Affordable Home Decor Ideas (Home Decor Ideas On A Budget)

Affordable Home Decor Ideas ~Home Decorating Ideas On A Budget

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I love decorating my home. I might love decorating it a little bit too much if you ask my husband. While I know not everyone will share my ~~love~~ obsession with decorating their home, we all love a good deal. And not only do I think of myself as a deal seeking ninja, I also consider myself a pretty darn good budget decorator.

Yes, I’m sure that very expensive artwork might look a little bit better than my $20 version. But saving myself hundreds of dollars for a look alike is perfectly fine with me. I have no problems with saving money to get the home I love.

I have a few sure fire ways I love to decorate on a budget. I hope you like lists because it’s just easier to list them out.

(This post contains affiliate links for your convenience. You can see my disclosure policy here)

How to save money on area rugs (layer your rugs!)

Remember in my how to begin decorating your home post, I said to start with a rug. Well if the rug you found and love is mega bucks, you can try to save money by layering your rug.

Find an inexpensive jute rug that will cover most of your floor. You will want to make sure that the front two legs of your furniture is on the rug. And then you can go a little smaller and ideally save some money with your more expensive rug by layering it over the jute rug.

I also did this trick for my outside rugs, not to save money but because I love the look of a layered rug.

Unfortunately my plaid rug is out of stock, I have recently purchased this one as a replacement and this one also looks very similar.

There is no rule either that you cannot layer a rug over wall to wall carpet. If there are any doors near by, just make sure the door can open and close with a rug layered over your carpet. I rounded up a few budget friendly vintage inspired rugs in this post. You likely will not need to layer your rugs with these options since they are pretty budget friendly. Or if you need help finding the perfect rug, read this post

Get creative with your furniture~decorate your home with what you already have

There are so many ways to save money using furniture you already have or even purchasing for a good price at a thrift store. A console table doesn’t have to be used only in a hallway, a dining room buffet doesn’t only have to be used in a dining room. A dining room table doesn’t only have to be used as, well, a dining table.

I stole a console table from my parents, gave it a quick paint job and it now sits in my dining room.

My mom used a gorgeous dining room buffet as a TV stand in their family room. She has since moved the buffet to her hallway and their TV now sits on a gorgeous desk from Pottery Barn. I might have inherited her inability to leave things alone but it has made us both wiser in our old(ish) age.

And I use my parents dining room table they purchased right after they got married as our coffee table.

(See my favorite home decor from Amazon here)

Years ago, I cut the legs of the table down to coffee table height and painted and distressed the table. It has seen better days and actually needs a fresh coat of paint. Nothing beats free and meaningful furniture though. No matter what I do to this family room, this coffee table will stay forever. I can’t get rid of it.

Stylish affordable window treatments (Make your own window treatments or use the unexpected)

Anything that is long enough can be a curtain. It’s amazing what 3 yards of any kind fabric can do for your windows. For the most part I have made my own curtains, valances and roman shades. And all were done with either fabric glue or hem tape (my best friends).

I made my kitchen valance the same way I made my no sew roman shades. I love switching out my kitchen valance in the fall and spring. This buffalo check fabric is one of my favorite fabrics to use in the fall. I’ve used the same exact fabric for some DIY pillows.

In our old house, I used drop cloths as curtains and they were hands down my favorite curtains. And the price was insanely inexpensive (excuse the grainy iphone pic)

And don’t forget about sheets and tablecloths. They also make gorgeous curtains. All you have to do is hang them from curtain rings or if you are feeling extra energized you can hem/fabric tape a rod pocket to feed your curtain rod through.

I also love using really inexpensive curtains and doctoring them up a little. IKEA has some great inexpensive curtains. I added some trim to the edge of the curtains and it gave the curtains a little extra pop.

Make your own pillow covers

Something else I rarely purchase and I save so much money making my own. I love making my own pillow covers. It’s really not hard to do, and I always use my best friends (hem tape or fabric glue). I listed out my favorite ways to make pillow covers in this post here. There’s that buffalo check again.

Sometimes I splurge and buy myself a designer pillow but I always wait for them to go on sale before I buy them.

I have also found a few places that have great inexpensive pillow covers. IKEA has a great assortment of pillow covers. I love their velvet pillow covers.

Amazon has a great selection of pillow covers, too many to list but I have been especially fond of this brand. H&M is another one of my go to places to find inexpensive pillow covers. They switch them out quite a bit so keep checking.

Hobby Lobby also has a great selection of pillows, and when they have their 50% off sale I like to stock up. And then there is always TJ Maxx and Home Goods. I frequent their pillow aisle quite a bit.

I also like to go down TJ Maxx and Home Goods’ clearance aisle looking for pillows that are heavily discounted….even the ugly ones because that is where I find the best pillow inserts. Good quality inserts can be pricey. I love the down inserts I get when I purchase pillows from TJ Maxx so if there is a pillow that is on clearance and I know I can remove the ugly cover and get a good quality insert, you better believe I will get it.

Make your own wall decor

I love this one. It is so easy to make your own beautiful wall decor. I have only touched the surface of this idea too. I am really bad with finding artwork that I absolutely love and need to have in my house. I also do not appreciate art like one probably should so paying a fortune for something I can’t appreciate makes no sense to me. So I have turned to using engineered prints from Staples to decorate my walls in my house.

(Psst…I did a whole blog post on DIY wall decor ideas. You can find it here)

You can find some prints you love on etsy and have them printed out like I did for the prints on my mantel

You can use pictures from your own phone and have them printed out like I did with my floral watercolors.

You can also find free art on the internet like I did with my vintage floral printable

Some tips to get discounts on your home decor

A quick trick I have done over the years to help save money on some of my home decor (or anything really). Once you find that item you love, head over to Gift Card Granny or Cardpool and look to see if you can find discounted gift card(s) for the store you are shopping for. I do most of my shopping online so I look for e-gift cards.

You should get an email almost instantly after you purchase the gift card with the code you will use for your online purchase. I have also purchased a few gift cards at the same time from the same store if they are available to get more of a discount.

And if you want more of a savings, you can also check out eBay and look for coupons. I recently found a coupon from Pottery Barn to save 20% and get free shipping. The coupon cost me $2.99 and I saved so much more than that on my order using the coupon. The seller was able to email me the coupon code to use online. Make sure you read any fine print.

And if you like these little tips, sign up for my newsletter. I have been trying to send out a Friday Finds newsletter when I can (don’t worry, I won’t spam you) with all kinds of sales and coupon codes I can find for that week.

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