takes is a lamp kit and a drill with a bit that can cut through the object in question.
Turn a special wine bottle, candle holder or even a vase into a lamp. Once you start looking around, you’ll come up with lots of bargain lamp ideas that’ll work for you.
Start a Collection
Take advantage of the nostalgic appeal of old things by creating an attractive visual collection. Old pop bottles in a wicker basket, mismatched spoons mounted on a wooden base or old thimbles enclosed in a shadow box can look dynamic and cost very little. All you need is a group of similar objects and some time to play with the presentation.
Recycle Frames
Picture frames are one accessory item that can be reclaimed in lots of ways. There are also so many of them around that they’re one of the best designer bargains out there.
Put a painted plywood backing behind a frame and you’ll have a tray for the top of an ottoman or vanity. Add some legs and you have a serviceable table. You can also install a cheap mirror on an elaborate old frame for an expensive look that can add style to an entry or hallway.
A cheap print will look better in a vintage frame, and an eclectic collection of vintage framed art will add lustre to your walls on the cheap. Add a backing covered with velvet and mount your collection in a frame. Those ticket stubs or matchbooks may look silly by themselves, but once they’re enclosed in a unifying frame, they’ll look downright impressive.
When you use your imagination, anything’s possible.
Giveaway
The lovely people over at Secret Projects are offering one person the chance to win a Secret Bed in the design of their choice, subject to availability. For your chance to enter, use the app below. Good luck!
Win a secret bed
