Thrifty Apartment Design – Decorating on a Budget

5 ways to decorate your apartment on the cheap

Guest Post by Cole Storley

Decorating your apartment on a budget can be challenging, but it’s not impossible. Instead, you’re going to have to work harder than you would if you could go to a store and throw down your Amex black card. Rather, you’ll have to search high and low for free items, cheap deals and smart ways for you to make an impact without spending a bunch of cash and with a few minimalist interior design tips you can revitalise your apartment overnight.

Find Free and Cheap Items Online

In this day and age, searching through charity stores for items is not only a pain, but it’s also not efficient. There are groups on Facebook and other websites that are dedicated to selling and giving away items in your local area. By scouring these pages, you can often find furniture, tools, pieces, and fabrics that you can use to spice up your apartment.

If you think one or two steps ahead, you can buy or claim items that need a little work. It’s relatively easy to reupholster a chair or cushion. Likewise, you can sand down and re-stain any woodwork so that it matches your current furniture. This work will take some time, but if you’re working on a tight budget, it can allow you to get far more for your money.

Utilise a Few Plants

Plants and flowers are a necessity for any thrifty apartment design. They attract a lot of attention and bring life to your home at a comparably small cost. A few plants and flowers should cost no more than fifty dollars and if you take care of them, they will last for years and can be used to grow more plants.

Look for a few simple options like cacti and succulents which you can put into tasteful bowls and containers to use as centrepieces on your coffee table and in the kitchen. Then, for the corners, you might consider larger plants like a Spider Plant or Iron Plant which will fill up the area and make the design feel planned rather than barren.

Hunt for Affordable Artwork

Often the barest part of an apartment is the walls. These barren walls can leave the apartment feeling closer to a prison cell than a home and to fix this you need to fill them up with personality, to create a unique style that’s your own. To start, you’ll want to visualise the types of art that you want on the walls, and that will depend on your furniture and the aesthetic that you’re going for.

Artwork can be found for very affordable prices, especially if you consider using prints and art from second-hand stores and obscure local artists. Often a family member or friend might consider making you a piece if you asked nicely and by using a few large pieces of artwork you have something to talk about, as well as more life in an otherwise copycat apartment.

Throw a Rug or Cloth on the Ground

Bare wooden and concrete floors can look fantastic, but only if that’s the aesthetic that you’re going for. If not, utilizing a few throws can fill up space and make your apartment look more purposeful. Consider a large deep rug under a coffee table in the living room, and a small cloth thrown on the floor by the door to the corridor.

These two small additions can have a significant impact on the aesthetic of the apartment, as well as serving practical purposes too. If your budget is shrinking rapidly and you can’t afford a quality rug, you might consider buying a large piece of fabric from an industry store and doubling it up and stitching it to make a unique rug for under your furniture.

Rearrange the Room

Finally, you can completely change the dynamic and appearance of a room without spending a penny if you can rearrange it in a way that makes it look and live better. If your apartment is very small, then you might consider moving all of the furniture to the corners to get empty space in the center. While if your rooms are large and barren, you can position your furniture such that it’s centered, with less space.