Tips to Spice Up Your Space
It is known to many that one of the most costly aspects after moving into a house is designing and decorating. Here are some projects and tips to save money on decorating your space!
From Old to New: Staining Old Furniture
Staining furniture allows you to choose the color of your furniture for a cheaper price than buying them. To save money you can buy old furniture at yard sales or look through relatives’ garages for old furniture that they would give away. A new coffee table costs around $150-250, for $30-$50 in supplies you can have a brand new piece of furniture by staining it!
How To Stain:
Once you find a piece of furniture, you will need to sand the previous polyurethane away from the piece. There are different grits to choose from for sandpaper and, for this project, you will need 120 grit sandpaper. For the sanding, you can use a sander or your own hands, since you only need to get rid of the top polyurethane coat that would prevent the stain from being absorbed by the wood.
Next, I would recommend using the brand Varathane for your stain and polyurethane (top coat). You will need large and small brushes, as well as staining cloth to use to stain your furniture. All of these things can be found at Home Depot. Here is a video on how to stain.
Tip: If you are staining with a light stain, such as white, use water-based polyurethane. Oil-based polyurethane will leave a yellow tint to your stain.
Fun idea: To make a furniture piece look rustic like the one above, you can stain first with a white-colored stain, let it dry overnight (you may have to do more than one coat). Once the white stain is solid, you can add grey stain streaks with a small brush, by applying a minimal amount of stain to the brush and making swift hand movements with the it. This will give your furniture a distressed look and have your guests ask where you bought it.
Create an Accent Wall
💙 Image You want to know what an accent wall is? Well, it is a wall in a room that is usually painted or wall-papered differently than the rest of the walls in the room. Accent walls can bring a space together and make a large room more connected. These accent walls are great to put behind your bed, on the smallest side of the room, and as a focal point in your living room. Hadley Mendelsohn states some great ways to make an accent wall in “15 Rooms that Prove You Need an Accent Wall in Your Home.” My favorite way to make an accent wall is to add geometric patterns of different colors by placing painting tape across the wall at different angles to create this shape and using various colors of paint. This video demonstrates how this method is done. Painting an accent wall can cost around $30!
Tip: Home Depot sells returned paint for $9 a gallon, making this project more affordable. You may not have the biggest variety of colors, but you can still find great colors to change up your space!
Making Cheap but Sophisticated Centerpieces
Once, you’ve sanded and stained your ‘old to new” coffee table or dining table, you will need some decorative centerpieces to ground the room. Plants are a great way to add color and style. Faux plants do not need any attention and allow for centerpieces to be designed in more ways than real plants would. Using faux succulents, stones, and faux shrubbery one can make a beautiful piece for their table. Surprisingly, Dollar Tree has a centerpiece supplies subcategory on their website for all things to make a centerpiece. Each item is only $1! There you can find glass containers, stones, faux seashells, accents, and faux succulents. This can cost you only $4 in total!
Hope this helped you create your space and thank you for reading! ☺
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