DIY Cost Cutting Home Makeover with loads of great tips for redoing your home and saving money at the same time!

1. DIY Cost Cutting Home Makeover
Tips for re-doing your home and saving money

2. Contents
1. Starting off
2. Furniture
3. Painting
4. Lighting
5. Accessories
6. Source List

3. Starting off
Here are some great ideas quoted from Fresh Home on how to save money while
planning to decorate your home. Save money by not hiring an interior designer
and use these thrifty tips to start planning your DIY home makeover:
1) Use free sources around you: From magazines, the internet, to satellite home &
garden programs the world is at your fingertips for décor ideas. Peruse through
magazines, and home décor books to get a sense of what your taste is. Visit home
improvement stores and collect paint and material samples to start making an
“idea” folder of what inspires you. Determine what your personal style is. Is it:
Vintage, Modern, Bohemian, French Country, choose your style and start
planning!
2) Search online classifieds and garage sales for cheap finds: Online classifieds
[like Gumtree] can be a great treasure chest for some. Also check college
newspapers and apartment bulletin boards. Areas where there’s a high turnover
of people moving in and out are great finds for furniture, décor, and small
appliances.
3) Maximize your existing furniture: Consider re-upholstering furniture with
updated coloured and styled materials. Slip covers offer a quick and easy solution
for changing out furniture for different seasons and or occasions. Re-finish wood
furniture or use a fresh coat of paint on headboards and mirror frames. Try using
online planning tools to play around with different colours and options before you
take the plunge!
-from freshome.com-

4. Furniture
There are lots of ways to save
money while re-considering your
old furniture as part of your DIY
home make-over. Here are two:
1. Re-cover old chairs: you can
do this with material you
have left over from curtains
or that you buy from material
sales. You can do this yourself
Image by: garann
with a staple gun and some
needles, thread and buttons.
2. Paint dated wood furniture:
paint your old furniture
before you consider tossing it
away. You can try a shabby
chic look or paint it in thick
block colours to turn your old
furniture into functional art
Image by: AndyRobertsPhotos

5. Painting
You can save a lot of money by simply re-painting rooms with a fresh colour or
painting feature walls in dreary rooms, but paint is still quite pricey so you have to
make it last longer to save money. Here are some ways to save money by making
your paint last longer as quoted from ehow:
1. Use a roller or paintbrush as your application methods. The coverage of
these tools is higher than that of a paint sprayer. Sprayers are more likely
to overspray, due to either mechanical or user error; applying the paint by
hand may be more easily controlled when you have limited amounts of
paint with which to work.
2. Paint on a smooth surface to extend the coverage of your paint. Excess
paint can gather in the grooves and nooks of a rough or porous surface,
but will spread more evenly on a flat surface. If your walls are textured,
you may not be able to avoid this problem. Ensure that surfaces that are
supposed to be smooth really are so before you paint by sanding them.
3. Dilute your paint as a last resort. Thinning your paint with water or paint
thinner is generally not recommended because the colour, coverage and
drying time will be affected. In the end, you may need more paint because
a first coat that has been diluted may not cover the primer well enough. In
times of desperation, add a few tablespoons of water to your paint before
you begin the project, so that the entire area to be painted will end up the
same colour.
-from ehow.co.uk-

6. Lighting
Don’t over look lighting when planning a
home make over as it’s really easy to do
yourself as well as save money by:
1. Painting or covering old lampshades
for a fresh look
2. Using the opportunity to save money
in the long term by reconsidering
your energy plan as well as switching
to energy efficient bulbs that match
your new look
3. Using old bulbs to create great
feature pieces like hanging Image by: alexliivet
terrariums
4. Creating light features by playing
with cut outs and the way the light
falls to create intricate shadow
patterns when you switch your lights
on
5. Using low voltage fairy lights to
frame pictures, vases of branches or
door ways
Image by: TMAB2003

7. Accessories
Saving money in your DIY home makeover only gets easier towards
the end of the process when you’re looking at picking accessories as
final touches to you newly re-done home. Here are a few ideas:
1. Travel mementos: choose your favourite travel mementos and
divide them into groups that have something in common e.g. a
group of collectables that have the colour yellow in common like
sea shells and pottery and another that has a similar shapes like
boxes and tins. You can then place them in collections in framed
areas like shelves to bring them together and other positions to
decorate your home with travel mementos.
2. Functional objects: recover or refurbish old objects in left over
paint or wallpaper to match which ever room you can use them
in. You can paint a chair the same colour as a feature wall and
place it in the room to balance the colour or wall paper some old
boxes for your books with some glue to match the wall paper in
your newly decorated room

8. Source List
Content
• Please click through to quoted sources by clicking their reference
within text as they are hyperlinked to the original content found on
the web
Images:
• Please click through to all ‘in text’ image captions as they are
hyperlinked to the original Flickr sources which have been described
as Creative Commons-licensed content for commercial use
Design:
• The design is created as an original
• Images found in the design of this presentation are taken from Flickr
and can be found here:
– Image 1: by omnos
– Image 2: by Bulldog Pottery
– Image 3: by Le Petit Poulailler
– Image 4 by: maka
– Image 5 by: RambergMediaImages
– Image by: Futurilla